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+ page-break-before: always; } + .double {border-style: double;border-width: 4px; } + .border {border-style: solid;border-width: 1px; } + .blackletter {font-family: 'Old English Text MT', serif; font-weight:bold; } + .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; } + .bold {font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; } +</style> + </head> + <body> +<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A history of Italian painting, by Frank Jewett Mather</p> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> + +<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A history of Italian painting</p> +<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Frank Jewett Mather</p> +<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 20, 2023 [eBook #69844]</p> +<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> + <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ITALIAN PAINTING ***</div> + +<div class='tnotes covernote'> + +<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='border'> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div><em>BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR</em>—</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c002'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>HISTORY OF ITALIAN PAINTING IN THE RENAISSANCE</div> + <div class='line'>THE COLLECTORS</div> + <div class='line'>HOMER MARTIN, POET IN LANDSCAPE</div> + <div class='line'>ESTIMATES IN ART</div> + <div class='line'>THE PORTRAITS OF DANTE</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div id='frontispiece' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_frontispiece.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p>GIOTTO: DORMITION OF THE VIRGIN<br><br><em>Berlin</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='titlepage double'> + +<div> + <h1 class='c003'><span class='xlarge'>A HISTORY OF</span><br> ITALIAN PAINTING</h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><em>By</em></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='large'>FRANK JEWETT MATHER, <span class='sc'>Jr.</span></span></div> + <div><span class='large'>PH.D., L.H.D.</span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='small'>Professor of Art and Archaeology in Princeton University</span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='xxlarge'>❦</span></div> + <div class='c004'>LONDON</div> + <div class='c004'>STANLEY PAUL & CO., LTD.</div> + <div class='c004'><span class='sc'>31, Essex Street, Strand, W. C. 2</span></div> + <div class='c004'>1923</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div><span class='small'>Printed in the United States of America</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div><span class='large'><em>To</em></span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='large'><span class='blackletter'>B. B.</span></span></div> + <div class='c004'><span class='sc'>In Friendship</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span> + <h2 class='c005'>PREFACE</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>This book has grown out of lectures which were delivered at +the Cleveland Art Museum in 1919–20. There I had ideal +hearers, beginners who wanted to learn and were willing to +follow a serious discussion. Since I aim at the same sort of a +reader now, I have only slightly retouched and amplified the +original manuscript. This is frankly a beginner’s book. I have +had to omit whatever might confuse the novice, including many +painters inherently delightful. Controversial problems for the +same reason have been when possible avoided. When, however, +I have had to cope with such, I have depended more on my +own eyes and judgment than on the written words of others. +But the latest literature has also been used, so that even the +adept should here and there find something to his purpose.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For opinions on contested points, I have given my authority +or personal reason in notes, which, in order not to clutter up +the text, are printed at the end. By the same token, hints on +reading and private study are tucked away in the last pages +where they will not bother readers who do not need or want +them. While I hope the book will be welcome in the classroom, +I have had as much in mind the intelligent traveller in +Europe and the private student. Throughout I have had +before me the kind of introduction to Italian painting that +would have been helpful to me thirty years ago in those days +of bewildered enthusiasm when I was making my <em>Grand Tour</em>.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>The Author</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span> + <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c008'><span class='small'>CHAPTER</span></th> + <th class='c009'> </th> + <th class='c010'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>I.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Giotto and the New Florentine Humanism</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>II.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Siena and the Continuing of the Mediaeval Style</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_59'>59</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>III.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Masaccio and the New Realism</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>IV.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Fra Filippo Lippi and the New Narrative Style</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_157'>157</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>V.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Dawn of the Golden Age: Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>VI.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Golden Age: Raphael and Michelangelo</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>VII.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Venetian Painting Before Titian</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_323'>323</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>VIII.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Titian and Venetian Painting in the Renaissance</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_389'>389</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>IX.</td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Realists and Eclectics</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_451'>451</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'> </td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Notes</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_473'>473</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'> </td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Hints for Reading</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_489'>489</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'> </td> + <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Index</span></td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_491'>491</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter I</span></span><br> GIOTTO AND THE NEW FLORENTINE HUMANISM</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>The Florentine ideal of Mass and Emotion—Its Humanism—The City of +Florence about 1300—The Position and Methods of the Painter—The +General demand for Religious Painting—Accelerated by the religious +reforms of 1200, and changed in character—Insufficiency of the current +Italo-Byzantine Style—Experiments towards a new manner: Duccio +and the Sienese, Cimabue, Cavallini and the “Isaac Master”—Giotto—Immediate +followers of Giotto, Andrea Orcagna and the return to +sculptural methods—Later Panoramists, Andrea Bonaiuti and the +Spanish Chapel.</p> + +<p class='c006'>Leonardo da Vinci, from the summit of Florentine art, has +written “What should first be judged in seeing if a picture be +good is whether the movements are appropriate to the mind +of the figure that moves.” And again he has expressed somewhat +differently the highest merits of painting as “the creation +of relief (projection) where there is none.” For Florence, at +least, these notions are authoritative, and they may well +serve as text for most that I shall say about Florentine painting. +To give significant emotion convincing mass—this +was the problem of the Florentine painter from the moment +when Giotto about the year 1300 began to find himself, to +that day more than two centuries and a half later when +Michelangelo died. No Florentine master of a strenuous sort +ever failed to perceive this mission, and no unstrenuous artist +was ever fully Florentine. This twofold aim—humanistic, +in choice and mastery of emotion; scientific, in search for those +indications which most vividly express mass where no mass +is—this twofold endeavor Florence shared with the only +<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>greater city of art, Athens. Thus Florence is to the art of +today what Athens was to that of classical antiquity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In these two little communal republics were discovered and +worked out to perfection all our ideals of humanistic beauty. +Florence saw God, His Divine Son, the Blessed Virgin, and +the saints quite as Athens had seen the gods of Olympus, the +demi-gods, and the heroes simply as men and women of the +noblest physical and moral type. Both agreed in magnifying +and idealizing the people one ordinarily sees. For greater +beauty, Athens represented them nude or lightly draped; for +greater dignity, Florence chose the solemn garb of the Roman +forum. Whether pagan or Christian, the guardians of a +people’s morality were to be above haste, excitement, or any +transient emotion. They were to express intensities of feeling, +but a feeling more composed, permanent, and disciplined, than +that of every day. Judgment and criticism count for as much +in both arts as emotional inspiration. The great Florentine +artist is a thinker; he is often poet and scientist, sculptor and +architect, besides being a painter. Behind his painting lies +always a problem of mind, and as sheer personalities the greatest +painters of Siena, Venice, and Lombardy often seem mere +nobodies when compared even with the minor Florentines. We +should know something about a city that produced personality +so generously, and before considering Giotto, the first great +painter Florence bred, we shall do well to look at Florence as +he saw it about the year 1300, being a man in the thirties.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Florence was then as now a little city, its population about +100,000 souls, but it was growing. The old second wall of about +two miles’ circuit was already condemned in favor of a turreted +circuit of over six. Up the Arno the forest-clad ridge of +Vallombrosa was much as it is today; down the valley the +jagged peaks of the Carrara mountains barred the way to the +sea. The surrounding vineyards and olive orchards by reason +of encroaching forest were less extensive than they are now, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>but through every gate and from every tower one could see +smiling fields guarded by battlemented villas. In the city, the +fortress towers of the old nobility, partizans mostly of the +foreign Emperor, rose thickly, but already dismantled at their +fighting tops, for the people, meaning strictly the ruling merchant +and manufacturing classes, had lately taken the rule +from the old nobles. Many of these had fled; some had been +banished, as was soon to be that reckless advocate of the +emperor, Dante Alighieri, an excellent poet of love foolishly +dabbling in politics. Other patricians sulked in their fortress +palaces. Some shrewdly got themselves demoted and joined +the ruling trade guilds. Of these guilds a big four, five, or six, +governed the city, while a minor dozen had political privilege. +Only guild members voted for the city officers. The guilds +combined the function of a trade union and an employer’s +association, including all members of the craft from the youngest +apprentice to the richest boss-contractor. Such a guild as +the notaries, must have been much like a bar association, +while the wholesale merchants’ guild must have resembled a +chamber of commerce. The guild folk had early allied themselves +with the Pope, the only permanent representative of the +principle of order in Italy. The Pope was also the bulwark of +the new free communes against the claims of the Teutonic +Emperors. So in Florence piety, liberty, and prosperity were +convertible terms.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Within the narrow walls was a bustling, neighborly, squabbling +and making-up life. Everybody knew everybody else. +The craftsman worked in the little open archways you may +still see in the Via San Gallo, in sight and hearing of the passing +world. Of weavers’ shops alone there were 300. No +western city was ever prouder than Florence in those days. +Her credit was good from the Urals to the Pentland Hills. Her +gold florin was everywhere standard exchange. She had secret +ways of finishing the fine cloths that came in ships and caravans +<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>from Ghent, Ypres, and Arras; she handled the silks of China +and converted the raw pelts of the north into objects of fashion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Her civic pride was actively expressing itself in building. +Between 1294 and 1299 she had projected a new cathedral, +the great Franciscan church of Santa Croce, a new town hall, +and the massive walls we still see. For stately buildings she +had earlier had only the Baptistry, in which every baby was +promptly christened, and the new church of the Friars Preachers +(Dominicans), Santa Maria Novella. In considering this +Florence you must think of a hard-headed, full-blooded, ambitious +community, frankly devoted to money-making, but +desiring wealth chiefly as a step towards fame. Since the +painter could provide fame in this world and advance one’s +position in the next, his estate was a favored one.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The painter himself was just a fine craftsman. He kept a +shop and called it such—a <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i>. He worked only to order. +There were no exhibitions, no museums, no academies, no art +schools, no prizes, no dealers. The painters modestly joined the +guild of the druggists (<i><span lang="it">speziali</span></i>), who were their color makers, +quite as the up-to-date newspaper reporter affiliates himself +with the typographical union. When a rich man wanted a +picture, he simply went to a painter’s shop and ordered it, +laying down as a matter of course the subject and everything +about the treatment that interested him. If the work was of +importance, a contract and specifications were drawn up. The +kind of colors, pay by the job or by the day, the amount to +be painted by the contracting artist himself, the time of completion, +with or without penalty—all this was precisely nominated +in the bond. Naturally the painter used his shop-assistants +and apprentices as much as possible. Often he did +little himself except heads and principal figures. But he made +the designs and carefully supervised their execution on panel +or wall. A Florentine painter’s <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> then had none of the +preciousness of a modern painter’s studio. It was rather like +<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>a decorator’s shop of today, the master being merely the +business head and guiding artistic taste. When we speak of +a fresco by Giotto, we do not mean that Giotto painted much +of it, any more than a La Farge window implies that our great +American master of stained-glass design himself cut and set +the glass. The painter of Florence had to be a jack-of-all-trades, +a color grinder, a cabinet maker, and a wood carver; +a gilder; to be capable of copying any design and of inventing +fine decorative features himself. He must be equally competent +in the delicate methods of tempera painting as in the +resolute procedures of fresco.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These two methods set distinct limits to the work and its +effects. The colors were ground up day by day in the shop. +Each had its little pot. There was no palette. Hence only a +few colors were used, and with little mixing. For tempera +painting a good wooden panel—preferably of poplar—was +grounded with successive coats of finest plaster of Paris in glue +and rubbed down to ivory smoothness. The composition was +then copied in minutely from a working drawing. The gold +background inherited from the workers in mosaic was laid on +in pure leaf. The composition was first lightly shaded and +modelled either in green or brown earth, and then finished up +a bit at a time, in colors tempered with egg or vegetable albumen. +The paints were thick and could not be swiftly +manipulated; the whole surface set and so hardened that retouching +was difficult. How so niggling a method produced so +broad and harmonious effects will seem a mystery to the modern +artist. It was due to system and sacrifice. Though the +work was done piecemeal, everything was thought out in +advance. Dark shadows and accidents of lighting which would +mar the general blond effect were ignored. The beauty desired +was not that of nature, but that of enamels and semi-precious +stones. These panels are glorious in azures, cinnabars, crimsons, +emerald-greens, and whites partaking of all of these hues. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>Their delicacy is enhanced by carved frames, at this moment, +1300, simply gabled and moulded; later built up and arched +and fretted with the most fantastic gothic features.</p> + +<p class='c007'>If the painter in tempera required chiefly patience and delicacy, +the painter in fresco must have resolution and audacity. +He must calculate each day’s work exactly, and a whole day’s +work could be spoiled by a single slip of the hand in the tired +evening hour. For fresco, the working sketch was roughly +copied in outline on a plaster wall. Then any part selected +for a day’s work was covered with a new coat of fine plaster. +The effaced part of the design must be rapidly redrawn on the +wet ground. Then the colors were laid on from their little +pots, and only the sound mineral colors which resist lime could +be employed. The vehicle was simply water. The colors were +sucked deep into the wet plaster, and united with it to form a +surface as durable as the wall itself. Generally the colors +were merely divided into three values,—light, pure colors, and +dark. Everything was kept clear, rather flat, and blond, +highly simple and beautifully decorative. One of the later +painters, Cennino Cennini (active about 1400), tells us that a +single head was a day’s work for a good <i><span lang="it">frescante</span></i>. The touch +had to be sure, for a mis-stroke meant scraping the wet plaster +off, relaying it, and starting all over again. The fresco painter +accordingly needed discipline and method. Nothing could be +farther from modern inspirational methods. Where everything +was systematized and calculated in advance, you will +see it was quite safe for a master to entrust his designs to pupils +who knew his wishes. Every fresco when dry was more or less +retouched in tempera, but the best artists did this sparingly, +knowing that the retouches would soon blacken badly or +flake off.</p> + +<p class='c007'>So much for the shop methods. Now for him who makes +shops possible—the patron. A wealthy Florentine as naturally +wanted to invest in a frescoed chapel as a wealthy American +<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>does in a fleet of motor cars. Considering the changed +value of money, one indulgence was about as costly as the other. +But the Florentine never quite regarded paintings as luxuries. +They were necessary to him. He loved them. They enhanced +his prestige in this world and improved his chances in the next. +Then to beautify a church was really to magnify the liberty +and prosperity of Florence, which largely derived from the +Holy See. Recall that every Florentine was born a Catholic, +baptized in the fair Church of St. John with the name of a +saint. This saint, he believed, could aid him morally and +materially, was in every sense his celestial patron. It paid to +do the saint honor, and that could best be done through the +painter’s art. The poorest man might have a small portrait +of his patron, a rich man might endow a chapel and cause all +his patron’s miracles to be pictured on the wall. Think also +that every altar—a dozen or more in every large church—was +a shrine<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c012'><sup>[1]</sup></a>, containing the bread and wine that by the never-ceasing +miracle of the Mass became the Saviour’s body and +blood; and was also a reliquary or tomb, containing in whole +or part the body of some saint. Every altar then, and every +chapel inclosing one, cried out for a twofold interpretation of +its meaning. Everything about the Eucharist had to be explained +(involving pretty nearly all of Biblical history), and the +particular relic required similar illumination. Since many of +the faithful could not read, and the Catholic Church has ever +been merciful as regards sermonizing, these explanations of the +altar as miracle shrine of Our Lord and as tomb of a particular +saint were best made pictorially, and generally were so made.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Such motives for picture-making Florence of course shared +with the entire Christian world. It remains to explain why +she wanted more painting and better than any other mediæval +city. She wanted more painting chiefly because of her exceptional +civic pride and prosperity, she wanted better painting +because she had moved ahead of the world towards finer, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>more passionate, and conscious experiences of life which the +older painting was powerless to express. About the year 1200, +a century before the time we are considering, there flourished +two great religious leaders who gave to Christianity a new +dignity and appeal. St. Dominic, with his disciple, St. Thomas +Aquinas, endeavored to make Christianity more reasonable, +St. Francis of Assisi endeavored to make it more heartfelt and +compassionate. They founded two monastic orders with divergent +yet harmonious aims. The Dominicans called men to +a life of study and self-examination, enlisting the human reason +to explain and justify the universe under the Christian scheme; +the Franciscans called men to poverty, humility, and chastity, +and service to the unfortunate. Between the two—one supplying +the light of the reason and the other the light of the +heart—they overcame heresies which had menaced both +Christianity and civilization and roused the Church out of its +dogmatic slumber. It was no longer enough for the Church to +threaten. Men yielded to her now only on condition that their +heads be convinced or their hearts touched. In Florence, where +a rationalizing shrewdness and a real warm-heartedness singularly +blended, the double appeal was irresistible. By and large +the whole city either schematized with the Dominicans or +slummed with the Franciscans. Here was urgent new matter +requiring an art that could move and persuade.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Together with this religious revival and the political and +commercial progress we have noted, came a literary revival. +Before the end of the 13th century such poets as Guido Guinizelli, +Guido Cavalcanti, and Dante Alighieri had so reshaped +the rude vulgar tongue that it became worthy of its Latin +succession. The refinements of chivalric love came to Florence +in melodious verse, and what the poets called the “sweet +new style,” <i><span lang="it">il dolce stil nuovo</span></i>, in diction presaged a similar +sweet new style of painting. Alongside of the poets, Brunetto +Latini in the <cite>Tesoro</cite> shows glimmerings of scientific interest, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>and Giovanni Villani lends substance and dignity to the work +of the chronicler. Already the sculptors Nicola and Giovanni +of neighboring Pisa had grasped the beauties respectively of +classic sculpture and the noble intensity of that of the Gothic +North. All this immensely increased that sum of fine thinking, +feeling, and seeing which underlies all great art.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To express these new emotions the old painting was inadequate. +Italy through the so-called Dark Ages produced art +abundantly. Wherever power and order asserted themselves +amid the welter of war and oppression, stately buildings rose +and these were decorated. Thus at Rome, where the popes +gradually added temporal to spiritual power, splendid basilicas +grew over the tombs of the martyrs. At Ravenna, through the +6th and 7th centuries the seat of the Byzantine and Gothic +sovereignties, magnificent churches and baptistries were covered +with pictorial mosaics. In Sicily, at Messina, Cefalù and +Palermo, the sway of the Norman kings in the eleventh and +twelfth centuries expressed itself in churches and civic buildings +of the utmost splendor, which were adorned with mosaics by +Greek masters. When the fugitives from the valleys of the +Po, Adige, and Piave, and Brenta fled from Attila to the Venetian +fens, there again was a beginning of great building. Wherever +there was a powerful primate as at Milan, Como, Parma, +Pisa, or a wide ruling abbot as at Subiaco, Monte Cassino, +Capua, you will find art.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But hardly, except perhaps in architecture, Italian art. We +have sporadic provincial expressions dominated from afar by +the prestige of the Eastern Roman Empire. At Constantinople +there was a permanent court, a ceremonious civilization, +an artistic blending of the traditions of old Greece and of the +mysterious Levant. The merchants of the world sought from +Byzantium, jewelry, enamels, embroideries, brocades, carved +ivories, and pictured manuscripts. She was to the early +Middle Ages what Paris is to ours—the æsthetic fashion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>maker of the world,—and her skilled artists went far afield +as so many missionaries of the Byzantine style. We find them +making the mosaics of Ravenna in the 6th and 7th centuries, +of St. Mark’s at Venice from the 9th century, of many Roman +churches from an even earlier date, of Palermo in the 12th, +and of the Baptistry at Florence in the 13th. This Byzantine +manner, as practiced by the travelling Greek artists and by +their innumerable Italian imitators, is the real starting point +and jump-off place for Italian painting. Hence in first studying +the Byzantine style we do but imitate the Italian painters +who immediately preceded Giotto.</p> + +<div id='f_001' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_001.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 1.</span> Byzantine Narrative Style about 1300. Detail from Mosaic Book Covers in the Opera del Duomo.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_002' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span> +<img src='images/f_002.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 2.</span> Mosaic in the Cathedral, Pisa. St. John, left, is by Cimabue, 1302; the Christ is in good Byzantine tradition; the Virgin, right, is some twenty years later.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Byzantine pictures have come down to us on the largest and +on the smallest scale—in the great mosaics and wall paintings, +and as well on small panels and in the illustrated books +used in the ritual of the church. Both are important. The +mural decorations are what the early Italian painter had constantly +before his eye; the miniatured psalters, Gospels, lectionaries, +chorals and prayer books, afforded the patterns +from which he drew with little alteration the standard compositions +of the Annunciation to Mary, the Nativity of Christ, +His Adoration by the Shepherds and Kings, His Baptism, the +Raising of Lazarus, the Last Supper, Crucifixion, Descent into +Hell, Resurrection, and Ascension. But Byzantine design is +most imposing in its monumental phase. The most careless +traveller still feels awe before those solemn figures of Christ +supreme ruler (<em>Pantokrator</em>) and his Mother queen of heaven which +are seen throned against a background of azure or gold and attended +by solemn figures of apostles and martyrs, Figure <a href='#f_002'>2</a>. +The forms are flat,—silhouettes enriched by interior tracery, +the arrangement in the space formal, symmetrical, highly decorative. +The smaller narrative compositions,<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c012'><sup>[2]</sup></a> Figure <a href='#f_001'>1</a>, are +clearly conceived but have small emotional appeal. For this +reason the Italians of the Golden Age spoke of the Byzantine +style as rude. This is an error. Rude in the hands of half-trained +local imitators, the style as formulated in the 9th century +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>at Constantinople was highly sophisticated and decoratively of +great refinement. It was based on an admirable system of color +spotting and a fine understanding of silhouette. The contours +were cast in easy conventional curves. These were enriched +within by hatchings and splintery angles of gold which contrasted +effectively with the fluent outlines. Everything was +done by precept and copybook. In four centuries before the +year 1300, the style showed little change, indeed is still alive in +the mountains of Macedonia and, until the Revolution, in +Russia. The Byzantine artist seldom looked at a fellow +mortal with artistic intent. He looked at some earlier picture +or considered his own color preferences. Conventional and +anæmic as the narrative style was, it did all that was required +of it. Nothing better serves the purpose of an authoritative +Church than the awe-inspiring Christs of the Lombard and +Sicilian and Roman apses, and so long as the Church felt no +duty beyond that of plain statement of her claims, the unfelt +narratives from the Scriptures served every religious need.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was different when under the leading of St. Dominic and +St. Francis,<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c012'><sup>[3]</sup></a> the Church eagerly wished to persuade men. +Men may well have been frightened or even instructed by a +Byzantine picture; nobody was ever persuaded by one. It took +a century to work away from the Byzantine style, so deeply was +it rooted. In fact, from the year 1226, that of St. Francis’s +death, to about the end of the century, such artists as Guido +of Siena, Coppo di Marcovaldo, Giunta of Pisa, Jacopo Torriti, +Giovanni Cosma, Duccio, and Cimabue chiefly restudied the +old Byzantine manner. They wished to learn how to build +creditably before they began to tear down. Such reverent +experiment extending over two generations only proved that +the breach with Byzantine formalism was inevitable.</p> + +<div id='f_003' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span> +<img src='images/f_003.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 3.</span> Tuscan Master about 1285.—<em>Otto Kahn, N.Y.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_004' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_004.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 4.</span> Cimabue. Madonna in Majesty.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>With the deepening and broadening of personal, civic, and +religious emotions, the painter found new exactions laid upon +him which the bloodless art of Byzantium could not satisfy. +New life called for new forms to express it. We find in sculpture +from about the year 1260, that of Giovanni Pisano’s +first pulpit—wholly classical in its dignity—a kindred endeavor +in advance of the art of painting. The renewal took +three forms: the more conservative spirits accepted the Byzantine +formulas but endeavored to refine on them in a realistic +sense, to add grace to austerity. Such moderate development +of the old style fixed the character of the school of Siena and +was magnificently initiated by its greatest artist, Duccio, +active about 1300. A very beautiful Madonna of this general +tendency is in the collection of Mr. Otto Kahn at New York, +Figure <a href='#f_003'>3</a>. It has been quite variously attributed.<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c012'><sup>[4]</sup></a> It seems to +me, however, a pure Tuscan work by Coppo or a painter akin +to him. For the greater spirits such a reform was inadequate. +Refine the Byzantine formulas to the utmost—there was no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>gain, rather loss in strength. Accordingly a vehement spirit +like Cimabue,[1–5] acknowledgedly father of the Florentine school, +accepts the Byzantine tradition loyally, but seeks to make its +rigid mannerisms express the new religious passions. At times +he is successful at this unlikely task of putting new wine into +old bottles. His great enthroned Madonna at Florence, Figure +<a href='#f_004'>4</a>, with solemn angels in attendance and grim patriarchs below +her throne, may have been painted as early as 1285. It +is faithful to the old monumental tradition—akin to the Christs +and Marys of the mosaics—in its impressive richness is one +of the most majestic things the century produced. It reveals +the docility of its creator but only partially his power. We +have hardly his hand but surely an echo of his influence in the +tragic crucifix in the museum of Santa Croce. It is the moment +of agony, and the powerful body writhes against the nails, +while the head sinks in death. It may represent hundreds +of similar crosses that stood high in air on the rood beam before +the chancel, in sight both of the preacher and his public.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Somewhere about 1294, Cimabue was called to Assisi to +decorate the church in which St. Francis was buried. His +part was the choir and transepts of the upper church. In the +cross vault he painted the four evangelists, on the walls he +spread the stories of St. Peter and St. Paul, the legends of the +Virgin scenes from the Apocalypse, the gigantic forms of the +archangels and a Calvary, Figure <a href='#f_005'>5</a>, that is one of the most +moving expressions of Christian art. Chipped and blackened, +their lights become dark through chemical change, +these wall paintings retain an immense power and veracity. +The Byzantine forms gain a paradoxical solidity, like that of +bronze. The convulsion of the figure of Christ is given back in +the wild gestures of the mourning women and the terrified Jews. +It is the moment of the earthquake and the opening of tombs; a +cosmic terror and despair pervade the place. The work is +hampered and rude but completely expressive. The sensitive +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>Japanese critic and man of the world, Okakura Kakuzo, used +to regard these sooty frescoes in the transepts of the Franciscan +basilica as the high point of all European art, which should +at least induce the tourist and the student to give a second +look at these battered and fading masterpieces. Recently an +inscribed date, 1296, has been discovered on the choir wall +which settles a long vexed question of chronology. The upper +part of the work in the transepts and choir must have been +going on for some years earlier, and the entire decoration of the +Upper Church should roughly be comprised between 1294 and +1300. Cimabue died about 1302 while working on the apsidal +mosaic at Pisa, where the St. John is by his hand, Figure <a href='#f_002'>2</a>. +He had brought life and passion into Italian painting, as his +younger contemporary Giovanni Pisano had into Italian +sculpture. Cimabue’s defect—that of a noble spirit—was +the faith that the old pictorial form could contain the new +surging emotions.</p> + +<div id='f_005' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_005.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 5.</span> Cimabue. Calvary. Fresco.—<em>Upper Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_006' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span> +<img src='images/f_006.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 6.</span> Pietro Cavallini. Dormition of the Virgin. Mosaic.—<em>S. M. in Trastevere, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_007' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span> +<img src='images/f_007.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 7.</span> Pietro Cavallini. Apostles, fresco, from Last Judgment.—<em>Santa Cecelia in Trastevere.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Colder spirits, as is often the case, more readily found the +right way. And the discovery was made at Rome where the +sculptured columns, arches, and sarcophagi, the pagan wall +paintings and the earliest Christian mosaics combined to continue +the lesson of classic humanism. A remarkable family of +decorators, the Cosmati; with such contemporaries as Jacopo +Torriti and Filippo Rusuti begin very cautiously to free themselves +from Byzantine trammels. But it was a painter, Pietro +Cavallini,<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c012'><sup>[5]</sup></a> who more fully grasped that glory that had been +Rome. In 1291 he designed for the church of Santa Maria in +Trastevere a Madonna and four stories of the Christ Child in +mosaic. Here we glimpse a new pictorial form, Figure <a href='#f_006'>6</a>. +Those Byzantine hooks and hatchings which were quite false +to form give way to a reasonable structure in light and dark, +the hair no longer wild and ropy, is disposed in sculpturesque +locks, the draperies are no longer a cobweb pattern, but cast +in broad and classic folds. All these improvements may be +noted in more complete form in the frescoed Last Judgment +which has recently been uncovered in the church of Santa +Cecilia, Figure <a href='#f_007'>7</a>. Here the heads of Christ and the Apostles +are well built in carefully graduated light and shade, while the +draperies suggest Hellenistic statuary. But the renovation is +on the whole cold and academic. Cavallini has not much +more to say than the Byzantines, but that little he says +with far greater gravity and truthfulness. He was a lucid +and industrious but not a fine or strong spirit. His work +later at Naples—in the Church of the Donna Regina, about +1310—shows that when he will express strong emotions he +becomes merely hectic. Yet he recovered for Italian painting +more than a hint of the choice naturalism of old Rome, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>that is his sufficient glory. There is greater power and knowledge +than his in the work of such contemporaries as the unknown +painters of the frescoed heads of prophets in Santa +Maria Maggiore at Rome and of the stories of Isaac in the +Upper Church at Assisi.<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c012'><sup>[6]</sup></a> These show a resolute and intelligent +effort to draw in masses of light and shade, and as well an +ambition to recover the gravity of the early Christian mosaics. +It is no wonder that some critics ascribe such dramatic and +superbly constructed frescoes as The Betrayal of Esau to +young Giotto, Figure <a href='#f_008'>8</a>, but the art is too mature for any +young artist. We have rather to do with a great personality +of Roman training who broke the way for Giotto. Cavalcaselle +suggests, I think rightly, that the Florentine, Gaddo +Gaddi, may have done some of this work. But we are safe +only in calling this great painter “The Isaac Master.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>To recapitulate, there were three ways, all imperfect, open +to a young and progressive painter who like Giotto di Bondone +was forming a style about the year 1300. He might with the +Sienese evade the issue of passion and naturalism, choosing for +gracefulness, he might try over again the great adventure of +his master Cimabue, endeavoring to bring emotion into the old +unfit forms, or he might, like Pietro Cavallini, let emotion +take care of itself and work academically towards better structure, +drapery, light, and shade. His choice was absolutely +momentous for modern painting, and I want you to feel that +the issue was quite consciously and vividly before him, for he +had spent much of his youth as a humble assistant in the +basilica at Assisi, where frescoes in the vehement Tuscan manner +of Cimabue and in the dignified Roman style of the Isaac +Master were being painted side by side. His decision was to +combine the merits of the two manners—to seek, like his +master, sincerity and depth of emotion, but to embody it in +the new and nobler forms of the Roman school. This decision +virtually fixed the character of Christian art in Italy—it was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>to be warm and humanistic, but it was to revive much of that +abstract nobility which old Rome had inherited from Greece. +Thus Italian painting at the outset took a classic stamp which +when true to itself it has never lost. In fundamental ideas of +beauty, there is no real difference between Giotto, Masaccio, +Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo.</p> + +<div id='f_008' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_008.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 8.</span> “The Isaac Master.” Esau before Isaac. Fresco.—<em>Upper Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Giotto di Bondone,<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c012'><sup>[7]</sup></a> according to the best information we +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>have on a disputed point, was born in 1266, at the village of +Colle, in the lovely valley of the Mugello. His people were +prosperous and his way smooth. I see no reason for doubting +the charming legend told by Ghiberti that Cimabue found the +lad Giotto by the roadside diligently scratching the outlines of +a sheep on a slate, and that that was the beginning of their +association. In any case, we may surmise that he was early +with Cimabue as apprentice and eventually went with the +Master to Assisi to grind colors, clean brushes, and paint +under direction. To be at that moment in the Franciscan +Basilica was to be at the greatest creative center of the world. +It seems to me likely that Giotto may have had a considerable +part in the actual painting of the Old and New Testament +stories in the nave, and I believe we may find his earliest designs +in certain frescoes of the upper rows. The Lamenting +over Christ’s Body, for example, singularly combines the energy +of Cimabue with the dignity of Cavallini, and there are significant +echoes of the composition in Giotto’s later version of +the same theme at Padua. Tradition also ascribes to Giotto, +maybe correctly, the Resurrection and Pentecost on the entrance +wall.<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c012'><sup>[8]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>After 1296, according to Vasari’s entirely credible account, +young Giotto took over the direction of the work for the newly +elected Franciscan General, Giovanni dal Muro. What share +he had in the vivacious and justly loved stories of St. Francis,<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c012'><sup>[9]</sup></a> +in the lower range of the nave, is greatly disputed. Of the +twenty-eight frescoes involved, it seems clear to me that the +first and the last three are by an artist more nearly in the +Sienese tradition, that Nos. II to XVIII inclusive are designed +by Giotto in the style of the Old Testament stories above and +painted by him with a certain amount of assistance, and that +the rest are largely inspired by Giotto but executed in his +absence and without his final control. What is more important +is the variety and vivacity of these narratives. Young +Giotto is free to improvise, as he was not in the standard Bible +subjects, and the mood shifts readily. We have charity, with +St. Francis giving his cloak to a beggar, in an idyllic landscape; +family strife in St. Francis renouncing his father, Figure <a href='#f_009'>9</a>; +sorcery in the exorcism of the devils from Arezzo; an odd mixture +of ogreishness and witchcraft, in St. Francis’s Fire Ordeal +before the Soldan, Figure <a href='#f_011'>11</a>; a great pious intentness, in the +choristers at the Cradle Rite; intense physical appetite, in the +Miracle of the Spring; an entrancing blend of reverence and +humor, in the Sermon to the Birds, Figure <a href='#f_010'>10</a>; stark tragedy +in the Death of the Knight of Celano.</p> + +<div id='f_010' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span> +<img src='images/f_010.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 10.</span> The Sermon to the Birds.—<em>Upper Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_009' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_009.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 9.</span>—St. Francis renounces His Father.—<em>Upper Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_011' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_011.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 11.</span> St. Francis before the Soldan.—<em>Upper Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_012' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span> +<img src='images/f_012.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 12.</span> Early Sketch Copy after Giotto’s Mosaic of the Navicella. Compare Fig. <a href='#f_031'>31</a>.—<em>Metropolitan Museum, New York.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Giotto is still chiefly a sprightly illustrator. He is as yet +insensitive to composition. He often perfunctorily splits his +groups, giving each a landscape—or architectural back-screen +quite in the Byzantine manner. His story-telling is brusque +and without rhythm. His sense of form is already strong +and growing, but there is little of the ease and style of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>the Isaac frescoes just above. In vitality the stories of St. +Francis mark a great advance, but they lack the gravity and +exquisiteness of balance proper to the best mural decoration.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was at Rome that young Giotto was to broaden and refine +his art. He was called thither before the year 1300 to +design the great mosaic of Christ walking on the Sea of Galilee +beside the tempest-tossed boat of the Apostles. It stood over +the inside cloister-portal of old St. Peter’s, and has been many +times moved in the rebuilding of the church, and with each +move restored, so that what we now see in the porch is entirely +remade. From certain fragments of the old mosaic, and old +sketch copies, Figure <a href='#f_012'>12</a>, we may judge that the Navicella, as the +Italians loved to call it, was an elaborate composition of great +dramatic power, the logical consummation of the experiments at +Assisi. Our best version of the Navicella is Andrea Bonaiuti’s +adaptation, Figure <a href='#f_031'>31</a>, for the vault of the Spanish Chapel, 1365.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But Giotto was soon to renounce the facile method of diffuse +and genial narrative in favor of a concise and massive style, +akin to sculptured relief, and deeply influenced by the antique. +The arches and the columns of Imperial Rome are teaching +their silent lesson, the simple and noble forms of Cavallini +and his nameless rivals show how painting may vie with +sculpture in sense of mass and reality. With the problem of +the representation of mass on a flat surface, Giotto wrestled +eagerly and triumphantly. With a genius that few painters +have equalled, he grasped the truth that the figure painter’s +problem of representing space is chiefly that of emphatically +suggesting mass. If you convince the eye of the tangibility +of your objects, the mind will supply elbow room and air to +breathe. It isn’t necessary to simulate a box, as the Sienese +painters often did. The painter who can give a convincing +sense of mass may handle accessories and perspective with +the utmost freedom, according to the inner law of his design. +The painter who thinks first of his space is in every way more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>bound to the smaller probabilities. Much thinking of this +sort must have been done by Giotto before he worked out +his new style at Padua.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After his return from Rome, Giotto sojourned for a time +in Florence, and in 1304 or thereabouts painted the gigantic +Madonna formerly in the Trinità, Figure <a href='#f_013'>13</a>. It is impressive +in mass, admirable in the intent expression of the attendant +angels, rich in color, but the great figure is unhappily crowded +by the canopy. Giotto is still a bit uncertain as to the rendering +of space, and makes a good if unpleasing effort to suggest +depth despite the limitations of a gold background. With all +its nobility and tenderness, this is by no means so good a decoration +as the great Madonna by Cimabue, Figure <a href='#f_004'>4</a>, which +hangs nearby in the Uffizi.</p> + +<p class='c007'>With the problems of space and mass, Giotto was soon to +cope triumphantly. A wealthy citizen of Padua, Enrico +Scrovegni, was planning a new chapel to the Virgin Annunciate. +Doubtless he wished the repose of his father’s soul, +for his father had been a notorious usurer. Dante incontinently +puts him in hell with other profiteers. Enrico Scrovegni +built his chapel near the ruins of a Roman arena and +dedicated it March 25, 1305. The Arena Chapel was a brick +box, barrel vaulted within—a magnificent space for a fresco +painter. Giotto spread upon it the noblest cycle of pictures +known to Christian art. Over the chancel arch he painted +the Eternal, surrounded by swaying angels, and listening to +the counter-pleas of Justice and Mercy concerning doomed +mankind, with the Archangel Gabriel serenely awaiting the +message that should bring Christ to Mary’s womb and salvation +to earth. This is the Prologue. Opposite on the entrance +wall is the Epilogue—a last judgment, with Christ enthroned +as Supreme Judge amid the Apostles, and the just being +parted from the wicked. Amid the just you may see Enrico +Scrovegni presenting the chapel to three angels.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>The side walls are ruled off into three rows of pictures, +with ornate border bands and a basement of sculpturesque +figures symbolizing the seven virtues and vices. The story reads +down from above. Below the azure vault and still a little in +the curve are the stories of the +Childhood of the Virgin—nothing +in the chapel more simple +and stately than these.<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c012'><sup>[10]</sup></a> The +middle course is devoted to the +early deeds of Christ, from his +birth to the expulsion of the +money lenders from the temple. +The lower row depicts His Passion +ending with the Miracle of +Pentecost. Much later a disciple +of Giotto completed the story +with the last days of the Virgin, +in the Choir. Thus the narrative +in its broadest sense is a life of +the Virgin Mary, including that +of her Divine Son, and both +lives are brought into an eternal +scheme of things by the prologue, which shows a relenting +God, and the Epilogue which shows a now relentless Christ +awarding bliss and woe to the race for all eternity.</p> + +<div id='f_013' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_013.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 13.</span> Giotto. Madonna Enthroned.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The first impression of a visitor to the chapel will be a +feeling of awe qualified by joy in the loveliest of colors. The +whites of the classical draperies dominate. They are shot +with rose, or pale blue, or grey green. Certain old enamels +have the same quality of making the most splendid crimsons, +blues, and greens seem merely foils to foreground masses of +white which seem to include by implication all the positive +colors. It is this bright and original color scheme balancing +crimsons and azures with violets and greens which makes a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>thing of beauty out of what would otherwise be a stilted +checkerboard arrangement.</p> + +<div id='f_013a' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_013a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 13</span><em>a</em>. St. Joachim and St. Anna at the Beautiful Giotto Gate.—<em>Arena, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_014' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span> +<img src='images/f_014.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 14.</span> Giotto. The Flight into Egypt.—<em>Arena, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Next the eye will realize splendid people gravely occupied +with solemn acts. There is the strangest blend of passion and +decorum. See the eager old man who clutches his wife before +a massive city gate while she caresses him tenderly, Figure <a href='#f_013'>13</a><em>a</em>, +note the firm gentleness of the bearded priest who handles a +screaming baby before the altar, mark the sense of strain and +hurry where a mother and child mounted on an ass, Figure <a href='#f_014'>14</a>, +are pushed and dragged along by an old man and attendants. +Or again, what sinister power in the scene where three +Jewish magistrates press money upon a haggard, bearded, +nervous man. You do not need the bat-like demon prompting +him to know that it is the arch-traitor Judas, Figure <a href='#f_015'>15</a>. Then +there is a strange, serene, processional composition, with the +Virgin moving homeward among her friends to a solemn +music, Figure <a href='#f_016'>16</a>. It has a rhythm like the frieze of the +Parthenon. Perhaps your eye will fix longest on the scene +where about the pale body of the dead Christ women wail with +outstretched hands, or tend the broken body, while bearded +men, accustomed to the hardness of life, stand in mute sympathy +with folded hands, Figure <a href='#f_017'>17</a>. It is what the Gospel +ought to look like. How Giotto shows every feeling, pushing +its expression just to the verge, and there stopping, so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>that idyl and tragedy, devotion and wrath, treachery and +fealty, fear and courage, each keeps its proper and distinguishing +aspect, while all are invested in a common dignity and +nobility. You will perhaps never have seen an art at once +so varied and moving, and nevertheless +so monumental, and you +may well be curious as to the +method.</p> + +<div id='f_015' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_015.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 15.</span> Giotto. Judas betraying Christ.—<em>Arena, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>You will see readily that +these compositions are conceived +sculpturally. Every one with the +slightest change could be cut in +marble. Indeed the seven Virtues, +Figure <a href='#f_018'>18</a>, and seven Vices +impersonated in monochrome on +the dado of the chapel are direct +imitations of sculpture. The +figures throughout the life of +Christ and the Virgin are of even size, and usually all on one +plane. The landscapes and architectural features are arranged +simply as frames or backgrounds for the figure groups. The +figures are, whenever the subject permits, clad in drapery of +a classic cast. Expression is conveyed not much by the faces, +which have a uniform Gothic intentness, but by the action of +the entire figure and especially of the hands. The forms are +rather squat and massive, yet have a homely gracefulness. +There is nothing like perspective, and small regard for distance, +yet the figures have convincing bulk and move gravely in +adequate space. All this is due to the most consummate +draughtsmanship. Giotto simplifies his seeing; what he cares +for is the thrust of the shoulder, or the poise of hip, the swing +of the back from the pelvis, the projection of the chest, the +balance of the head on the neck and its attachment to the +shoulders. All these essential facts of mass he represents by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>the simplest lines of direction, by broad masses of light and +shade, often merely by the tugging lines in drapery that tell +of the form beneath. The cave men would have understood +Giotto, and so would the post-impressionists of today. Conciseness, +economy, force, mass—these are the technical qualities +of the work, as human insight and tenderness are its +grace. As the great analytical critic Bernard Berenson has +well remarked, this painting makes the strongest possible +appeal to our tactile sense, stirring powerfully all our memories +of touch, and presenting the painted indications as so +many swiftly grasped clues to reality. We have to do with a +magnificently conceived shorthand. No artist before or since +has made a greater expenditure of mind or achieved a more +notable inventiveness than Giotto in the Arena Chapel.</p> + +<div id='f_016' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_016.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 16.</span> Giotto. The Virgin returning from her wedding.—<em>Arena, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_017' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span> +<img src='images/f_017.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 17.</span> Giotto. Lamentation over Christ.—<em>Arena, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It was dedicated March 25, 1305, Giotto being nearly forty +years old, and it was probably not completely painted on the +day of dedication, since many draperies were borrowed from +St. Mark’s, Venice, to cover, presumably, the still unpictured +parts of the walls. Giotto lived some four years in Padua, +brought his family there, received the exiled poet Dante and +with him joked not too decorously about his own ugliness and +that of his children. It seems likely enough, though not certain, +that he followed the banished Pope to Avignon about +1309, and spent some years in Southern France. What is +certain is that he was again in Florence by 1312, and that, +having found his own solution of the problem of mass in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>Arena Chapel, he thereafter rested comfortably on his discovery, +never was quite as strenuous again, and spent his +later years at a new problem—that of decorative symmetry.</p> + +<div id='f_018' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_018.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 18.</span> Giotto. Hope.—<em>Arena, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The first experiment towards a sweeter and more complex +style was made in the cross vaults +of the Lower Church of Assisi, +immediately above the tomb of +St. Francis. The subjects were +the three virtues of the Franciscan +vow—Poverty, Chastity, +and Obedience—with a St. +Francis in a glory of angels. In +these great triangular compositions, +allegory and symbolism +run riot, and we do well to recall +Hazlitt’s shrewd remark on +Spenser’s “Faery Queene”—“the +allegory will not bite.” +Indeed one might forget it for +the radiance of the azures, moss-greens, +rose pinks, and deeper +violets, for the delightful contrast +of the freely composed +groups with the intricate geometrical +formality of the rich borders. +Yet to ignore the allegory completely would be to forget +the master’s intention. We may savor it best in the great composition: +St. Francis Marries his Lady Poverty, Figure <a href='#f_018'>18</a><em>a</em>. The +bridal group stands on a central crag, Christ serving as priest, +St. Francis slipping a ring on the gaunt hand of a haggard, yet +strangely fascinating bride clothed in a single ragged garment. +Her bare feet show through a crisply drawn and blossomless rose +tree. Two urchins at the foot of the little cliff stand ready to +stone so unseemly a bride. From the central group to right +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>and left, earnest groups of angels spread in a descending curve. +In the lower angle, left, a young man gives his rich cloak to an +old beggar, while an angel points to the bridal: Poverty is +accepted. At the lower right corner, another angel attempts +to detain a young man who passes with a gesture of contempt +in the company of two portly priests: Poverty is rejected by +such. From the apex of the great triangle, the hands of God +descend to welcome two angels, one of which offers the cloak +given to the beggar, and the other a model of the church which +is the splendid covering for the body of the Saint. The fantastic +beauty of this and its companion pieces can only be appreciated +on the spot. No frescoes of Italy surpass these for +loveliness of color and perfection of condition. It is the most +beautiful pictured Gothic ceiling in the world, perhaps the +most fantastically beautiful of all figured ceilings whatever.</p> + +<div id='f_018a' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_018a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 18</span><em>a</em>. Giotto. St. Francis’ Mystic Marriage with Poverty.—<em>Lower Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Because the figures are a little slight and the expression a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>bit sentimentalized, and the proportions rather arbitrarily +handled to meet the exigencies of the curved spaces, many +good critics, including Venturi and Berenson, deny these compositions +to Giotto. One of them, the St. Francis in Glory, is +clearly of inferior design and quality. For the others, it seems +to me that the designs can only be by Giotto, while the execution +is mostly by a charming assistant whose work in this ceiling +and elsewhere in this church makes us wish we knew his name. +No middle-aged painter of established repute was likely to +undertake personally the dirty and fatiguing work of painting +a ceiling in fresco. If we are right in supposing that Giotto +may have designed this ceiling, shortly after his return from +Avignon, say, after 1312, he would have been towards fifty +years old, and provided with a shop-staff of well-trained assistants. +From this time on, indeed, we may assume that he +rather directed the work of others than painted himself. Such +a view will permit us to accept as school works many fine pictures +the design of which a too strict criticism has denied to +Giotto. For example, the admirable Coronation of the Virgin, +in Santa Croce, Florence, seems to me completely designed by +Giotto, and the logical next step after the Franciscan allegories, +though there can be little actual painting by the master on the +panel, and his personal contribution may have been limited to +a small working drawing. Indeed the only one of the later +panels which seems to show throughout his actual handiwork +is the lovely Dormition of the Virgin at Berlin, Frontispiece, +which was painted for the Church of Ognissanti.</p> + +<p class='c007'>At about this period I think we may set the several crucifixes +in Florentine churches, without inquiring too narrowly +whether they are by the master or by scholars. Giotto has developed +a singularly noble type. The Christ is no longer contorted +in agony as in the crucifixes by Cimabue. He is dead, +with his head quietly sunk on the powerful breast, and the +body relaxed. The conception is humanistic. One feels +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>chiefly the pity of stretching that glorious thing that is a man’s +body on a cross. Probably the earliest of these crucifixes is +that at Santa Maria Novella, while the finest is at San Felice. +About 1320 we may set the dismembered <i><span lang="it">ancona</span></i>, painted for +Cardinal Gaetano Stefaneschi, +which originally stood on the +high altar of St. Peter’s, Rome. +The tarnished fragments which +you may still see in the sacristy, +are more splendid in color than +any other tempera painting +whatsoever. Probably only the +central panels, Christ and St. +Peter enthroned, are from Giotto’s +hand, the side panels representing +the martyrdom of Peter +and Paul may well be both designed +and executed by the +accomplished assistant who carried out the allegories at Assisi.</p> + +<div id='f_019' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_019.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 19.</span> Giotto. Naming of St. John the Baptist.—<em>Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>So far we have seen Giotto a wanderer. Assisi, Rome, +Padua, Rimini, delighted to do him honor, but apparently +Florence had claimed few works from his hand. We have +record of frescoes in the Badia which may have been early +works. It was the decoration of Arnolfo’s great Franciscan +church of Santa Croce that finally recalled Giotto and evoked +his most accomplished work. He completed in the transepts +of Santa Croce four chapels and as many altar-pieces. The +frescoes were white-washed in the 16th century, and the panels +broken up and lost. But in the last century the white-wash +was scraped off from two of the chapels, and there we may see, +so far as defacement and repainting permit, the masterpieces +of the early Florentine school. We may reasonably guess the +date of this work to be somewhere about 1320, Giotto +being nearly sixty.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>In the chapel maintained by that noble family, the Peruzzi, +Giotto spread on the side walls three stories from the life of +St. John the Baptist, and as many more from that of St. John +the Evangelist. The figures are superb, magisterial in pose; +the draperies grand and ample after the classical fashion. +Upon bulk and relief there is less insistence than at Padua. +Giotto has passed the experimental stage as regards form, is +less strenuous and more at his ease. Nothing is more stately +in the chapel than the presentation of the infant Baptist +to his father, who is temporarily stricken with dumbness, +Figure <a href='#f_019'>19</a>. Simeon gravely writes the name John; Elizabeth +with her adoring group of attendants carefully offers the +vivacious child to his father’s gaze. The gestures are slow, +definite, determined. The group beautifully fills the square +space without crowding it. The composition, unlike the +widely spaced Paduan designs, is drawn together into a mass.</p> + +<div id='f_020' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_020.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 20.</span> Giotto. Resuscitation of Drusiana by St. John.—<em>Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Upon the Feast of Herod with Salome modestly dancing +John Ruskin<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c012'><sup>[11]</sup></a> has expended just eulogies in the petulant yet +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>important little book “Mornings in Florence.” What is notable +in the scene is its general decorum and the pathetic indecision +of the weak King.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But the most accomplished design as such is the miracle of the +Resuscitation of Drusiana by St. John the Evangelist, Figure <a href='#f_020'>20</a>. +Even the inscenation before a fine Romanesque city is adequately, +if very simply, realized. The gesture of the apostle is +of majestic power, the contrast of the massive, upright, columnar +forms of the elders, with the sharply bent forms of Drusiana, +her mourners and bier bearers, is admirably invented, and the +drastic portraiture of a cripple at the left adds a tang of reality +while in no wise detracting from the dignity of the scene. +We have a work in the grand style, massively conceived, +warmly felt, wrought into an elaborate and satisfying symmetry. +The Ascension of St. John has an even graver and more +ample rhythm. The Golden Age of Raphael and Titian will +have little to add to this except the minor graces.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the adjoining chapel of the Bardi family, Giotto, a little +later, I believe, painted six stories of St. Francis, and four +figures of the great Franciscan saints, St. Louis of France, St. +Louis of Toulouse, St. Clare, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. +Over the entrance arch he set an animated picture of St. +Francis receiving the stigmata, the wounds of the Saviour. +Nearly thirty years earlier he had done this subject for the +Church at Assisi, and in an altar-piece which has passed from +Pisa to the Louvre. By comparing the rigid, angular figures +of the earlier composition and their ill-adjusted accessories, +with this easy and beautifully balanced arrangement, you may +see how far Giotto had gone in the direction of grace, and you +will not fail also to note how much more tragic the earlier and +less calculated work is.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For the first time, in the Bardi chapel, Giotto conceives the +decoration of the side walls as a whole. From the pointed lunettes +above, through the three compositions on each wall, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>there is an architectural axis, sometimes arbitrarily imposed, +about which the figures are symmetrically distributed. Often +the scene is a screen with projecting wings as in the St. Francis +before the Sultan of Morocco, or a similar fore-court, as in the +Mourning for St. Francis. It will be well to compare the story +of St. Francis renouncing his father, Figure <a href='#f_021'>21</a>, with the same +subject at Assisi. You will recall that St. Francis, when rebuked +by his father for a rash and impulsive act of charity, stripped off +his clothes, then threw them at his father’s feet, and took refuge +under the robe of the Bishop of Assisi. In the earlier version +the architectural background splits the composition in two, +adding to its intensity perhaps, but displeasing to the eye. +Here in the late version a fine building seen in perspective +both unifies the two groups and serves as apex for the decorative +axis of the entire side wall.</p> + +<div id='f_021' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_021.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 21.</span> Giotto. St. Francis renounces his Father. Compare <span class='sc'>Fig. 9</span>.—<em>Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>More remarkable still is the contrast between St. Francis +Braving the Fire Ordeal before the Soldan, Figure <a href='#f_022'>22</a>, as depicted +at Assisi and Florence. We have to do not merely with an immense +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>advance in decorative composition, the accessories at +Assisi being trivial and fantastic; not merely with progress +towards a gracious symmetry and more massive and impressive +form, but also with a complete change of moral point of +view. At Assisi the Soldan is an ogre exacting a cruel test. +The Moslem priests are a cowardly pack of magicians ignobly +slinking away, St. Francis a grim fanatic. At Florence the +Soldan is a noble and humane gentleman, amazed at an unreasonable +ordeal forced upon his wise men. The Moslem doctors +are splendid scholars grudgingly shrinking from an unfair +test, St. Francis an alert little enthusiast half gloating over +the confusion he has thrown into the enemy camp. With a by +no means orthodox feeling, old Giotto, humanistic Giotto, +almost seems to take, or at least to see, the pagans’ side of it. +He who had written a manly poem against the excesses and +hypocrisies of the Franciscan ideal of poverty, is now capable +of criticizing the more extravagant propagandism of the saint +himself.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is a criticism that admits all tenderness and sympathy, +as may be seen in the famous fresco representing the Mourning +over the body of St. Francis while his soul is translated to +heaven, Figure <a href='#f_023'>23</a>. Again John Ruskin is your best interpreter +to this picture, which after all only needs to be seen. +It combines all the qualities for which Giotto had striven—warmth, +vivacity, ingenuity, unexpectedness in the narrative +details; massiveness and dignity of the individual forms; and +a decorative symmetry at once monumental, formal, and delightfully +varied.</p> + +<div id='f_022' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span> +<img src='images/f_022.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 22.</span> Giotto. St. Francis before the Soldan. Compare Fig. <a href='#f_011'>11</a>.—<em>Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_023' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_023.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 23.</span> Giotto. Death of St. Francis.—<em>Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>With this noble and deeply felt composition we virtually +take leave of Giotto. For though he lived for many years +yet, the works of his old age have largely perished. In the +chapel at Assisi dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen are fine frescoes +in which he surely had a leading part. From 1330 to 1333 +he worked at Naples for King Robert of Anjou. Nothing remains from this visit except certain shrewd jests which the +painter exchanged with the King. In 1334 Florence recalled +him, and made him <i><span lang="it">capomaestro</span></i> of the Cathedral. Giotto +designed the flower-like tower which rises lightly beside the +temple of Our Lady of the +Flower, invented and perhaps +cut in marble certain reliefs on +the base representing the crafts +of men, but did not live to see +the loveliest of bell towers +finished. The task was completed +by his pupil and artistic +executor, Taddeo Gaddi. In the +last years Giotto conceived vast +compositions of a religious and +political sort for the public +buildings of the Commune. +There were allegories of a strong +and weak state, in the Bargello, +the prison-fortress of the Captain +of the People. These great symbolical designs are a kind +of missing link between Giotto and the panoramic painters who +followed him. We may find an echo of this lost work in the +Civic Allegories in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena. These +were doing at the moment of Giotto’s death by a Sienese +painter, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, who had studied the great +Florentine master devoutly. Nothing of Giotto’s latest phase +is left save a few figures in the battered frescoes in the Bargello +which contain the idealized portrait of youthful Dante, Figure +<a href='#f_024'>24</a>, and the gracious Dormition of the Virgin at Berlin, +Frontispiece.</p> + +<div id='f_024' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_024.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 24.</span> Giotto. Dante, tracing from the ruined fresco in the Bargello.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Just before Giotto died, the tyrant of Milan borrowed him +from Florence. Giotto soon returned, to die early in the year +1337, being seventy years old. Almost single-handed he had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>made Italian painting. He had lent life and warmth to the +cold and academic reform of the Roman painters. He had +expressed a maximum of feeling, without sacrifice of dignity. +He had worked out beautiful and impressive forms of composition +wherein symmetry and contrast met harmoniously. +He had mastered the expression of mass on a plane surface +with a certainty and energy no artist before had even imagined, +and that few since have equalled. He had forecast and +led the way in every manner of realistic figure painting.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Florence, when true to herself, could only repeat Giotto in +one phase or another of his activity. In her casual and sprightly +mood, she carries on the method of Giotto’s stories of St. +Francis at Assisi, in mystical reflection and symbolism she +must build on the allegories over St. Francis’ tomb and on the +lost political frescoes; in her mood of strenuous search for reality +she can but repeat the Paduan chapter of Giotto’s strivings, +in rare moments of vision and fulfilment she will merely +begin where the Santa Croce frescoes of Giotto ended.</p> + +<p class='c007'>However Giotto be ranked, and personally I see no greater +artist on the rolls of history, his is indisputably the greatest +single achievement; for no other artist who accomplished so +much began with so little. It was no exaggeration that made +Lorenzo Ghiberti regard the advent of Giotto as the coming to +life of an art that had been buried for centuries. It is indeed +the measured classicism of Giotto’s art that constitutes its +greatness—its sweet and lucid reasonableness, its rugged yet +disciplined strength. Seneca or Marcus Aurelius would have +understood it perfectly, as Giotto himself, for his mellow wisdom +and wit, would have been a welcome visitor at Horace’s +Sabine farm. In his broad and flexible insight, his love of +mankind, his clear perceptions of aims and ready acceptance +of limitations, in his pathos without exaggeration, in his constructive +skill without ostentation, in his simplicity without +bareness, he is the authentic and indispensable link between +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>the beauty of Greece and Rome and that of the Italian Golden +Age. To know him is to know almost everything that is needful +about older European painting, not to know him is to lack +the very rudiments of an artistic education.</p> + +<p class='c006'>Giotto left many followers,<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c012'><sup>[12]</sup></a> not one of whom at all understood +his greatness. Like his friend Dante, he was distantly +admired, but really loved only in bits. As perceptive a person +as the artist biographer Vasari lavishes praise upon Giotto for +his more trivial inventions—the Christ Child struggling out +of the arms of the High Priest, for example. So Giotto’s followers +picked unintelligently from his great accomplishment, +choosing what the master himself would least have valued—his +simple contours without his significant mass, his variety +and vivacity without his warmth and restraint. On their own +account they added complication. The sparse economy of +Giotto’s best work could never have appealed to Florence at +large. Something richer and gayer was wanted, more like +Florentine life itself as it became after the general loosening +up of manners and morals following the plague of 1348. Its +chronicler, the author of the “Decameron,” fairly represents +the new spirit. The best of the younger painters have indeed +something of Boccaccio’s mentality—his light touch, his +charm, his panoramic richness, his fluid and undisciplined +grace. Thus arises what I may call the panoramic style of +fresco painting—superficial, full of episodes and accessories, +still religious in theme, but mundane in spirit, often cleverly +conceived, and very superficially felt. These artists had +grasped neither the meaning of Giotto’s drawing nor the +beauty of his decorative formulas, they saw only his variety +and energy. Meanwhile a great Sienese painter, Ambrogio +Lorenzetti, a profound admirer of Giotto, had worked out a +nobly spectacular form of painting in which the stage setting +was elaborate and realistic. He painted much in Florence +<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>about 1334 and his novelties allured the new men. So we find +fresco painting tending in a scenic direction, and panel painting +following the same course more conservatively—not merely +in Florence and Siena, but throughout Northern Italy as well.</p> + +<div id='f_025' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_025.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 25.</span> Giotto’s Assistant at Assisi. Flight into Egypt. Compare Figure <a href='#f_014'>14</a>.—<em>Lower Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_026' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span> +<img src='images/f_026.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 26.</span> Taddeo Gaddi. St. Joachim Meets St. Anna. Compare <span class='sc'>Fig.</span> 13<em>a</em>.—<em>Baroncelli Chapel, Santa Croce.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Many of Giotto’s immediate pupils are mere names to us. +Maso, whom the sculptor commentator Ghiberti praised for +his sweetness, Stefano whom he dubbed the “ape of nature,” +Puccio Capanna—their work must be at Assisi, but criticism +has not succeeded in clearly disengaging it. The nameless +master who executed the Franciscan allegories at Assisi and +designed the stories of Christ’s youthful days, in the adjoining +right transept, is the most accomplished and individual follower +of Giotto. He works for grace, pathos, sumptuousness, +and decorative breadth. He is a Giotto with the angles rubbed +down. By comparing Giotto’s Flight of the Holy Family to +Egypt, with the later version at Assisi, Figure <a href='#f_025'>25</a>, we may grasp +the difference between master and scholar. Giotto is brusque, +harsh, noble; the flight through a rocky defile gives a sense +of urgency and peril; the composition carries forward like the +ram of a battleship. In the version at Assisi the flight has +become an attractive family excursion through a romantic +valley; the mood is gentle, charming, unspecific. A moment +in an epic has been attenuated into an idyl. This master +never fails to express a dreamy sort of poetry, and in such +compositions as the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Calvary, +he commands a genuine pathos. He is exactly what +Giotto might have been, had he skipped the strenuous Paduan +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>phase, and become a decorator without the preliminary discipline +of the draughtsman. There are reasons for thinking that +this work was done by a shop assistant of Giotto’s, who for +many years directed the decoration of the Lower Church at +Assisi in Giotto’s stead. Some of the work in the Childhood +of Christ, I believe, may be as late as 1330 to 1335.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Taddeo Gaddi is a more definite and less pleasing personality. +He was Giotto’s godson and his assistant for twenty-four +years, presumably from 1313 to 1337, as well as his +artistic executor. Whether in panel or fresco, he was an admirable +craftsman; in tempera, a fine colorist. His panels are +widely scattered, some ten being in the United States; his +frescoes, all that we need to note, are in Santa Croce. In the +Baroncelli Chapel, just after Giotto’s death, Taddeo finished +these frescoes of the early life of the Virgin, repeating +themes which Giotto had used both in Padua and elsewhere +in Santa Croce itself. His way of competing with Giotto is to +stir and add and mix things up. Compare the meeting of Anna +and Joachim at the Beautiful Gate in the two masters; Giotto +at Padua is grave, noble, heartfelt; how he discriminates +between the masculine clutch of the old husband and the +tender embrace of the wife—how drastic the conception is, +but also how clear and stately. Poor Taddeo on the other +hand brings the sacred pair together with the bounce of a modern +dance, Figure <a href='#f_026'>26</a>. He brings no brains to bear, and almost no +feelings, just a sprightly and wholly casual inventiveness. Certain +delightful little panels with stories of Christ and St. Francis +which he did in Giotto’s shop for the doors of the sacristy +wardrobes of Santa Croce remind us of the pity that he ever +ceased to be an interpreter of a greater man’s designs. In +the fresco of Job’s trials, in the Campo Santo, Pisa, he seems +nearly a great artist. Conceivably he worked on designs of +his late master. At least he had a certain critical sense, for +at an artist’s reunion at San Miniato, about 1360, he told +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>Andrea Orcagna and the rest of the company that painting +had constantly declined since Giotto and was declining every +day. He transmitted, his sound craftsmanship to a son, Agnolo, +who decorated the Choir of Santa Croce with the legends of +the Cross. He carried down the +panoramic style to the end of +the 14th century, practicing it +with more taste than his father, +achieving a grace without much +inwardness or force.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A later contemporary of +Giotto’s, Buonamico Buffalmacco,<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c012'><sup>[13]</sup></a> +seems to have inherited +something of Giotto’s power, +but the identification of his work +is very uncertain, and he lives +for us chiefly as an egregious +wag in the pages of the Italian +story writers.</p> + +<div id='f_027' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_027.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 27.</span> Giottino. Deposition—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>From another contemporary +and possibly a scholar of +Giotto, Bernardo Daddi, we have many panel pictures and a +few frescoes at Santa Croce. He is an admirable craftsman, +and a sincere illustrator, within his limitations, applying very +competently to panel painting something of the panoramic +realism of Ambrogio Lorenzetti. A prolific artist, his exquisitely +finished little panels are quite common. In America +are good examples in the New York Historical Society, in the +Platt Collection, Englewood, and a more monumental piece +in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia. He lived well beyond +the middle of the century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Giottino, who possibly is to be identified with Giotto’s pupil +Maso, is a more delicate spirit with unusual resources of pathos. +His best work is an altar-piece of the Deposition, Figure <a href='#f_027'>27</a>, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>painted about 1360 for the Church of San Remigio at Florence +and now in the Uffizi. A preference for isolated figures and for +vertical lines is noteworthy, as is the wistfulness of the +attendant donors. Similar qualities of delicate precision as +of dispersion are in the frescoes in Santa Croce which represent +the Miracles of Pope Sylvester. The note is feminine +and rather Sienese than genuinely Florentine.</p> + +<div id='f_028' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_028.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 28.</span> Andrea Orcagna. Christ conferring authority upon St. Peter and St. Thomas Aquinas.—<em>Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Outside of Giotto’s <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> arose the rare continuers of his +tradition. Such an artist flourished about the middle of the +century in the person of Andrea di Cione, better known by +his nickname of Orcagna. He was more of a sculptor and +architect than a painter, a man of dignity and force, a poet +and thinker. Although not a pupil of Giotto, he studied that +master’s work admiringly, and sought to reproduce its massiveness. +Its brusqueness he largely rejected. Instead of +sketching the draperies summarily, he drew the folds carefully +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>after the model; he liked to treat the panel and wall as +a whole, where Giotto had accepted the tradition of subdivision; +he gave to his faces a greater sweetness and he occasionally +attempted foreshortenings and impetuosities of gesture +that Giotto would have avoided. Unluckily Orcagna’s most +important frescoes have perished. We may grasp his nobility +in the altar-piece which he finished and dated in 1357, Figure <a href='#f_028'>28</a>, +for the chapel of the Strozzi family at Santa Maria Novella. +The formality of the composition is noteworthy, as is the stately +sweetness of the Madonna. The subject is Christ delegating +his Power and Wisdom respectively to St. Peter and to St. +Thomas Aquinas.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the same chapel the figure of Christ leaning forward over +a cloud and making the sublime gesture that decrees the end +of the world and the Judgment Day, Figure <a href='#f_029'>29</a>, is probably +designed by Orcagna, as are the larger figures below. We have +here one of the freest and grandest conceptions of the period. +The lovely garden-like heaven and the quaint and ingenious hell +on the side walls are by Orcagna’s brother, Nardo di Cione. The +mood is less grave than Orcagna’s, variety counts for more. +The heads of the saints are of a most delicate beauty. Nardo +has many of the qualities of the panoramic painters without their +heedlessness. He represents a compromise between the severity +of Giotto and the diffuseness of his own day. He worked indefatigably +until 1366, and his younger brother, Jacopo, and +his imitator, Mariotto, continued the manner almost into the +new century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Orcagna was perhaps more versatile than critics have supposed. +Recently discovered fragments of frescoes in Santa +Croce, Figure <a href='#f_030'>30</a>, show a drastic power that no other Florentine +possessed. The theme is miserable folk in time of pestilence +crying out to Death to end their sorrows. The entire fresco +would have shown Death passing them by and poising the +scythe for prosperous and happy folk beyond. The whole scene +exists in the famous frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo which, +while traditionally ascribed to Orcagna, are unquestionably of +Sienese inspiration. They will occupy us later. Orcagna’s solitary +position in Florence reminds us that artistic succession +is rarely from master to pupil, but from great soul to great +soul across intervening mediocrity.</p> + +<div id='f_030' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span> +<img src='images/f_030.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 30.</span> Andrea Orcagna. They call Death in Vain. Fragment from ruined fresco of the Triumph of Death.—<em>Santa Croce.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_029' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_029.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 29.</span> Andrea Orcagna. Upper part of Fresco of Last Judgment.—<em>Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>Giorgio Vasari regarded Gherardo Starnina (active before +1400) as an important link between Giotto and the Renaissance, +and if Professor Suida is right in ascribing the frescoes +of the legend of St. Nicholas in the Castellani Chapel, Santa +Croce, to Starnina, Vasari was quite right. About this mysterious +pupil of Antonio Veneziano who worked in Spain, we +really know almost nothing. But the St. Nicholas frescoes +have a grimness and gravity which points back to Giotto and +withal a careful fusion of light and shade which anticipates +Masolino and Masaccio. Meanwhile Giotto’s own great compositions +in still undiminished splendor and impressiveness +stood ready to give lessons to the eye and mind that could read +them aright. Before such later panoramists as Niccolò di +Pietro Gerini, Mariotto di Nardo, and Spinello Aretino were +gone, that eye was already busy, in the person of a rugged +little boy of San Giovanni in Valdarno. He may have already +been called Masaccio for his untidiness. He was to rebuild +on Giotto and create the grand style of the Renaissance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A mere catalogue of those painters who pursued the panoramic +method with ability can hardly be expected. One and +all they followed the Sienese narrative style. Prominent would +be certain incomers from other cities, Giovanni da Milano, +Antonio Veneziano, and Spinello Aretino. These are typical +decorators of the last quarter of the 14th century.</p> + +<div id='f_031' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span> +<img src='images/f_031.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 31.</span> Andrea Bonaiuti, The Navicella, fresco, closely imitated from Giotto’s Mosaic at St. Peter’s, Rome.—<em>Spanish Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We do better to fix our attention upon the most remarkable +example of the Florentine panoramic style, the decoration of +the Spanish Chapel, the chapter house attached to the Dominican +Church of Santa Maria Novella.<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c012'><sup>[14]</sup></a> The work +was begun by Andrea Bonaiuti in the year 1365, as we +know from a recently discovered document. As decoration it +is delightful, if rather superficially so. The artist treats his +spaces as wholes, declining to cut them up into oblongs after +the earlier fashion. He covers his great surfaces with ease and +taste, has a knack at illustration, and a fine sense of color. The +great Calvary over the triumphal arch imposes from its very +vastness; the triangles of the cross vault, including a spirited +<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>transcript of Giotto’s Navicella, Figure <a href='#f_031'>31</a>, are composed with +clarity and skill; the famous composition of the Dominican theologian, +St. Thomas Aquinas, enthroned above the Liberal +Arts and Sciences, and their representatives in history, combines +an almost Byzantine formality and grandeur with +prettiness and ingenuity in details. But the method is better +shown in the decoration opposite, which represents the dual +earthly powers, the Pope and the Emperor, enthroned equally, +and supported by the representatives of the spiritual orders +and secular estates, Figure <a href='#f_032'>32</a>. The group which symbolizes the +right government of society, according to mediæval ideas, is set +before a church which quite faithfully shows what the Cathedral +of Florence was then intended to be. High up in the +arch is the goal of all earthly endeavor—Heaven with Christ +enthroned amid the angels; an altar with a lamb before Him, +symbolizing His sacrifice; His Mother kneeling as intercessor +for mankind. The Gate of Heaven with St. Peter in attendance, +is naïvely set above the church on a sort of aerial raft. +Below is a novel realistic touch, the villa-studded sky line of +hills which encloses Florence. The real guide to St. Peter’s +presence is always a Dominican monk, usually St. Dominic +himself is intended—the founder and militant evangelist of +the order, as St. Thomas Aquinas was its systematic theologian. +In the lower range of the picture, St. Dominic confutes +the heretics, who tear their wicked books in despair. Above +he vainly beseeches careless gentlefolk at dalliance in an orange +grove; still higher, he leads the truly penitent to Heaven’s gate. +At the foot the Domini Canes (a bad pun for Dominicans) +are vigilant. The moral of the fresco is, happy the world +which trusts its worldly and religious business to the Emperor +and the Pope, and its personal religious problems to the Dominicans. +It is a kind of glorified poster for the order.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In its sprightliness, variety, complication and facile charm, +it is a fine example of the panoramic style. It lacks every +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>quality of seriousness whether as a composition or in the +drawing of the figures. But its fairy tale profuseness and ease +have made it ever since it was painted, one of the most popular +decorations in Italy. Its success shows the kind of taste with +which the few disciplined artists of the fourteenth century had +to contend. Such obstacles have ever been the fate of the artist +who cares enough for his art to practice it austerely.</p> + +<div id='f_032' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_032.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 32.</span> Andrea Bonaiuti. Dominican Allegory of Church and State. Fresco.—<em>Spanish Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Work of the facile and superficial character of the Spanish +Chapel Florence produced in abundance for two generations +after Giotto’s death. His faithful but dull disciple, Taddeo +Gaddi, as we have seen, gloomily foresaw the downfall of the +art of painting. But as in a great personality the recreations +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>and even dissipations seldom permanently eclipse the greater +purpose, so Florence was big enough to indulge for a time her +weaker side. Had Taddeo Gaddi been more intelligent, or +even more hopeful, he would have seen that new masters must +arise, and that there would soon be pictures in Florence at +which Giotto come back to earth would gaze with that humility +with which he had once viewed the marble gods of Rome, +with that understanding sympathy which he had borne to +all his fellow mortals.</p> + +<h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On the Dignity and Wealth of Old Florence</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>Giovanni Villani, <cite>Historie</cite>, XII, 4, regrets the passing of decorum with +the advent of the French and the Duke of Athens in 1342, but wealth +increased.</p> + +<p class='c007'>“Formerly the clothing and costumes [of the Florentines] was the +most beautiful, noble and distinguished of any nation, in the manner +of the togaed Romans.” Evidently the look of things favored the art +of a Giotto.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In book XI, ch. 91–93, Villani gives remarkable and quite modern +statistics which I paraphrase and quote, in part from the Giunta edition, +Venice, 1559. The time is about 1340.</p> + +<p class='c007'>“We found by diligence that in these times there were in Florence +25,000 men fit to bear arms, from 15 to 70 years old, among whom there +were 1506 nobles.... There were then in Florence 65 fully equipped +knights, though before the middle class which now rules was organized, +there were more than 250 knights.... There was estimated to be +90,000 ... men, women and children in the city. There is supposed +to be generally in the city 1,500 foreigners, travellers, and soldiers not +counting in the population the clergy, monks, and nuns.... In the +outlying districts are supposed to be 80,000 people. We have found +from the rector who baptizes the children (since for every male who +was baptized in San Giovanni—in order to have the count—was +dropped a black bean, and for every female a white) that for every +year in these times there were from 5,800 to 6,000, the males generally +exceeding by 300 to 500 a year.</p> + +<p class='c007'>“We find that the boys and girls at [primary] school were from 8,000 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>to 10,000. The boys who study the abacus (calculation) and arabic +numbers, in six schools, from 1,000 to 1,200. And those who are learning +[Latin] grammar and logic, in four great schools, from 550 to 600.</p> + +<p class='c007'>“The churches, which were then in Florence and in the suburbs, +counting the abbeys, and monastic churches, we find to be 110, of which +57, parish churches ... 5 abbeys and two priories with 80 monks, 24 +convents of nuns, with more than 500 women, 10 friaries with more +than 700 friars, 30 hospitals with more than 1000 beds to lodge +the poor and infirm, and from 250 to 300 chaplain priests.</p> + +<p class='c007'>“The shops of the cloth makers (<i><span lang="it">arte della lana</span></i>) were 200 and more, +and they made from 70,000 to 80,000 bolts, at a value of more than +1,200,000 gold florins, although fully a third part staid in the city for +the workers, without gain for the cloth handlers, and the workers +are more than 30,000 persons....</p> + +<p class='c007'>“The warehouses of the art of the <em>Calimala</em>, for the French and transalpine +cloth, were 20, which brought in per year more than 10,000 bolts +of a value of 300,000 gold florins, all of which was sold in Florence....</p> + +<p class='c007'>Banks of money changers 80.... Shops of bootmakers ... 300. +The college of judges, from 80 to 100. And notaries from 600 up, doctors +of physic and surgery 60, and druggists’ shops 100....</p> + +<p class='c007'>“The greater part of the well-to-do, rich, and noble citizens with +their families, staid in the country for four months, and some, more, +a year.”...</p> + +<p class='c007'>“Other dignities and magnificences of our city of Florence I should +not fail to bring to memory, for information of such as shall come after +us. It was, within, well built with many beautiful palaces and houses, +and in these times they were continually demolishing, thus bettering +the building by making it more comfortable and rich, bringing in from +outside the examples for every sort of betterment and beauty. Churches, +cathedrals, friaries of every rule, monasteries, magnificent and rich. +Furthermore, there was no citizen who did not have a country place, +great or small, which was not richly built, indeed far greater buildings +than in the city; and every citizen sinned by inordinate spending, +whence they were thought crazy. But it was so magnificent a thing to +see, that a foreigner, not used to coming in, believed, because of the +rich structures for three miles about, that it was all one city after the +manner of Rome, not to mention the rich palaces, towers, court yards, +terraced gardens, still further from the city, which in any other country +would have been called the rural districts. In short one would have +thought that within six miles of the city were more rich and noble inhabitants, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>than, taking them together, two Florences could have produced. +And let this suffice for telling of the facts of Florence.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Giotto’s View of Franciscan Poverty</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>Giotto’s humanistic detachment from the Franciscan doctrine of +voluntary poverty is well illustrated in his poem which is quoted in part +from Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s translation. The original is in G. +Milanesis’ edition of Vasari, <cite>Le Vite</cite>, Vol. I, Florence 1878, pp. 426–8.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Many there are, praisers of Poverty;</div> + <div class='line'>The which as man’s best state is register’d</div> + <div class='line in2'>When by free choice preferr’d,</div> + <div class='line'>With strict observance, having nothing here.</div> + <div class='line'>For this they find certain authority</div> + <div class='line'>Wrought of an over-nice interpreting.</div> + <div class='line in2'>Now as concerns such thing,</div> + <div class='line'>A hard extreme to me it doth appear,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Which to commend I fear,</div> + <div class='line'>For seldom are extremes without some vice,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Let every edifice,</div> + <div class='line'>Of work or word, secure foundation find;</div> + <div class='line in2'>Against the potent wind,</div> + <div class='line'>And all things perilous, so well prepared—</div> + <div class='line'>That it needs no correction afterward.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>A Contract with Orcagna for the Altar-Piece of 1357</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>Tommaso di Rossello Strozzi left a rough note of the terms of the +contract for the altar-piece of his chapel. Doubtless the actual contract +was much fuller. The minute is published by Filippo Baldinucci, <cite>Opere</cite>, +Milano 1811, Vol IV. p. 397.</p> + +<p class='c007'>“Herewith is to be written [on my part] and Andrea called Orcagna +that I Tommaso di Rossello aforesaid have given to paint for the altar-piece +which is made for the altar of [the chapel] in Santa Maria Novella, +of a breadth of five braccia, 1 sol. [over 10 feet] there or thereabouts. +The aforesaid Andrea is to paint in fine and splendid colors; and gold, +silver and everything else are truly to be used in the entire panel and +pinnacles, that is [gold] leaf. Only in the side columns may silver +be used.... And [with] as many figures as [directed] by me +Tommaso it shall be completed. And the said panel to be entirely +painted by his own hand.</p> + +<p class='c007'>“<a href='#f1' class='c012'><sup>[1]</sup></a> 354 in twenty months....</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>“Should it come about that the aforesaid Andrea should not give it +to us completed and painted.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>“He should pay me for every additional week that he works at the +painting as it shall seem right to the judgment of the here named arbitrators.”...</p> + +<p class='c007'>“Should it come to more than the aforesaid price, we will take the +judgment of Carlo, Paolo and Fra Jacopo.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Such is approximately the sense of this very difficult and quite grammarless +annotation of Tommaso Strozzi. The arbitrators must have had +occasion to act, for the panel is dated 1357, two years after the promised +time.</p> + +<div id='f_033' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span> +<img src='images/f_033.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 33.</span> Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Madonna of San Francesco.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter II</span></span><br> SIENA AND THE CONTINUING OF THE MEDIÆVAL STYLE</h2> +</div> +<p class='c011'>On the Romantic instability of Siena—Fidelity to Byzantine Ideals—Guido, +Coppo, the Master of the Altar-front of St. Peter—Duccio and +his great Majesty of the Madonna—His twofold tendency: to +elaborated staged narrative; to sparse and exquisite decoration—Simone +Martini and the Idealistic chivalric style—The Brothers Lorenzetti +and the popular panoramic style—Second half of the Fourteenth +Century—The Fifteenth Century: Sassetta and Giovanni de Paolo—Matteo, +Benvenuto and Neroccio—The Renaissance and the downfall +of the School, Francesco di Giorgio, Sodoma.</p> + +<p class='c006'>As you enter Siena by the wide Camollia gate you will read +in Latin “Siena opens her Heart still wider to thee”:—<i><span lang="it">Cor +magis tibi Sena pandit.</span></i> Thus Siena avows herself the city of +the heart. Where Florence studied and calculated, she mused +and dreamed; where Florence was solid, she was volatile. +For unrewarding idealisms she had a kind of genius. Long +after the other Italian communes had seen it was worst possible +business to support the emperor, Siena was faithful to +that lost cause. Every few years she changed her form of +government, and seldom for the better. Merrymaking and +pageantry were universal in old Italy, but Siena alone had a +Spendthrift Club (<i><span lang="it">Brigata Spendereccia</span></i>) devoted to continual +pleasure, and a poet, Folgore da San Gemignano, to celebrate +its gaieties. Siena was ardent in inconstant fashion. Early +in the 14th century was found a nude marble Venus so beautiful +that it was set up in the great square and thronged with admirers. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>Then the war with Florence went badly, and at +a few words from a pious fanatic, the citizenry smashed up +the image and secretly buried the bits on Florentine soil to +bring bad luck to the foe. Naturally no bad luck ensued to +Florence, but Siena had enjoyed two delightful emotional +crises. You will see why Siena never could produce a realistic +art, any more than Ireland has produced one. Her eye was +not on the object but on her own state of mind. Thus Florence +will produce historians, scientists, and politicians, while Siena +will produce saints and miracles.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Amid this romantic inconstancy, the continuing thread +was the cult of the Blessed Virgin. No other city thought +so delicately of her, and no other art has represented her so +ideally. Had she not saved the city? In 1259 the Florentine +Guelfs and their allies marched with overwhelming force to +the very gates of Siena. Ruin was imminent and despair +abroad, when by a common impulse the populace marched +penitently to the Cathedral and before the rude picture of +the Queen of Heaven solemnly committed the city into her +hands. In ecstacy of renewed faith the inferior army of Siena +fell upon the invaders at Montaperti and utterly routed them. +In gratitude Siena remained the city of the Virgin. When in +1310 the painter Duccio replaced the rude effigy of the +Madonna of Victory with one of the finest Madonnas known to +art, Fig. <a href='#f_037'>37</a>, the whole city suspended business and escorted +the picture from the studio to the Cathedral with hymns and +litanies in honor of their divine patroness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Nowhere else has painting paid such homage to the Virgin +Mary. In other cities it was enough to represent her enthroned +with a handful of angels or saints in attendance. The Sienese +painters multiplied the celestial escort until it became a heavenly +court over which the Mother of God presides in sweet +majesty. Siena also grasped at the then not quite orthodox subject +of the Assumption of the Virgin into Heaven. You see +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>her slender form rising amid a glory of angels more than a +hundred years before the theme was common elsewhere.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These brief hints will tell of the temper of Siena. You will +not expect such a city to be like Florence, interested in facts +and charmed by the human +spectacle. She will be rather +engrossed with the beauty of +old legends and in rare forward-looking +moments concerned with +her own devout imaginings. +She will not wish the saints to +be like the people one knows, +but like denizens of some divine, +far-off fairyland. Her painting +will not be humanistic but of an +unworldly idealism.</p> + +<div id='f_034' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_034.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 34.</span> Guido of Siena. Madonna.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Such being the temper of +Siena, her artists, unlike those +of Florence, had no quarrel with +the Byzantine style. Its splendid +irreality only needed to be +made flexible and gracious. +Siena has really no new ideas to express, merely feelings +more tender and exquisite. Her pictorial reforms are reverent +and gradual, backward-looking, mediæval. Her art from 1300 +to 1500, as lovely within its narrow limits as the closed garden +of the Virgin, has the great interest of teaching us what capacities +for growth lay in the mediæval tradition itself—what +painting in Italy would have been had Siena exercised her +temporary might after Montaperti and razed Florence five +years before Giotto was born.</p> + +<div id='f_035' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span> +<img src='images/f_035.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 35.</span> Sienese about 1275. Altar-front of St. Peter.—<em>Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A little earlier than the year 1225, when Florence called +in strangers to adorn the Baptistery with mosaics in the +Greek style, Guido of Siena signed and dated 1221 the most +famous of his madonnas. Unhappily the enthroned Virgin +of the Palazzo Pubblico was repainted some fifty years later, +a fact which has led many critics unnecessarily to doubt the +date.<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c012'><sup>[15]</sup></a> But from half a dozen other pictures by Guido +we may learn that he was a diligent and rather heavy-handed +imitator of the current Greek formulas, Figure <a href='#f_034'>34</a>. At the +battle of Montaperti the Sienese captured an excellent Florentine +painter, Coppo di Marcovaldo, and in 1261 he painted +the admirable madonna which is still in the church of the Servi. +It shows a sensitive use of the Byzantine conventions. There +is pensiveness and almost shyness in the face and posture of +the Virgin, and loving intentness in that of the Child. Their +relation is to each other and not as in earlier madonnas to the +devout public. These intimate qualities have been ascribed, +I think wrongly, to restoration. But they appear even more +emphatically in the entirely unrestored Madonna, Figure <a href='#f_003'>3</a>, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>in the collection of Mr. Otto Kahn, which I think may be a +Coppo<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c012'><sup>[16]</sup></a>, and is in any case of similar date and feeling.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The same process of sweetening the old style while accepting +it, is shown in the famous altar-piece of St. Peter in the Academy +at Siena, Figure <a href='#f_035'>35</a>. The gaunt +figure of the Saint is completely traditional, +the little stories of the Annunciation +and Nativity at the side +show a new vivacity and a new grace. +Siena met the innovating painter +more than half way, for the indignant +citizens soon marred with their knives +the crucifiers of the head of the +Christian Church. The date of the +panel will not be far from 1275, and +already the painter of genius who was +to create the sweet, new style was +learning his trade.</p> + +<div id='f_036' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_036.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 36.</span> Duccio Purcellai Madonna.—<em>Santa Maria Novella, Florence.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of Duccio di Buoninsegna, the +father of the Sienese school, and +everything considered its greatest master, we have numerous +records,<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c012'><sup>[17]</sup></a> and by no means all to his credit. He must +have had the artistic temperament in a degree then unusual. +The court records show half a dozen fines against him, and +he was not scrupulous about paying his debts. One forgets +these foibles before those Madonnas which are a consummate +expression of taste and those narratives which are a triumph +of tact and ingenuity. Duccio’s mind does not grasp the +harsher and more heroic emotions, but within the realm of +the tender and pathetic he is supreme. His elegance appears +in his first important work, the famous Rucellai Madonna, +Figure <a href='#f_036'>36</a>, in Santa Maria Novella at Florence, which tradition +erroneously ascribes to Cimabue. It is presumably +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>the great panel which Duccio contracted to paint in 1285.<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c012'><sup>[18]</sup></a> +He was probably young and unconsidered, for he took all +the risks, agreeing that the picture might be rejected at the +will of the patrons. The Society of Saint Mary the Virgin +would have been foolish indeed to reject the most gracious +Madonna the world had then seen. Characteristic of Duccio +are the swaying curves of the contours and especially of the +draperies, the thin, delicately folded robes of the Child and +the attendant angels and the sensitively drawn bare feet. +Working in Florence and doubtless impressed by Cimabue, +Duccio has retained in this early work a certain austerity +which gives way in his later work to a more feminine sweetness. +For that very reason the Rucellai Madonna is perhaps +the greatest Madonna of the century, since without loss of +the stately Byzantine qualities, she gains the new attributes +of grace. It was no wonder that when the name of Duccio +had faded out of the Florentine memory, Florence ascribed +this noble Madonna to the venerated founder of her native +school, Cimabue. Recent criticism has righted the unconscious +wrong thus done to Siena.</p> + +<div id='f_037' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_037.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 37.</span> Duccio. Madonna in Majesty.—<em>Opera del Duomo, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>To mature his style Duccio needed only to intensify the +qualities of sweetness and grace which are evident already in +the Rucellai Madonna. The stages of his growth are represented +in minor works at Siena and in British and Roman +collections. But his fame, for the layman, is associated with +the magnificent altar-piece which he executed for the Cathedral +of Siena, and only the special student need look beyond it. +On the 9th of October, 1309, Duccio contracted with the +trustees of the Cathedral to do a great altar-piece wholly with +his own hands, at the rate of sixteen soldi a day and expenses. +He promised to take no other work during the painting. It +was finished in June of 1311 and carried in solemn procession +from the bottega outside the Porta a Stalloreggi to the +Cathedral. A chronicler describes the cortege “parading about +the Campo, as is usual, all the bells pealing a glory in devotion +for so noble a picture as this is.... And all that day they kept +praying with many alms which were given to poor folk, praying +to God and His Mother, who is our advocate, that she +defend us in her infinite mercy from every adversity and +every ill, and save us from the hands of traitors and foes of +Siena.” Most characteristic of the febrile patriotism of Siena +is this constant dread of the traitor.</p> + +<p class='c007'>About a year before this ceremony the trustees enlarged +the scheme for the picture, making an additional contract for +thirty-eight stories to be paid at the rate of two florins and a +half each. These were put on the back of the altar-piece, +covering very fully the life of Christ and that of the Virgin. +Thus the front of the altar-piece represents the decorative +and monumental ideals of Sienese painting while the back +exemplifies its feeling for narrative. Everything that Sienese +painting was to be is already in germ in this marvellous work.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In depicting the Virgin “in Majesty,” Figure <a href='#f_037'>37</a>, Duccio +has magnified the theme. Earlier pictures show only a handful +of angels in attendance. Here we have a cloud of celestial +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>witnesses, the four patrons of Siena kneeling in the foreground, +at the sides charming alternation of grim, bearded evangelists, +orientally soft girl martyrs, and youthful archangels. Seven +years earlier Cimabue had conceived a similar great Majesty +for the Church of Santa Chiara at Pisa.<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c012'><sup>[19]</sup></a> Doubtless Duccio +had seen it, and, though it is lost to us, we may assume, that +the Sienese artist outdid his prototype both in sweetness and +splendor.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In many ways Duccio’s Majesty is highly traditional. It +shows the Byzantine horror of voids, is a little crowded. But +this defect would be less apparent if it were raised on its historiated +base (<i><span lang="it">predella</span></i>) with its original pinnacles above. Everything +derives from Byzantine exemplars, reverently improved +in a realistic direction. Duccio has dared to paint the Christ +as a laddie; and not as a little old man; he has shown the +soft forms of His body through light draperies; he has kept +the austerity of the Byzantine apostles but has attenuated +their harshness; he has worked the insipid female masks of +the older art into forms of a positive and dreamy grace. One +feels the tender mood of the work in the Latin jingle at the +foot of the throne, typical of dozens of similar dedications in +Siena:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">Mater Sancta Dei</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">Sis caussa Senis requei</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">Sis Duccio vita</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="la">Te quia pinxit ita</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>which I may rudely paraphrase:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Holy Mother of God: grant Siena rest,</div> + <div class='line'>Grant life to Duccio,—he did his best.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>All the sensibility of the City of the Virgin is in these prattling +rhymes with which they loved to hallow and offer great pictures.</p> + +<div id='f_038' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span> +<img src='images/f_038.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 38.</span> Duccio. Entry into Jerusalem; Christ Washing the Apostles’ Feet; Last Supper. From the back of the great Madonna.—<em>Opera del Duomo, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>If the front of this panel shows only moderate innovations, +the case is not so for the back. The two score stories from the +Bible or early Christian legend, in the distribution of the +figures follow faithfully the standard Italo-Byzantine compositions. +Where Duccio steps in is in bettering the forms, +giving grace to the draperies, and animation to the gestures—above +all in providing contemporary architectural accessories, +and coping with the problem of space. He also carries to +their ultimate refinement certain decorative formulas which +the Byzantine painters had glimpsed but not fully realized. +Thus two quite opposed tendencies pass into Sienese painting +from Duccio;—a rather small preoccupation with accessories +and the problem of space, and a pure æstheticism concerned +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>with finesses of decorative arrangement—in short, the prose +and the poetry of Sienese painting.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sienese narrative painting tends to be scrupulous about +details and inscenation, quite as a good story-teller naturally +provides incidents that make for plausibility. We may see +how Duccio’s mind works in the familiar theme of Christ +entering Jerusalem, Figure <a href='#f_038'>38</a>. Duccio sets the spectator +in a garden with an open gate, thus throwing the scene back a +little. Above the procession and the rejoicing throng rises a +city wall, and still higher against the sky bristle Gothic towers +and spires. Thus the theme gains picturesqueness and variety. +One forgets that there is hardly space for the welcoming throng +before the gate, and that the donkey’s four feet are on a level +although he is going up hill. These little maladjustments +show that while Duccio took infinite pains in inventing the +setting, he borrowed the figure groups bodily from earlier +Byzantine compositions in which the setting was simpler. In +this piecing-together process he turns some pretty sharp +corners, but he never sacrifices clarity and expressiveness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the scene where the maid servant catches the Galilean +burr in Peter’s voice, Figure <a href='#f_039'>39</a>, and asks if he be not a follower +of Jesus, we find Duccio’s method quite at its best. +Nothing could be better than the sudden turn of the girl with +one foot on the steps. Fine, too, is the concentration of the +crowd on the exciting problem of gossip. Well-observed, their +actions as they warm their feet and hands at the fire. Vivid, +too, the impulsive gesture of Peter as he denies the charge. +The place, a court yard with a staircase leading right into the +picture above, which represents the court room where Jesus +is being questioned, is most elaborately planned. One looks +back through a portal into farther spaces. All this was so +new and interesting that I presume the Sienese have never +noticed to this day that the seated group would never fit in +the space assigned to it and that the positions of the figures +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>are ambiguous. The picture does admirably its work of +telling a story spiritedly, and that is enough.</p> + +<div id='f_039' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_039.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 39.</span> Duccio. Peter denies Christ.—<em>Opera del Duomo, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Duccio’s Calvary, Figure <a href='#f_041'>41</a>, is remarkable for breadth, +spectacular effectiveness, and a measured pathos. As usual +he multiplies actors and incidents while keeping the orderliness +of the arrangement. The slightness of all the forms, their +little weight and uncertain balance are apparent. And there +is, on the same principle of taste, a similar attenuation of +emotion. Where Giotto at Padua gave stark tragedy, Duccio +offers a gentle flutter of restrained grief.</p> + +<div id='f_040' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_040.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 40.</span> Duccio. The Marys at the Tomb.—<em>Opera del Duomo.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Such is the average of these narratives, clear, picturesque, +circumstantial, infused with a generalized and never very +intense emotion. There are some, mostly composed with few +figures, which reveal a great fastidiousness of arrangement. +In such a composition as the Marys at the Tomb, Figure <a href='#f_040'>40</a>, +Duccio reveals himself as pure æsthete, as consummate master +of linear composition. The motive is essentially insignificant, +merely that the Marys shrunk at the sight of the angel +at the tomb, but out of that motive of withdrawal is wrought +through the little panel a lovely rhythm to which everything +contributes—the rise of the cliffs and their crinkly edges, +the contrasting angles of the tomb and its impossibly tilted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>lid, the reciprocal curve of the angel. We grasp in the picture +a general truth which reaches far beyond Duccio and Siena, +that a too conscious struggle for style precludes any complete +expression of emotional significance. For this picture is as +trivial as a narrative as it is exquisite as a decoration.</p> + +<div id='f_041' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_041.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 41.</span> Duccio. Calvary.—<em>Opera del Duomo.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Duccio, who disappears from our sight about the year 1318, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>fixed once for all the character of the Sienese school. In +narrative it was to adopt the placid and tender tone of legend, +most unlike the urgent and dramatic mood of Giotto. The +Sienese artist was too reverent to raise the question how did +this happen, and how did the persons feel; he asked rather +“How do we feel about it as believers?” The beauty of the +work, then, is not that of outer reality but of revery and +meditation. It never has the tang and variety of good Florentine +narrative painting, but within its lovingly modulated +monotony, Sienese narrative painting is supremely charming.</p> + +<div id='f_042' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_042.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 42.</span> Simone Martini. Madonna in Majesty. Fresco.—<em>Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Duccio also started in Siena a somewhat worried and petty +concern with accessories, architecture, complications of perspective. +He inaugurated a tradition of material splendor in +gilding, tooling, delicate graduation of color which remained +the glory of Sienese painting for nearly two centuries. So +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>far as we know he painted only in tempera on panel, and +the Sienese generally were to triumph in this feminine form +of work rather than in the masculine methods of fresco. +Finally Duccio took over from Byzantine art and perfected certain +finesses of highly simplified and abstract composition, a +pure æstheticism distinctly Sienese and wholly alien to the +warm humanism of Florence. You will find this austerely +lovely style at its best in Simone Martini, and surviving +as late as Sassetta and the middle of the fifteenth century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After Duccio, Sienese painting divides itself into two tendencies, +one aristocratic, chivalric and æsthetic, deriving +from his decorative manner; the other popular, narrative and +realistic, deriving from his minutely staged scenes on the back +of the great altar-piece. Of the aristocratic style Simone +Martini is the greatest exemplar, of the popular style, the +brothers Lorenzetti.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Simone Martini was born in 1283 or thereabouts. We +first meet him as an artist in the great frescoed Majesty of +the Virgin, Figure <a href='#f_042'>42</a>, completed in 1315 for the Palazzo +Pubblico, Siena. The arrangement is like that of Duccio’s +Majesty, finished only five years earlier, and the facial types +are generally those of Duccio. But the great fresco gains +clarity and impressiveness from the added space, from the +picturesque motive of a canopy, from the isolation and elevation +of the Madonna above her escort, and from the rich +Gothic forms of the throne, which are a novelty in painting. +While most of the faces show the orientalism of Duccio, +the Madonna has the level-browed, intent character of Gothic +art, and the Child is realistic. Gothic again is the graceful +border with its fine medallions, and the bright colors of the +whole. It is the most splendid enthroned Virgin in the world, +and she is conceived chivalrically as a sort of tournament +queen with her paladins upholding a canopy, and angel +pages on their knees offering roses and lilies.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>To the Sienese this was a political picture, as a rhymed +inscription in Italian shows. The saintly patrons of Siena +address the Virgin:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Angelic flowers, roses and lilies</div> + <div class='line'>With which the heavenly meadow is adorned,</div> + <div class='line'>Delight me less than do good counsels.</div> + <div class='line'>But sometimes I see such as verily</div> + <div class='line'>Despise me and my city betray,</div> + <div class='line'>And gain praise the more for evil words,</div> + <div class='line'>With such as merit condemnation.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>The Virgin answers the saints patrons somewhat evasively:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Fix my delights in your minds,</div> + <div class='line'>So that I shall, as ye wish,</div> + <div class='line'>Fulfil your honorable requests.</div> + <div class='line'>But if the powerful molest the weak,</div> + <div class='line'>Oppressing whether with shame or harm—</div> + <div class='line'>Let not your prayers be made for these</div> + <div class='line'>Nor for whomsoever betrays my city.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div id='f_043' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_043.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 43.</span> Simone Martini. St. Martin Knighted.—<em>Lower Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In Simone’s work this great +Majesty is an exception. He +preferred generally to work on a +more restricted scale, to burn +the lamp of æsthetic sacrifice. +I can merely allude to the great +idealized portrait of St. Louis of +Toulouse, in S. Lorenzo, Naples. +It was painted for King Robert +of Anjou, whose kneeling figure +appears in the picture, sometime +after 1317. The thing is resplendent +in gold and azure, adorned +by curiously twisted Gothic +borders; in sentiment it is impassive as a Buddhist painting.</p> + +<div id='f_044' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span> +<img src='images/f_044.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 44.</span> Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi. The Annunciation.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>About the year 1325,<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c012'><sup>[20]</sup></a> we may surmise, Simone was called +to Assisi to fresco the Chapel of St. Martin in the Lower +Church. He set upon the walls so many fairy tales, tender +and sprightly in sentiment, provided with the few essential +accessories that a rapid story-teller would need. What more +charming than the boy Martin praying while they bind on +him the equipment of a knight, Figure <a href='#f_043'>43</a>, and musicians +sound a fanfare! What more gallant than the lad setting out +on crusade against the Teutons who lurk in a cleft of the +background! This gracious childlike quality, quite akin to the +tender phase of Duccio, is exceptional in Simone, who habitually +is the strenuous decorator.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His sparse and austere methods appear clearly in the +commemorative fresco of Guidoriccio, hired general of Siena, +and conqueror of Sassoforte. It is in the Palazzo Pubblico +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>and duly dated 1328. Nothing is realistic but the horse and +rider. They are isolated, hold alone a field made up of +pure symbols for camps, and fortresses and craggy hill-tops, +yet the martial effect is unmistakable and the composition +most quaintly impressive.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The quintessence of Simone’s later art is in the famous +Annunciation of the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_044'>44</a>. In order to justify +the most nervously exquisite of linear arrangements he has +chosen the least significant moment of the event. His Virgin +is merely a sullen princess resenting an intrusion; the Gabriel, +an etherialized courtier pleading a cause with apologies. But +the contrast of the advancing and shrinking motives gave +Simone precisely what he wanted. He builds up areas richly +colored or brocaded, bounded by sharp curves, relieved by +flutters and spirals of flying drapery, and accentuated by such +details as the olive twigs and the lily which have the crisp +incisiveness of finest metal work. As a triumph of pure +decoration Gothic painting has nothing better to show +than this lovely panel which was finished in 1333 for the +chapel of Sant’ Ansano at Siena. It has little quality of +heart in it, and no reverence save that of consummate workmanship.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Great honors awaited Simone. He was called to the exiled +papal court at Avignon in 1339, met Petrarch, painted Petrarch’s +Laura and is lauded in one of the poet’s sonnets. +Of Simone’s work at Avignon we have only a few small panels +scattered between Antwerp, Paris, Liverpool, and Berlin. +The compositions, most of which belonged to a composite +altar-piece depicting Christ’s passion, waver between his old +simple style and a crowded and animated mood reminiscent +of Duccio, and influenced by the Lorenzetti. Simone is unable +to resist the universal tendency towards diffuse narrative, +and in so far as he yields to it, he is less than himself. Christ +Bearing His Cross, in the Louvre, exemplifies the extravagance +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>and morbidness of this latest manner, Figure <a href='#f_045'>45</a>. His +strength lies in sacrifice and abstraction, his real affinities are +the contemporary Buddhist painters of China and Japan, +though of course he knew nothing of them. He died in 1344, +leaving behind him a tradition +of fastidious artistry which was +potent in Siena for over a century.</p> + +<div id='f_045' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_045.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 45.</span> Simone Martini. Christ bearing His Cross.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>As late as 1450, Lorenzo Ghiberti +informs us in his “Commentaries,”<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c012'><sup>[21]</sup></a> +the Sienese regarded +Simone Martini as their greatest +painter. He differed from them, +preferring, himself, Ambrogio +Lorenzetti. This was an eminently +Florentine choice, Ambrogio’s +warmth, concreteness, +and elaboration were on the +whole Florentine. He worked +for several years at Florence, +must have known Giotto, certainly +studied him with discerning +admiration. With his elder +brother, Pietro, Ambrogio Lorenzetti gave to Duccio’s tradition +of detailed narrative painting its perfected form. They were +great fresco painters, and most characteristic as such. In +panel painting they are less original, but they bring into this +highly conventional art a great ardor and curiosity. They +represent the popular average of Siena as Simone Martini +represented its aristocratic minority.</p> + +<div id='f_046' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span> +<img src='images/f_046.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 46.</span> Pietro Lorenzetti. Madonna with Saints, 1320.—<em>Pieve, Arezzo.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We first meet Pietro Lorenzetti as an artist in the altar-back +at the Pieve, Arezzo,<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c012'><sup>[22]</sup></a> Figure <a href='#f_046'>46</a>, which was finished in +1320. It is an <i><span lang="it">ancona</span></i>, or compartmented piece and the most +splendid that has come down in Romanesque form. The figures are of two sorts. The Madonna is of intent Gothic type, +and the fine motive of holding off the Christchild at elbow +length in order to see him better is borrowed from Giovanni +Pisano, who in turn took it from French Gothic sculpture. +So are the forms above in the Annunciation new and graceful, +while the little boxed room with its plastic column is also +novel. The Assumption of the Madonna in the highest pinnacle +is probably the earliest occurrence of this famous Sienese +theme in painting. But all the figures of saints in the three +orders of the side panels are taken almost without change +from Duccio’s great altar-piece. It would be interesting to +trace Pietro’s emancipation through a dozen panels. No one +better combined dignity with grace, and feeling, and splendor. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>His work in fresco is fragmentary and confused with that of +his younger brother. We are certain of nothing except a fragment +of a deeply felt Calvary in the Church of St. Francesco, +at Siena. Many critics ascribe to him the agitated and wildly +picturesque frescoes of the Passion in the left transept of the +Lower Church at Assisi.<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c012'><sup>[23]</sup></a> But this, I think, is a mistake. +Pietro is never in his certain works so lively and indecorous +and casual. We have to do with an artist influenced by +Duccio working about 1330, Pietro himself may appear as the +Stigmatization, Figure <a href='#f_047'>47</a>, and one or two of the other simpler +compositions. The other frescoes are chiefly interesting as +showing the dangers of the panoramic method of Siena. +Take the Last Supper, Figure <a href='#f_048'>48</a>. The theme is simply lost +in the fantastic richness of the accessories. It is hard to find +Christ or Judas, for the eye seeks the radiating rafters or +the scullery where cats lurk and eager scullions wipe the +dishes.</p> + +<div id='f_047' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_047.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 47.</span> Pietro Lorenzetti, or Follower. St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. Fresco.—<em>Lower Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_048' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span> +<img src='images/f_048.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 48.</span> School of Pietro Lorenzetti. The Last Supper. Fresco.—<em>Lower Church, Assisi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the Birth of the Virgin, dated 1342, Figure <a href='#f_049'>49</a>, Pietro +spoils a carefully studied and well-felt picture by elaboration +of the setting. The frame is conceived as the plastic front of +a Gothic room within and behind which, spaces are multiplied +confusingly. Here the pedantic preoccupation with the problem +of space offends the eye and destroys the unity of what +in a simpler setting would be a monumental composition. +It illustrates the dangers of that smaller realism which from +Duccio down afflicted the more progressive painters of Siena. +Such a picture enables us to appreciate the tact and thoughtfulness +with which Ambrogio Lorenzetti approached his +narrative themes.</p> + +<div id='f_049' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span> +<img src='images/f_049.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 49.</span> Pietro Lorenzetti. Birth of the Virgin.—<em>Opera del Duomo, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Ambrogio Lorenzetti was born about the beginning of the +century. In 1331 and later he painted remarkable frescoes +for the Church of St. Francis. These if complete would afford +the most interesting comparisons with Giotto at Florence, but +the two that remain are among the best narrative paintings +of the time. What will first strike the observer in the story +of St. Louis of Toulouse renouncing his throne as he takes the +Franciscan vow, Figure <a href='#f_050'>50</a>, is the variety and orderliness +of the emotions. The devotion of the saint is well offset by +the intense, melancholy curiosity of his brother Robert, who +becomes king through the sacrifice. The audience is divided +into admiring Franciscans and idly marveling courtiers, the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>whole well dominated by the kindly and reverend figure of +the Pope. Remarkable is the methodical division of the +spaces. A slender column establishes the picture plane and +sets the figures back. A sort of desk in a hollow square defines +and isolates the monastic group, while the courtiers +have their appropriate location in a third plane of alcoves. +Florence has next to nothing of this sort at this period, and +it may be noted that this careful division of spaces is not matter +of display and curiosity as in Duccio, but is logical and +effective as regards the persons of the narrative.</p> + +<div id='f_050' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_050.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 50.</span> Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Prince Louis of Toulouse receives the Franciscan Vow.—<em>San Francesco, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of similar significance, but more dramatic and picturesque, +is the martyrdom of the Franciscan missionaries before the +Sultan of Morocco. The elaborated spaces make for clarity, +the entirely professional and impersonal cruelty of the Moorish +tyrant and his bodyguard is splendidly caught and effectively +<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>contrasted with the courageous submission of the martyrs. +Lorenzo Ghiberti praises the energy and character of this +work, and the observer of today feels as deeply its romantic +appeal. All the figures are set on receding platforms, the +problem of space is solved along lines of intelligent literalism.<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c012'><sup>[24]</sup></a></p> + +<div id='f_051' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_051.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 51.</span> Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Madonna in Majesty.—<em>Massa Marittima.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It would be a pleasure to dwell on the Madonnas of Ambrogio. +The tragic Madonna of S. Francesco, Figure <a href='#f_033'>33</a>, +the Madonna with St. Dorothy and St. Lucy, in the Siena +Academy, the Virgin in Mr. Dan Fellowes Platt’s collection are +among the best. No other early Italian so combined nobility with +motherly warmth. His splendor and sweet dignity may best be +felt in the Majesty of the Virgin, Figure <a href='#f_051'>51</a>, in the little town of +Massa Marittima. The central motive, Mary and the Child embracing, +is almost Ambrogio’s invention. He rings the changes on +it in lovely modulations, while always retaining monumentality. +This picture is as stately as Duccio’s Majesty, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>as resplendent as Simone Martini’s, while having qualities of +ardor and fancifulness all its own. The fairy-like Virtues on +the steps of the Madonna’s throne especially show the rich +vein of pure fantasy which accompanied Ambrogio’s robustness. +The picture may be dated about 1336 or later.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Previous to its painting Ambrogio had passed some years +at Florence, where he must have studied and known Giotto, +and where he himself influenced powerfully the beginnings of the +new panoramic style. Whatever frescoes he himself did there +have perished, and the only memorials of his visit are certain +delightful little panels telling with vivacity and utmost circumstantiality +the legends of St. Nicholas. At Florence he +must have analyzed Giotto’s great political frescoes, now lost, +which depicted in symbols good and bad government. These +were surely the inspiration for the political symbols and illustrations +which Ambrogio, in the year 1337 and later, painted +in the great hall of the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The most famous is the Allegory of the State. The Commune +sits enthroned, above in the air are the theological virtues—Faith, +Hope and Charity; seated at the side are the +four secular virtues—Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and +Fortitude—and with them two additional personifications +useful to a state—Magnanimity and Peace. The graceful relaxed +figure of Peace, Figure <a href='#f_052'>52</a>, with her filmy drapery is +famous. Below the platform on which the Commune sits with +attendant virtues, are the grim, disciplined forms of men-at-arms +and a throng of magistrates and citizenry. At the left are symbolized +Concord and Justice as the supporters of a well-ruled +state. Here the symbolism is childishly obvious. Concord +holds her smoothing plane. From her hand go strings which +bind in fellowship a group of citizens below and lead above +to the figure of Justice. Still higher is Wisdom. Justice deals +punishment with one hand and grants aid with the other; +the Middle Ages never admitted that Justice was merely punitive. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>The figures of Justice and Concord are superb,—Ambrogio’s +Madonna type on a heroic scale.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As a pictorial representation of the finest mediæval ideas +of statecraft, this fresco is of incomparable interest. As a +decoration it is hardly successful. The theme has hampered +the artist, the handling of the figures in several scales with +the largest above, produces confusion and topheaviness. +Beautiful in the parts, it is disappointing in the whole.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Far better merely as decoration is the companion fresco +which represents the Effects of Good Government, Figure <a href='#f_053'>53</a>. +We have a peaceful city, the entrancing spectacle of Siena as +she was about the year 1339. Girls are dancing a carol in the +foreground with the quaintest dignity, mounted merchants +are passing, and if the picture were better preserved, we should +see the mechanics—or “artists” as they still call themselves +in Italy—working cheerily in their shops. In its richness +without confusion, this is the very triumph of the panoramic +realism which Ambrogio made popular throughout Italy.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There are many more frescoes in this series, mostly by +imitators of Ambrogio. The Sienese region is full of works +by him or by his faithful followers. His panel pictures are +in many galleries of Europe and America. They all confirm +the record of Ghiberti that Ambrogio had the habits of a +nobleman—a great sympathy, a fine scrupulousness, a real +magnanimity. Certain contemporaries seem greater, Giotto +surely, Simone Martini perhaps, but no Italian painter until +Raphael himself reveals so complete and harmonious a development. +We find no trace of the brothers Lorenzetti after +1348. Presumably they perished in the great plague of that +year.</p> + +<div id='f_052' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span> +<img src='images/f_052.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 52.</span> Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Peace, from the Fresco of Good Government.—<em>Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_054' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_054.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 54.</span> Luca Tommé. The Assumption of the Virgin.—<em>Jarves Coll., New Haven, Conn.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_053' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_053.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 53.</span> Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Results of Good Government—The Peaceful City. Fresco.—<em>Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>For a century after the plague year, 1348, the painters of +Siena imitated either the narrative realism of Ambrogio or +the decorative sparseness of Simone Martini. It is customary +to align them as of one camp or the other. We may indeed +say that such painters as Lippo Memmi, Andrea Vanni, and +Naddo Ceccarelli faithfully echo Simone, while such a master +as the influential Bartolo di Fredi, who is traceable as late as +1388, seems completely Lorenzettian. But most of the painters +follow freely both tendencies, employing Simone’s formulas in +altar-pieces with few figures, and Ambrogio’s in narrative. +Such eclecticism produced abundantly works of charm, for +delicate sentiment and ornate workmanship, but rather few +works of originality. Perhaps because of willingly accepted +limitations, the average is higher than that of Florence. +Throughout Italy it was a more popular style than the Florentine. +It dominated the coast region from Naples to Valencia, +penetrated into Umbria and the Adriatic marshes, and even +got a temporary foothold in Florence itself. It fitted in better +with mediæval ideals than the art of Giotto and Orcagna, +which implied classical antiquity and anticipated the humanism +of the Renaissance. On the whole Sienese art runs down +after the Lorenzetti died, losing the robustness which Ambrogio +had learned of Giotto, but its decline is gentle and interrupted +by beneficent reactions towards its established +glories. We may pass rapidly, and chiefly considering types, +the fifty-odd years between the Lorenzetti and the new century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Luca Tommé is credited with an exquisite little Assumption, +Figure <a href='#f_054'>54</a>, in the Jarves Collection at Yale University. The +picture, though it may be as late as 1370, repeats loyally the +formulas which Pietro Lorenzetti invented nearly fifty years +earlier. Perhaps Bartolo di Fredi, a rather superficial and +over-fecund artist, best represents the average condition as the +fourteenth century closed. In such a panel as the Adoration +of the Magi, in the Siena Academy, Figure <a href='#f_055'>55</a>, we see the +familiar theme for the first time expanded in a Lorenzettian +sense. It becomes a pageant, probably under the influence of +contemporary mystery plays. It is best conceived in the little +scenes in the background; the facial types and the simplified +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>setting on the whole recall Simone Martini. In other narrative +pictures Bartolo vies with Ambrogio Lorenzetti in complication +of planes and architecture. On the whole he is a +rather faint echo, but his note while thin is also true.</p> + +<div id='f_055' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_055.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 55.</span> Bartolo di Fredi. Adoration of the Magi.—<em>Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_056' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_056.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 56.</span> Barna. The Transfiguration.—<em>Collegiata, S. Gemignano.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The declining century produced only one robust painter in +Siena, the mysterious Barna whose damaged frescoes of the +Passion we see in the Collegiate Church of San Gemignano. +The forms are those of Simone Martini, the compositions even +more sparse than his, denuded of all accessories, and powerfully +impressive for this reason. The mood is brusque and +tragic, with nothing of Sienese sweetness. Barna seems a kind +of provincial Giotto misplaced and unrealized in the Sienese +country. In the fresco of the Transfiguration, Figure <a href='#f_056'>56</a>, +he rises to sublimity. Fra Angelico will merely repeat him +in San Marco sixty years later. Vasari tells us that Barna +died from a fall from his painting scaffold in 1381, and that +he was then young. If so, his originality was tremendous, for +he cleared away ruthlessly all the delightful but trivial stage +furniture so diligently collected by Duccio and the Lorenzetti. +Modern criticism ascribes to him several panels, and I venture +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>to add to the list the simple and stately Marriage of St. Catherine +in the Boston Museum of Art. Certainly it is one of +the most serious creations of the period. The type of the Christ +and the concise and characterful arrangement seem to mark +it as a fine Barna. The base is interesting, representing the +composing of a blood feud, and Miracles of St. Michael and +St. Margaret. While the simple pattern continues the tradition +of Simone, Barna avoids Simone’s linear grace-notes. +The finical element of the predecessor yields to a kind of realism. +Barna is really the critic of the Sienese school. He +silently insists that one may be decorative without too much +artifice, and dramatic without overtaxing the stage carpenter, +a very solitary and elevated spirit, to whom full justice has +not yet been done.</p> + +<div id='f_057' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_057.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 57.</span> The Three Living and Three Dead, detail from the Lorenzettian fresco, The Triumph of Death.—<em>Campo Santo, Pisa.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Most remarkable among the works inspired by the Lorenzetti +is the coarsely effective Triumph of Death, Figure <a href='#f_057'>57</a>. +in the famous cemetery cloister, Campo Santo, at Pisa. It +represents the hazards of the mortal life in view of certain +death and judgment. At the left a royal hunting party is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>stopped short by the sight and stench of three festering bodies +in coffins. The Hermit, Saint Macarius, points the obvious +lesson that kings and lords and fair ladies will turn to dust. +In the centre, miserable folk beckon and cry to Death to +descend and put them out of their distress. The harridan +death ignores the prayer and flies over a pile of corpses towards +a gay garden party. Death loves to cut down the young and +gay and happy, leaving the old and crippled to prolonged +sorrow. In the upper left hand corner you have monks going +about their quiet pursuits. The whole adjoining fresco is +given up to the lives of such desert saints. At the upper right +are angels and fiends struggling for little nude forms that +represent human souls. This motive is a sort of overflow +from a picture of the Last Judgment. The grim moral of the +three pictures is that the worldly life is one of mortal peril, +which may best be avoided by renouncing the world and joining +a monastic order. The work was completed about 1375, +is in the rougher following of the Lorenzetti, and has been +famous ever since it was painted on the cloister wall. Entirely +Sienese in its conception, in its ruggedness it transcends +the usual softness of the school. It is the last significant +work of the 14th century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Siena passed into the fifteenth century without greatly +changing her art. In the work of such traditional figures as +Taddeo Bartoli one may observe a certain coarsening of the +tradition. Mere splendor tends to replace the old delicacy, +narrative painting becomes ever more complicated and confused. +The latter tendency is manifested in frescoes which +Domenico di Bartolo painted, between 1440 and 1443 for the +Hospital of the Scala, Figure <a href='#f_058'>58</a>. Their crowded picturesqueness +grows legitimately out of the Lorenzettian tradition, +as does the elaboration of architectural accessories. But the +work also implies a certain knowledge of the current Florentine +discoveries in linear perspective and in architecture. A +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>small ingenuity runs pretty wild in these decorations, valuable +as they are in picturing the times.</p> + +<div id='f_058' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_058.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 58.</span> Domenico di Bartolo. Clothing the Naked, from fresco series, the Seven Acts of Mercy.—<em>Scala Hospital, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>About the time these frescoes were designed, a renovation +of Sienese painting was being made along divergent lines by +Stefano di Giovanni, nicknamed Sassetta,<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c012'><sup>[25]</sup></a> and by the eager +eccentric, Giovanni di Paolo. In both cases we have a reactionary +reform. Sassetta restudies devoutly Simone Martini +and the Lorenzetti, infusing his own tender mysticism both +into decoration and narrative. In a manner he combines the +two great currents of Siena’s past. We may best approach +him through the triptych of the Birth of the Virgin in the +Collegiate church at Asciano, Figure <a href='#f_059'>59</a>. It is his earliest +work painted not much later than 1428 when, being thirty-five years old, he joined the Painters’ Guild. The picture is +conceived in the strictest Lorenzettian fashion, the frame +being treated as the front or extension of the painted architecture. +Aside from this carefully constructed setting, with +its successive spaces, the casual and familiar distribution of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>the figures suggests strongly Pietro Lorenzetti. But the rich +accessories in Sassetta’s hands are delicately selected, the +humble gestures have an artless grace, the secondary figures +such as the brocaded handmaid entering from the rear are +fascinating in their own right. An air of alert gentleness runs +through the picture. It is shared by persons of all ages. +Such episodes as the chatting of two old men before a respectfully +listening urchin add nothing to the story but strongly +reinforce the faery charm of the whole. Winsomeness has +supplanted the monumental quality of the older school. Above +in the side gables are the scenes of the passing of the Virgin’s +soul and her funeral procession, both conceived in the manner +of the Lorenzetti. But the familiar forms are singularly animated +by a new spirit of tenderness. By a paradox these little +stories are really more like Duccio than any intervening work.</p> + +<div id='f_059' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_059.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 59.</span> Sassetta. The Birth of the Virgin.—<em>Asciano.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_060' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_060.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 60.</span> Sassetta. Marriage of St. Francis to Poverty.—<em>Chantilly, France.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_061' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span> +<img src='images/f_061.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 61.</span> Sassetta. Temptation of St. Anthony.—<em>Jarves Coll., New Haven, Conn.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Sassetta painted seven years on his masterpiece, the now +scattered <i><span lang="it">ancona</span></i> for the Franciscan Church at Borgo San +Sepolcro. The central panel was a St. Francis in ecstacy, +now in Bernard Berenson’s collection. On the back were +eight of the legends of the “Fioretti.” The panel was finished +in 1444. Especially delightful is the panel at Chantilly which +represents St. Francis’s mystical betrothal with Poverty, +Figure <a href='#f_060'>60</a>. This scene is before Monte Amiata, spaced off +from the group by checkerboard fields. The maidens, Chastity +and Obedience, sway lily-like beside their more resolute +sister, Poverty, upon whose timidly offered hand the little +saint firmly fixes a ring. Above, the celestial trio rises over +the mountain line, Poverty turning a regretful face to her +humble bridegroom. The simple pattern with its swaying +lines derives from Simone Martini, but there is none of his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>petulant superiority in it, none of his nervousness. The realm +is not the airless heights of a pure æstheticism but a very +human dreamland. Again Duccio at his best is the closest +analogy. Bernard Berenson in his admirable little book <em>A +Painter of the Franciscan Legend</em> well describes the technical +perfection of such work as this. It is conceived in “outlines +which have in themselves an energy and vitality, that, whether +they are representative or calligraphic, give off values of movement, +and values of movement have the power to suggest +the unembodied, life unclogged by matter, something in brief +that comes close to the utmost limits of what visual art can +do to evoke spirit.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Apart from these sublimated reveries of Sassetta which +express themselves in utmost delicacy of line, hue, and touch, +he had a refreshing, drastic, almost a humorous side, which +may be exemplified in a Temptation of St. Antony, Figure +<a href='#f_061'>61</a>, in the Jarves Collection at New Haven. Beside his +coral-red hut in a desert bounded by a wood that seems the +world’s end, the Saint starts away from a demure and very +plain little girl. He is perplexed, divining rather than seeing +the tiny bats’ wings which mark her as a demon. The +horizon is so curved that one almost feels the old earth swinging +unconcernedly beneath this dilemma. A picture full of +grotesque and authentic imagination, most true to the hobgoblin +tradition of the expiring Middle Ages.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sassetta died in 1450, and his two long-lived pupils, Sano di +Pietro (1406–1481) and Giovanni di Paolo, (1403–1482) kept +something of his influence alive for still thirty years.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sano needs few words. He took nothing from his master +but certain formal patterns, fine gilding and blithe colors. +He repeats himself tediously, there are over fifty of his panels +in the Siena Academy alone, yet is so genuine and unpretending +that one forgets his lack of delicacy and insight. A +little Coronation of the Virgin, at New Haven, may sufficiently +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>represent his decorative phase. It is a nosegay of fair +colors on burnished gold. In narrative painting he is Lorenzettian +without the <i><span lang="fr">finesse</span></i> of his master. At least he helped +prolong a lovely tradition beyond its natural term, and that +is his chief merit. “A famous painter and a man wholly +dedicated to God”—(<i><span lang="la">Pictor famosus et homo lotus deditus +Deo</span></i>)—we read in his death notice. Siena knew how to appreciate +a traditionalist.</p> + +<div id='f_062' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_062.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 62.</span> Giovanni di Paolo. Young St. John Baptist goes to the Desert.—<em>Formerly Charles Butler Coll., London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Giovanni di Paolo, on the contrary, suffered not from deficient +originality but from its excess. He selects restlessly +from the older pictures. You will find pure Duccian figures +in his paintings of the fifties. He studies the sparse decorative +perfections of Simone Martini and exaggerates their nervousness. +He drives expression into caricature, seeks strength in +distortion, was the post-impressionist of his day. His extravagance +is unpleasing in his larger pieces, but is piquant enough +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>in his numerous small panels. One of a pair in English private +possession shows the Youthful St. John jauntily setting off +for the desert, with a quite cubistic treatment, Figure <a href='#f_062'>62</a>, of +the lines of the fields. The motive is still more ingeniously +employed in one of a remarkable set of pictures belonging to +Mr. Martin Ryerson of Chicago. Giovanni’s predilection for +distortion and grimace is shown in The Baptism of Christ, +a pendant to the story of the youthful John, both being +parts of one predella.</p> + +<div id='f_063' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_063.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 63.</span> Matteo di Giovanni. Saint Barbara with Saints.—<em>S. Domenico.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Giovanni died in 1482 at the advanced age of seventy-nine, +having faithfully preserved the old Gothic tradition while +making it a vehicle of his own resolute eccentricity.</p> + +<div id='f_064' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span> +<img src='images/f_064.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 64.</span> Matteo di Giovanni. Massacre of the Innocents.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The slight concession which Siena made to the Renaissance +was inaugurated by Lorenzo Vecchietta, active from about +1440 to 1480. He was primarily a sculptor and his silver +altar-back was deemed worthy, in 1506, to displace the +great Majesty of Duccio from the high altar of the Cathedral. +Vecchietta chiefly shows the effect of his studies as architect +and sculptor in a severe regard for anatomy, and in the Renaissance +character of his architectural settings. He painted +for the Cathedral of Pienza a majestic Assumption, his masterpiece. +There are numerous frescoes by him at Siena; he +is perhaps most agreeable in little stories elaborately set amid +rich architecture, but he lacks the sprightliness of the true +narrative tradition. “He was a melancholy and solitary person,” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>writes Vasari, “and always sunk in thought.” He did +something to give to the Sienese painting of the end of the +century a new and complicating thoughtfulness.</p> + +<div id='f_065' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_065.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 65.</span> Benvenuto of Siena. Assumption of the Virgin.—<em>Metropolitan Museum, New York.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Far the most versatile painter at Siena in the second half +of the fifteenth century was Matteo di Giovanni.<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c012'><sup>[26]</sup></a> He was not +a native, but born about 1430 at Borgo San Sepolcro in upper +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>Umbria. There he worked for a time with that stern realist +Piero della Francesca. Thus Matteo brought to Siena better +training than his fellows had, but he soon fell contentedly +into the ways of the place. His madonnas and female saints +have a new touch. They are more girlish and fragile than +their predecessors, more exquisite, more fashionable. The type +is represented in dozens of panels of which Enthroned Saint +Barbara, at Saint Domencio, dated 1477, Figure <a href='#f_063'>63</a>, is a fine +example.</p> + +<div id='f_066' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_066.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 66.</span> Girolamo di Benvenuto. Love bound by Maidens. Birth Salver.—<em>Jarves Coll., New Haven, Conn.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In such work Matteo continues the tradition of Sassetta +along somewhat superficial lines of prettiness. He is far more +original in the several versions of the Massacre of the Innocents, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>in which seeking a maximum of intensity he achieves +only a very interesting sort of caricature. The picture at +S. Agostino, Figure <a href='#f_064'>64</a>, dated 1482, is perhaps the best of +the group. We are in the realm of the grisly fairy tale, at an +ogre’s sports. The crowding, tumult, ornate architecture are +simply Matteo’s attempts to refurbish the old Lorenzettian +tradition. His real quality best appears in the outlines prepared +for the figure decoration of the pavement of the Cathedral. +In general his is an engaging but entirely undisciplined +talent, oscillating after the fashion of the moment, alike in +Florence and Siena, between mere prettiness and sheer restlessness. +He died in 1495, Michelangelo’s star being already +in the ascendent over neighboring Florence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A kind of petrification of the traditional charm of Siena +is in the work of Benvenuto di Giovanni, scholar of Sassetta. +He cultivates a resplendent impassivity, is severe without +much background of knowledge. His stiffness is gracious +enough, like that of an aristocrat who maintains amid difficulties +the dignity of an older school. His sense of formal +pattern and skill in modeling in a very blond key may be +enjoyed in his versions of the favorite theme of the Assumption. +One of the best of these, dated at the end of the century +in the year 1498, is in the Metropolitan Museum, Figure +<a href='#f_065'>65</a>. Benvenuto was born in 1436 and died about 1518. He +might, had he chosen, have studied the whole realistic development +from Fra Angelico to Leonardo da Vinci, but his painting +keeps a chill virginal quality quite apart from life, its problems +and allurements.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His son Girolamo continued the manner with less monumentality +until his death in 1524. To his early activity belongs +the delightful salver, Love Bound by Maidens, Figure +<a href='#f_066'>66</a>, in the Jarves Collection at New Haven. It is merely the +tray on which the gifts were presented to a young mother during +the visits of congratulation. It was painted for some member +<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>of the famous Piccolomini family, presumably about the year +1500. The stern maidens who are plucking and binding the +stripling Love, doubtless are personifications of Chastity, +Temperance and the like. In the middle distance a knight +rides off free to adventure since Love is safely bound. It is +an odd theme for a gift to a young bride and mother, but +the Italians never required consistency in their compliments. +The daintiness of the treatment is typical for Renaissance +painting at Siena, which never assumes a robust or realistic +or humanistic accent.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There is a refinement which is the harbinger of death. It +appears in Siena in the person of Neroccio di Landi. He +sublimates the style of his great predecessors, Simone and +Sassetta, adding freely the more delicate ornamentation of +the Renaissance. There is a peculiar pallor in his coloring +and tension in his modelling. It is an art of nerves and ecstasies, +wholly etherial. An admirable Annunciation in the +Jarves Collection at New Haven shows the rich setting, the +odd blend of precision with a languor that marks Neroccio as +true grandson of Simone Martini. There are many little panels +of Madonnas with saints of amber translucency. They have +the startling vividness and irreality of an hallucination. And +there is a portrait of a girl in the Widener Collection, Figure <a href='#f_067'>67</a>, +which is of a superlatively delicate prettiness. Neroccio was +born in 1447 and died in 1500. With him passed the special +fragrance of Sienese art.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Until 1475, Neroccio was in partnership with one whose +ambition went far to destroy what Neroccio and Siena stood +for. Francesco di Giorgio was born in 1439. With an ambition +and resolution wholly un-Sienese, he mastered the arts of +painting, sculpture, architecture and engineering. He met +Leonardo da Vinci at Pavia, worked for the tyrants of Milan, +competed for the façade of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the +Flower at Florence. As architect and engineer it appears +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>that he became a cosmopolitan, in painting it was hardly so. +He is most delightful in his early phase which is represented +by a bride-chest in the Wheelwright collection, Boston. It +represents Prince Paris insolently appraising the charms of +the rival goddesses, and at the +right riding Troywards in disregard +of the despair of forsaken +Œnone. The classical theme is +tinged with mediævalism, naturalized +as Sienese. Later pictures, +such as The Nativity, Figure <a href='#f_068'>68</a>, +in the Sienese gallery, show Francesco +uneasy, twisting his figures +for grace and display of knowledge, +working over the old landscape +formulas in a semi-realistic +sense, adding classical architecture, +generally trying to break +the bounds of the old idealism. +The result is restlessness or at +best an ambiguous charm. Siena is beginning to regret her +isolation, to make vain efforts to overtake the tide of humanistic +realism, to envy Florence, and even Perugia and Cortona. +From the point of view of the Renaissance she was two +generations behind, and no longer indifferent to the fact.</p> + +<div id='f_067' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_067.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 67.</span> Neroccio di Landi. Portrait of a Girl.—<em>Widener Coll., Elkins Park, Pa.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Not merely Francesco di Giorgio tries to do in a decade the +work of a century, but such younger contemporaries as Fungai +and Pacchiarotti look to Florence or Umbria. Siena was +given no time to reconstruct, and her old beautiful art could +not readily assume new forms. Siena never assimilated the +Renaissance. It invaded her, killed her native art and substituted +one without local flavor. Before Francesco di Giorgio +died, in 1502, he had seen Luca Signorelli called to Siena and +the clever decorator Pintorricchio. Siena no longer trusted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>her own artists. Francesco probably took little note of the +advent in 1501, of a young Piedmontese painter, Antonio +Bazzi,<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c012'><sup>[27]</sup></a> nicknamed Sodoma, yet with Sodoma remained +what little future there was in +Sienese painting.</p> + +<div id='f_069' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_069.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 69.</span> Sodoma. Vision of St. Catherine of Siena. Fresco.—<em>S. Domenico, Siena.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Sodoma brought to Siena the +knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci, +the new draughtsmanship in +light and shade. He assimilated +the sensibility of Siena but +coarsened it. No painter of the +time was more overtly sentimental. +His famous St. Sebastian at +Florence tells all that need be +known about him,—his considerable +skill, his exaggerated +pathos, his clever use of poise +and balance, his sober modern +tonalities. His sentimental power +is at its height in the fresco +at S. Domenico, Siena, which +represents S. Catherine swooning +at the vision of her lover, the Christ, Figure <a href='#f_069'>69</a>. Sodoma +worked indefatigably in and about Siena till 1549. The few +local painters of a progressive sort, Domenico Beccafumi, +Girolamo del Pacchia, either directly imitate Sodoma or draw +from similar alien sources. The only man of genius Siena +produced in these years, Baldassare Peruzzi (1481–1536), soon +went to Rome where in architecture he held his own with all +comers, whereas in painting he became a modest imitator of +Raphael.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the ten years after 1500 the old art perished. Siena +from being the last radiant exemplar of the glory of the mediæval +spirit sunk to the estate of a fourth class station of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>Renaissance. Her idealism could not bear the test of reality. +Her domain had been that of legend and fairy tale and dream, +she had ruled it exquisitely for two centuries until sheer taste +had absorbed her little strength. She had left unforgettable +records of her most precious feelings, but little record of her +outer activities. Think how portraits abound in Florentine +and Venetian art after 1450! There are practically none at +Siena. So it would be futile to go to Siena for a greater understanding +of the active life. But if you would requicken the +sense of legend, live over again the tenderness mankind has +ever felt for the beautiful past, hear some faint blowing +of the horns of elfland—if you want this experience, then go +to The gracious City of the Virgin and you shall find fulfilled +the generous motto over her main portal—Siena will open +her heart wide to thee.</p> + +<div id='f_068' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_068.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 68.</span> Francesco di Giorgio. Nativity.—<em>Belle Arti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span> + <h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER II</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>A Sonnet to the Spendthrift Club</span></h4> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>by</div> + <div class='c004'>FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO</div> + <div class='c004'><em>translated by</em></div> + <div class='c004'>DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“I give you horses for your games in May,</div> + <div class='line in2'>And all of them well trained unto the course—</div> + <div class='line in2'>Each docile, swift, erect, a goodly horse:</div> + <div class='line'>With armor on their chests and bells at play</div> + <div class='line'>Between their brows, and pennons fair and gay;</div> + <div class='line in2'>Fine nets and housings meet for warriors,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Emblazoned with the shields ye claim for yours,</div> + <div class='line'>Gules, argent, or, all dizzy at noon day;</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>And spears shall split and fruit go flying up</div> + <div class='line'>In merry counterchange for wreaths that drop</div> + <div class='line in2'>From balconies and casements far above;</div> + <div class='line'>And tender damsels with young men and youths</div> + <div class='line'>Shall kiss together on the cheeks and mouths</div> + <div class='line in2'>And every day be glad with joyful love.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>How Venus Fared in Siena</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Ghiberti, in his commentaries (ed. Frey, Berlin 1886, p. 57 ff.) tells +how a marble Venus, bearing the name of Lysippus was dug up at Siena.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“I saw it only as drawn by a very great painter of the city of Siena, +who was called Ambrogio Lorenzetti. This drawing was kept with +greatest care by a very old Carthusian. This brother was a goldsmith, +and his father, and was a designer and delighted greatly in the art of +sculpture; and he began to tell me how that statue was discovered as +they were making an excavation where now are the houses of the Malavolti; +how all those instructed and versed in the art of sculpture, with +the goldsmiths and painters ran to see this so marvellous and artistic +statue. Every one praised it greatly, and also the great painters who +then were in Siena—to every one it seemed absolutely perfect. And +with all honors they set it upon their fountain, as a most splendid thing. +All gathered to place it with greatest rejoicing and honor and they +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>fixed it magnificently upon that fountain, which statue reigned there +but passingly.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>“For as the city had many adversities in the war with the Florentines, +and the flower of the citizenry were assembled in council, a citizen rose +and spoke about the statue in this tenor: ‘Gentlemen and citizens, +having considered that since we have found this statue it has always +gone wrong with us, and considering that idolatry is forbidden by our +faith, we must believe of all the adversities which we have that God sends +them for our errors. And behold in truth that since we have honored +this statue we have always gone from bad to worse. I am certain that +so long as we keep it in our territory it will always go wrong with us. +As a councillor I would advise that it be taken down and shattered and +split up and be sent to be buried on the soil of the Florentines.’</p> + +<p class='c019'>“Unanimously they confirmed the words of their citizen and put them +in execution, and the statue was buried upon our soil.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>A Procession on the Completion of Duccio’s Majesty</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>“On the day that it was carried to the Duomo the shops were shut; +and the Bishop bade a goodly and devout company of priests and friars +should go in solemn procession, accompanied by the Nine Magistrates +and all the officers of the Commune and all the people; all the most +worthy followed close upon the picture, according to their degree, with +lights burning in their hands; and then behind them came the women +and children with great devotion. And they accompanied the said +picture as far as the Duomo, making procession round the Campo as is +the use, all the bells sounding joyously for devotion of so noble a picture +as is this. And all that day they offered up prayers, with great +alms to the poor, praying God and His Mother who is our advocate, +that he may defend us in His infinite mercy from all adversity +and all evil, and that He may keep us from the hands of traitors and +enemies of Siena.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>Translated in Edmund G. Gardiner’s <cite>The Story of Siena</cite>, p. 178, +from the Anonymous contemporary chronicler published by A. Lisini +in <cite>Notizie di Duccio</cite>.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>A Contract for an Altar-piece by pietro lorenzetti</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>“Master Pietro, son of the late Lorenzetto, who was of Siena, solemnly +and willingly promises and agrees with the venerable Father Guido, +by God’s grace Bishop of Arezzo, who stipulates in the name and stead +of the people of St. Mary of Arezzo—to paint a panel of the Blessed +Virgin Mary, ... in the centre of which panel shall be a likeness of +the Virgin Mary with her Son and with four side figures according to +the wish of the aforesaid Lord Bishop, working in the backgrounds of +these figures with finest gold leaf, 100 leaves to a florin, ... and the +other ornaments of silver and of best and choicest colors; and using in +these five figures best ultramarine blue; and in the other adjoining and +surrounding spaces (panels) of this picture to be painted likenesses of +prophets and saints, according to the wish of this Lord Bishop, with +good and choice colors.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>“It must be six braccia long and five braccia high in the middle, +apart from two columns each a half braccia wide, and in each should +be six figures worked with the aforesaid gold, and the work shall be +approved by this Lord Bishop....”</p> + +<p class='c019'>“And he [Pietro Lorenzetti] must begin this work according to the +wish of this Lord Bishop, immediately after the wooden panel shall +have been made, and must continue in this work until the completion +of this picture, not undertaking any other work &c. And therefore the +said Lord Bishop Guido promises to have given and assigned to him +the panel made of wood; and to pay him for his wages for the picture +and for colors, gold and silver one hundred and sixty Pisan lire; that is +the third part at the beginning of the work, the third part at the middle +of the work, and the remaining third part when the work is finished +and complete &c.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>“Done in the church of the Holy Angels in Arcalto outside of and +next to the cemetery.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>Translated and slightly abridged from +Borghesi and Banchi, <cite>Nuovi Documenti per la Storia dell’ Arte Senese</cite>, +(Doc. 6, p. 10) Siena, 1898.</p> + +<p class='c020'>This contract well illustrates the elaborateness and strictness of such +agreements. It may be compared with the picture itself (Fig. <a href='#f_046'>46</a>). +Apparently the artist persuaded the Bishop to give up the plan of +twelve prophets and saints on two side pilasters, and made instead a +greater number (15) of figures in the upper arcade and pinnacles.</p> + +<div id='f_070' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span> +<img src='images/f_070.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 70.</span> Andrea del Castagno. David, Slayer of Goliath. Parade Shield.—<em>Widener Coll., Elkins Park, Pa.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter III</span></span><br> MASACCIO AND THE NEW REALISM</h2> +</div> +<p class='c011'>Ghiberti, Brunellesco, and Donatello about 1400 begin to study Nature and +the Antique—The new secular spirit—Discontent with the old pictorial +style expressed in reaction by Lorenzo Monaco—in cautious reform by +Fra Angelico—and Masolino—in revolutionary reform by Masaccio—The +Cassoni painters as illustrators of contemporary manners—Masaccio +and the new structure in light and shade—The Problem of the Brancacci +Frescoes—Masaccio’s enduring influence—The early Florentine Realists—Paolo +Uccello and Perspective—Andrea del Castagno and +Anatomy—Domenico Veneziano and Oil Painting—Alesso Baldovinetti.</p> + +<p class='c006'>In the two earlier chapters we have considered what Giorgio +Vasari calls the vigorous childhood of Italian painting. We +are now to observe its splendid youth. The story appropriately +begins with three young men and the year 1401 and with a +baby, later nicknamed Masaccio, who was born that same +year. The three young Florentines represent the new time-spirit. +The lucky one, Lorenzo Ghiberti, has just won a +competition for the new bronze doors of the Baptistery, and +has in that one commission more than twenty years of happy +work ahead. Ghiberti is sensitive and thoughtful beyond the +wont of the older craftsmen artists. He writes of an antique +statue: “It has sweetness of modelling which cannot be caught +either in a strong or a dim light, only the hand and touch can +find it.” Ghiberti is a critic and analyst as well as a creator. +In his “Commentaries,” a product of his old age, he writes: +“Thus I have always sought for first principles, as to how nature +works in herself, and how I may approach her, how the +eye knows the varieties of things, how our visual power works, +how visual images come about, and in what manner the theory +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>of sculpture and painting should be framed.” This is the +mood of the Renaissance in its most serious aspect.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This student mood was fully shared by two young friends +of Ghiberti. Donatello, the sculptor, and Brunellesco, later +the designer of the dome of the Cathedral at Florence, had +lost in the competition for the Baptistery doors. They accepted +defeat magnanimously, joined forces and went to Rome, +where their persistent way of poking among the ruins got them +the name of the treasure seekers. Such indeed they were, but +the treasure they sought was not gold, but the secrets of the +ancient sculptors and architects. So Donatello refined and +perfected the rugged realism he had from nature. As early +as 1416 he was to carve the alert and noble St. George for +Or San Michele. Brunellesco’s life dream was that lightest +and loveliest of domes which is still the architectural crown of +Florence, and almost incidentally he threw off designs that +filled Florence with elegant colonnades and churches which +renewed the dignity and joyousness of the best Roman building. +A resolute spirit, Brunellesco once tramped the sixty +miles from Florence to Cortona to see a newly excavated +statue. Not incidentally, then, but by hardest study, Brunellesco +worked out a correct practice of linear perspective. +This needed resource for the painter was now available when +any one had the sense to ask for it, and all the time young +Masaccio was growing up in San Giovanni up the Arno.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Such is the immediate background for the forward move in +painting which begins in 1422, or thereabouts, and runs +through fifty years of eager experimentation. As in the first +revival the sculptors and architects had shown the way to +the painters, so it was again. But there is also a remoter +social and commercial background for the Early Renaissance +which we must consider briefly. The great plague of 1348 +cuts Florentine history sharply in two. It marked an acceleration +of gayety and worldliness, of sports and pageantry. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>The chronicler Matteo Villani<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c012'><sup>[28]</sup></a> noted with amazement that +the plague had caused not repentance but dissipation. He +was shocked to see the old toga-like costume of the Florentines +give place to the bobtailed jerkins and parti-colored hose +borrowed from wicked France. Heritages were many and +heirs few. You saw the gowns of gentle and noble ladies on +backs of hussies or worse—the new wives. People ran to “the +sin of gluttony, to feasts and taverns, delicate viands and +games.” As for the poor folk, they no longer wished to work +at their trades, they expected the costliest food, they married +“<i><span lang="la">ad libitum</span></i>.” So began that loosening up of the old bourgeois +morals which culminated in the carnivals of the end of +the fifteenth century and in the libertine muse of Lorenzo the +Magnificent. All this meant an inspiring spectacle for the +artist to record, and plenty of lavish patronage, but also it +meant a disintegrating tendency for art. Painting is great in +Florence in the measure that it escapes the mere expansiveness +of the times and seeks discipline. As if to assert the +permanency of the spirit of discipline, the very year that set +Matteo Villani in despair, 1348, gave him also a chapter on +the founding of the Studio, a school of higher learning which +eventually became the University of Florence. And the +course of art for most of the fifteenth century was to be a +constant interplay and rivalry between the Florence of the +tavern and race-course and the Florence of the Studio, with a +final victory for the latter.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Oddly enough, the new luxury and gayety and the new +scholarship conspired to make the old painting inadequate. +The panoramic style of the fourteenth century was too simple +and unornate for the Frenchified Florentines; for the new +generation of strenuous artists, it was too slight and unskilful. +All the finer spirits at the beginning of the fifteenth century +are malcontents. Their unrest expressed itself, according to +temperament, in progress or reaction. The dominating artist +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>of the moment was a reactionary, Don Lorenzo Monaco,<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c012'><sup>[29]</sup></a> +Camaldolese monk. Turning from the superficiality of the +current Florentine style, he sought his corrective at Siena, +his birthplace, in the decorative exquisiteness of Simone Martini +and the narrative warmth and breadth of the Lorenzetti; +and he imports these qualities into Florence in an art as aristocratic +and retrospective as that of our own Pre-Raphaelites. +In his hands Gothic painting takes a new and unwarranted +lease of life. He is a brilliant colorist, a fastidious designer, +an austere spirit. Even his great Sienese exemplars have +hardly surpassed his masterpiece, the Coronation of the Virgin, +in the Uffizi. It is dated 1413. In the richness of +the Gothic frame, the profusion of small incidental figures, +the festooning curves of the swaying saints and angels, +and formal symmetry of arrangement, it well represents the +most florid type of Gothic painting as developed at Siena. +It is hard to realize that this lovely mediæval work was painted +at the moment when Brunellesco and his friends were already +turning sharply to nature and to the vision of Hellas. But +Lorenzo was a cloistered man, and appropriately a votary +of past perfections. His devout mood is best expressed +in the gracious Annunciation, Figure <a href='#f_071'>71</a>, which has happily +never left its original altar in the Church of the Trinità. +Here Lorenzo follows the Lorenzettian canons of space. A girlish +delicacy in the obedient Virgin is a new note, to be echoed +more sweetly by Lorenzo’s best follower, Fra Angelico. +Lorenzo died in 1425. Masaccio had already created the new +style of painting, but for a couple of decades faithful disciples +of Don Lorenzo carried on his style.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A lover of Plutarchian parallels and contrasts would swiftly +pass from Don Lorenzo Monaco to Masaccio. But one may +better understand the new movement by taking first men who +gradually and normally accepted the new knowledge. Such +are Fra Angelico and Masolino, who began as Gothic painters +and ended as Renaissance masters. They show us better the +average drift of the times than does so revolutionary a figure +as Masaccio.</p> + +<div id='f_071' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span> +<img src='images/f_071.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 71.</span> Lorenzo Monaco, Annunciation.—<em>Trinità.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_072' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_072.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 72.</span> Fra Angelico. Annunciation and Adoration of the Magi.—<em>Museum of S. Marco.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_073' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_073.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 73.</span> Fra Angelico. Coronation of the Virgin.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>Fra Angelico<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c012'><sup>[30]</sup></a> was born in 1387 and at twenty entered the +religious state as a Dominican at Fiesole. How soon Fra +Giovanni, not yet nicknamed Angelico, became a painter we +hardly know. But four little pictures designed to inclose in +their frames relics of the saints may represent his beginnings. +Three are at San Marco, Florence, one in Mrs. John L. Gardner’s +collection at Boston. The Little Annunciation with an +Adoration of the Magi, Figure <a href='#f_072'>72</a>, may represent the work. +It is refined, tender, of jewel-like freshness of color, graceful +in linear arrangement, at first sight wholly Sienese in inspiration, +and directly dependent on Lorenzo Monaco. A kind of +veracity under the richness of the expression marks the work +as after all straightforward and Florentine. The date may be +about 1425, Fra Angelico, being in his middle thirties, and +in his art about a century behind the times. In his early +Gothic manner he conceived some of his masterpieces, such as +the Coronation of the Virgin, with its glimpse of a celestial +cloud land; and the whimsically beautiful Last Judgment. +Both are at the Museum of San Marco. One can believe the +report of Vasari that each day Fra Angelico prayed before touching +brush to such masterpieces. Such pictures have the +hush and charm of a celestial dreamland, a meditative beauty +quite un-Florentine.</p> + +<div id='f_074' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span> +<img src='images/f_074.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 74.</span> Fra Angelico. Madonna dei Linaiuoli. Originally an outdoor tabernacle.—<em>Museum of S. Marco.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>All the time Fra Angelico was placidly and intelligently +studying the new realistic movement launched by Donatello +and Masaccio. He adopts what suits him, rejecting heavy +shadows which would dull his Gothic coloring, but adding +freely realistic details in anatomy, drapery, and architecture. +The Coronation of the Virgin in the Louvre, Figure <a href='#f_073'>73</a>, though +it may be only a few months later than that of the Uffizi, no +longer takes place in a cloudland before lucent gold, but in a +quite practicable architecture imitating the niche which +Michelozzo designed in 1423 for Donatello’s St. Louis of +Toulouse. The forms too are more substantial, more mundane. +Soon the architectural accessories become of Renaissance +type, and as Mr. Langton Douglas has shown, every new +invention of Michelozzo for a space of ten years is promptly +reflected in the painting of Fra Angelico. His greatest Madonna, +that of the Linen Guild, Figure <a href='#f_074'>74</a>, painted in 1433, is +almost plastic, recalling the severe sweetness of Orcagna. The +picture is really cumbered by the rich hangings, which with +the slender swaying angels in the bevel of the frame are already +an anachronism. In the Descent from the Cross, Figure +<a href='#f_075'>75</a>, we find Fra Angelico skilfully adopting the new discoveries +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>in anatomy and landscape. The treatment is broad +and panoramic in the tradition of the Lorenzetti but all the +details are carefully studied from nature and not furnished +by formula. A deeply felt scene thus gains verisimilitude, +comes out of the realm of legend and becomes an actuality. +The panel was finished in 1440, and, now that Masaccio was +gone, there was no living painter who could have put into it +with equal knowledge so much feeling.</p> + +<div id='f_075' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_075.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 75.</span> Fra Angelico. Deposition.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The building of the great Dominican Convent of San Marco +between 1437 and 1444 opened to Fra Angelico his great opportunity. +It was the gift of Cosimo de’ Medici, now unofficial +ruler of Florence, who had his good reasons for wishing to +assure the occasional repose of his busy soul in this world and +its permanent repose in the next. He often sought seclusion +in the convent and doubtless saw in progress the fifty or more +frescoes that Fra Angelico made to adorn it. Fra Angelico +was painting for deeply religious men, for scholars who had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>the Scriptures at their finger tips, and for this reason perhaps +he rejects all smaller realisms, reducing his compositions to +the mere figures. Thus the San Marco frescoes are more concise +even than those of Giotto, and they reach at their best +a simple sublimity as yet unattained in Italian art. Highly +formal and decorative, they are free from consciously æsthetic +taint. Sometimes I think Perugino learned much at San Marco +and that we may thus regard Fra Angelico as indirectly a +leading influence on Raphael. The sparse, effective method +may be illustrated in the fresco set over the door of the guest +quarters, the <em>Forestiera</em>. It represents a pilgrim Christ being +received by Dominican brothers. Figure <a href='#f_076'>76</a>. In the stranger +we entertain The Lord Himself is the simple lesson. The +figures are set against a conventional blue background but +are constructed with the authority of the new learning.</p> + +<div id='f_076' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_076.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 76.</span> Fra Angelico. Dominicans receive Christ as Pilgrim. Guest house door.—<em>S. Marco.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the Chapter House nearby Fra Angelico painted, about +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>1440, a great Crucifixion, Figure <a href='#f_077'>77</a>. The three laden +crosses stand out sharply against a murky sky. The setting +is a mere platform, on which the familiar forms of Mary and +the beloved Apostles are almost lost in a throng of witnesses +of every age. We have the Latin Fathers, and their successors—St. +Dominic and St. Francis, among others. The +arrangement is highly formal, the mood that of meditation; +the sharper tragedy of the theme is not insisted on. The +characterization of the saints is precise and fine, the drawing +of their forms admirable. Had the composition been set +against a Gothic, blue background, the mood would have +seemed merely sentimental. What gives it, with all its abstractness, +an almost sensational tang of reality is the +arching sky, slaty above and an ominous orange behind the +figures. The expedient brings an element of definite place and +time of day for this rendezvous of saints at a mystically renewed +Calvary.</p> + +<div id='f_077' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_077.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 77.</span> Fra Angelico. Mystical Crucification. Chapter House.—<em>S. Marco.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the cells of the convent, Fra Angelico and his helpers +painted no less than forty-three frescoes. These were intended +for the private devotions of the brother occupying the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>cell, and the subjects were probably chosen not by Fra Angelico +himself, but by his cloister mates. The best are conceived +like the frescoes of the lower story. The background +is just a veiled sky, there are no accessories, the figures loom +in an indefinite space. Majestic +is the Transfiguration, Figure <a href='#f_078'>78</a>, +very lovely the Coronation of +the Virgin. The angelic painter +draws the maximum effect from +the simplest patterns and briefest +means. There is the measured +and simple dignity of the early +Christian mosaics with a warmer +and more personal feeling. Fra +Angelico, when he wishes, can be +elaborately realistic. He is so in +the garden scene where the Risen +Christ gently rebuffs the Magdalen, +in the crowded Adoration +of the Magi, which tradition assigns to Cosimo de’ Medici’s +cell, and in the Annunciation, Figure <a href='#f_079'>79</a>, in the corridor with its +graceful Renaissance <i><span lang="it">loggia</span></i>. In this more circumstantial vein, +Fra Angelico is delightful, but I think below his best. In all +the frescoes at S. Marco, however, Fra Angelico appears as +a wholly Florentine figure with an art based at once on the +study of nature and on an understanding admiration for the +masterpieces of Giotto and Orcagna.</p> + +<div id='f_078' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_078.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 78.</span> Fra Angelico. Transfiguration, fresco in a cell at <em>S. Marco</em>.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Something of his mediævalism, of his Sienese manner, +persists in the numerous little predella panels, such as those +telling delightfully the story of the doctor saints, Cosmo and +Damian, and the series with the life of Christ which adorned +the doors of the plate lockers of the Church of S. Marco. +With their fully developed pictorialism, their careful regard +for the minor realisms of setting, these little pictures are the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>prelude to his last phase at Rome. They are also the last +Florentine pictures that observe those traditional iconographical +forms which had persisted for four centuries.</p> + +<div id='f_079' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_079.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 79.</span> Fra Angelico. Annunciation. Fresco.—<em>San Marco.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Fra Angelico ever refused to make money or accept promotion, +but became despite himself a celebrity. In 1445 he was +ordered to Rome by Pope Eugenius IV. The frescoes which +Fra Angelico then made in the Vatican are lost. There was +an escape to Orvieto, where Fra Angelico painted half the vault +of the Chapel of S. Brixio, which Signorelli was later to complete. +Fra Angelico was peremptorily recalled to Rome in +1447 by the new Pope, Nicholas V, who was planning a new +chapel in the Vatican. We see it today still radiant with the +legends of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence that Fra Angelico +thoughtfully composed more than four hundred years ago. +Modern critics have generally agreed in finding Fra Angelico’s +masterpieces in this chapel. If they mean his fullest display +<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>of knowledge, the opinion is incontestible. Nowhere else has +Fra Angelico invented such complications of architecture, +interiors, street perspectives; nowhere has he drawn better +figures in greater variety. Such frescoes as the lunette with +St. Stephen defending himself before the Jewish doctors and +preaching to the people, Figure <a href='#f_080'>80</a>, or that depicting St. +Lawrence giving alms to cripples and poor folk before a basilica, +are learned and rich. But does not their very richness +obscure both the decorative and emotional appeal? +Personally I tend to lose the figures in the complexity of the +setting. Any of Fra Angelico’s little predellas tells its story +more feelingly and clearly, and no less ably. Under the +pressure of competition at Rome, Fra Angelico for the +first time is ostentatious. To please the Pope he revives in +more specious form the trivialities of the old panoramic style. +Had he grasped Masaccio’s invention of aerial perspective and +construction in light and dark, Fra Angelico might have +carried off his elaborate settings successfully. As it is, they +confuse the eye by too many linear elements, and only mildly +delight the mind. Even the sensitive mood of legend, which +is noteworthy in these frescoes, is better represented in the +smaller panels. In fairness of +Gothic fresco coloring, however, +they are unsurpassed.</p> + +<div id='f_080' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_080.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 80.</span> Fra Angelico. St. Stephen Preaching, the Saint before the Council. Fresco.—<em>Chapel of Nicholas V., Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_081' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span> +<img src='images/f_081.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 81.</span> Masolino. Annunciation.—<em>Henry Goldman, Esq. New York.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>From the point of view of +tendency, these frescoes are profoundly +instructive. They show +the irresistible drift towards the +formation of a new panoramic +style, a drift that even Fra Angelico, +cloistered saint and exquisite +self-critic, was unable to +escape. In spite of his record +and better knowledge, he becomes +an inaugurator of that +picturesque, undisciplined, and +decentralized manner of narrative +which was to be represented by Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, +and their contemporaries.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In his later years Fra Angelico declined the archbishopric +of Florence and died at Rome in 1455. The tombstone which +shows the emaciation of his perishable form is in the Roman +Church of the Minerva; his imperishable monument is his +frescoed convent home of S. Marco at Florence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Of the traditional artists Fra Angelico is by far the most +important, but his contemporary Masolino of Panicale must +be considered, partly because tradition makes him the master +of Masaccio, partly because of the problems which cluster +about his work. The picture which is here drawn of him +represents my own investigations, and differs at several points +from the views of Berenson and Toesca. If we judge Masolino +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>only by the work that is unquestionably his, he is not an impressive +figure. He inherits the grace of the late Gothic +style, and he adds rather partially and inconsequentially the +new discoveries in anatomy and linear perspective. Chance +took him away from the centre of things, Florence. He +worked mostly in Lombardy, distant Hungary, provincial +Tuscany, and Rome. He has industry and charm, but nowhere +shows much intelligence. On the whole he is a poorer +story-teller than his Gothic predecessors, and only their fair +equal in panel painting. Had Vasari not ascribed to him, I +believe erroneously, the early miracles of St. Peter in the +Church of The Carmine, at Florence, the general historian of +art would need to pay little attention to Masolino. But he +has been entangled in one of the most important of artistic +problems, that of Masaccio, so we cannot ignore him.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Masolino<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c012'><sup>[31]</sup></a> was born in 1384, and, according to Vasari, was +trained by the mysterious Starnina. We have no very early +works to show his progress, and it is merely a good guess that +the radiant Annunciation, Figure <a href='#f_081'>81</a>, in the possession of +Mr. Henry Goldman, New York, may be considerably earlier +than 1420. It shows the gentleness and animation which are +constant in Masolino. It combines the Sienese calligraphic +manner with those smaller realisms of inscenation which ultimately +derive from Duccio. It has coloristic audacities of +its own in the spotting of brightest vermillion. It gives small +hint of the Renaissance. At a later date than 1420, by which +time ordinary perspective began to be understood, I doubt if +Masolino would have indulged in that preposterous and unnecessary +central pillar which starts above in middle distance +and ends below in the picture plane. A Madonna at Bremen, +dated 1423, shows him still as Gothic as Lorenzo Monaco, +who indeed seems to have influenced him dominatingly.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In this same year, it is likely that he painted the frescoes +in the Collegiate Church at Castiglione d’Olona, a lovely +<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>village at the foot of the Alps. Masolino had to deal with refractory +spaces, the narrow triangular sectors of the apse. +This has caused elongation of the figures and piling up of +fantastic architecture merely to fill the spaces. The mood +is gentle and graceful, the treatment quite Gothic. These +six stories of the Virgin must have satisfied Masolino’s humanist +patron, Cardinal Branda Castiglione; for several +years later he re-employed the painter to decorate the adjoining +Baptistery. Masolino at forty, in the Collegiate +Church, was still completely Gothic. If we may believe Vasari, +at that age he suddenly mastered the new style. Only +on such a theory can he have painted the Adam and Eve and +the St. Peter reviving Tabitha, in the Brancacci Chapel, which +are in the new chiaroscuro technic. Since Masolino, years +after the time when he was working in that chapel, is still +incompletely modern as regards light and shade, it is easier +to suppose that what he actually painted in the Brancacci +Chapel, about 1424, was merely the vault and the three lunettes, +which have since been destroyed. Thus all the frescoes +now visible in this famous chapel would be by Masaccio or +his continuer, Filippino Lippi. Such was the view of the +excellent critic Cavalcaselle more than fifty years ago. However +that be, Masolino by 1427 was at Buda (now Budapest), +where he worked for that extraordinary Florentine exile and +soldier of fortune, Pippo Spano. After that trip, we hear no +more of Masolino at Florence—rather oddly, since the Brancacci +Chapel, which he had begun, still had three unpictured spaces +after Masaccio’s death in 1428. Apparently the Brancacci +family did not consider Masolino competent to complete the +work he had begun. If so, they were wise.</p> + +<div id='f_082' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span> +<img src='images/f_082.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 82.</span> Masolino. Baptism of Christ, detail of fresco.—<em>Baptistery, Castiglione d’Olona.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We next find Masolino, after an interval of more than ten +years, decorating the Baptistery at Castiglione d’Olona for +his old patron, Cardinal Branda. The date is 1435. By this +time Masolino had learned a good deal, but had hardly assimilated his new attainments. Whether as decoration or as +story-telling, the stories of St. John the Baptist are at once +confused and pretentious, with little to recommend them save +the loveliness of their Gothic color, the prettiness of the heads, +and certain vivacious and well-observed gestures. In the +great fresco of the Baptism of Christ, Figure <a href='#f_082'>82</a>, the incidental +nudes are so carefully anatomized that they distract +from the general effect, while the deep river valley unhappily +draws the eye away from the figures in the foreground. A +similarly pictorially inept use of foreshortened Renaissance +colonnades appears in the opposite fresco depicting the Feast +of Herod and the delivery of the head of St. John to Herodias. +If it were not for the physical discomfort of travelling to the +end of those interminable colonnades and returning to note +what is happening nearby in them, these stories themselves +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>would seem vivacious and well-conceived, the female heads +attractive, the color gay and pleasing. The method of composition +is still Lorenzettian +and the modern architectural +features inorganic.</p> + +<div id='f_083' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_083.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 83.</span> Masolino. St. Catherine disputing with the Pagan Doctors. Fresco.—<em>S. Clemente, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A few years later Masolino +was swept to Rome by the great +wave of rebuilding and redecorating +which accompanied Pope +Martin V’s return from Avignon. +There in the Chapel of the +Sacrament, in the venerable +Basilica of S. Clemente, which +had formerly been Cardinal +Branda’s titular Church, Masolino +achieved his maturest work. +Completely repainted, we may +still see the legends of St. Catherine, +and a finely theatrical +Calvary by Masolino, and as well legends of St. Ambrose by +a follower of Masaccio. Here Masolino’s gift as a story-teller +is at its best. He has learned to subordinate his accessories, +and the childlike character of his themes enlists his talent in +its most engaging aspect. Such a fresco as St. Catherine +urging the mysteries of the faith before the Roman doctors, +Figure <a href='#f_083'>83</a>, is well-felt and skilfully composed, and withal most +flimsily drawn. It is incredible that a man who could do the +Tabitha in the Brancacci Chapel at forty should have relapsed +to this level at fifty-five. The evidence of the armor<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c012'><sup>[32]</sup></a> worn +by the horsemen in the Calvary proves that that fresco, and +presumably the entire decoration of the chapel, cannot be +earlier than 1440, while of course it cannot be later than +Masolino’s own death in 1447.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To this later period belongs, I believe, the diptych at Naples +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>which represents two themes rare in early Florentine painting, +the Assumption of the Virgin, and the Miracle of the Snow, +Figure <a href='#f_084'>84</a>. The latter scene +shows Pope Liberius tracing +the foundations of the Basilica +of Santa Maria Maggiore which +were indicated by a miraculous +snow-fall in midsummer. It is +delightful as story-telling, and +some of the minor figures are +entrancing, as is the landscape. +Since Michelangelo and Giorgio +Vasari once admired this picture +together at Rome, we +should not grudge it our admiration. +Nor should we fail +to note the curious defects in +construction. The heads of the +attendant figures are set on the +shoulders like a ball on a post. +You could blow any of these +heads off without overtaxing +your lungs. The picture shows +the utmost of which Masolino +was capable. It reveals him as lightly touched by the new +learning and faithful to the old panoramic ideals of narrative +which had come down from Taddeo Gaddi and the Lorenzetti.</p> + +<div id='f_084' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_084.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 84.</span> Masolino. Pope Liberius tracing the snow-marked plan of Santa Maria Maggiore.—<em>Naples.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Logically we should next consider Masaccio, but first we +may well give an eye to a minor sort of narrative painting +which worked in the direction of contemporary realism. This +was domestic painting as distinguished from ecclesiastical or +civic.<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c012'><sup>[33]</sup></a> In a prosperous Florentine home the chest was the +most important article of furniture. In the fifteenth century +its front was pictured with races, pageants, feasts, battles, or +<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>the new themes from classical mythology. Every patrician +bride normally received two such painted cassoni to contain +her trousseau. For example,<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c012'><sup>[34]</sup></a> Giovanna di Filippo Aldobrandini +when she married Tommaso di Berto Fini, in 1418, received +two bride chests depicting the races on St. John’s day. A +complete chest in the Bargello, Florence, shows the riders +carrying to the Baptistery the <em>palii</em>, or lengths of brocade +which were the prizes. The front panel of the companion +chest is in the Holden Collection, at Cleveland, and commemorates +with extraordinary vivacity and fidelity the race +itself, Figure <a href='#f_085'>85</a>. The winner is just preparing to touch +the <i><span lang="it">palio</span></i> which hangs from the ceremonial car at the finish. +Jesters, policemen, eager women, and impatient urchins who +pelt the losers make up a remarkable picture of contemporary +customs. Besides the pictured chests, a well appointed room +had at the height of a sitter’s shoulder similar but larger +panels which were called <em>Spalliere</em>. And still higher there +was, on a still larger scale, what were called cornice panels. +These too were contemporary or mythological in subject matter. +Where many a room thus had three courses of pictures +from the floor to the ceiling there was abundant opportunity +for the narrative painter and remarkable stimulus to invention. +The richness and complexity of this household decoration +doubtless influenced all narrative painting, making for +the sprightliness which dominates the end of the century.</p> + +<div id='f_085' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span> +<img src='images/f_085.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 85.</span> School of Uccello. A Horse Race. Detail from a <em>Cassone</em> Front.—<em>Cleveland, O.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_086' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_086.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 86.</span> Masaccio. Birth of St. John Baptist.—<em>Desco da Parto. Berlin.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>Besides these chest and wall panels, pictured salvers were +prepared to celebrate the birth of a patrician child. Such +wooden salvers were used to convey the congratulatory gifts +which were offered with appalling promptness to every young +mother. These <i><span lang="it">Deschi da parto</span></i>, or birth plates, as the Italians +called them, bore pictures alluding either to love and beauty +or to childbirth. One of the earlier mythological salvers is in +the Bargello and represents the Judgment of Paris. As yet +the artist is not sufficiently audacious to display the goddesses in classical nudity. The most famous of all birth-plates +may serve as our introduction to the greatest artist +of the first half of the century, Masaccio. It is in the +Berlin Museum, the subject is the Birth of St. John the Baptist, +Figure <a href='#f_086'>86</a>, and the date should be about 1422. In the +excellent proportions of the Renaissance portico, in the gravity +and mass of the figures, it shows the beginnings of a new +and more truthful style, based not on previous artistic formulas +but on direct and masterful observation of nature. Mr. +Berenson justly calls it “a little giant of a picture.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Masaccio<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c012'><sup>[35]</sup></a> was born December 21, 1401, at San Giovanni up +the Arno. His real name was Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di +Tommaso Guidi. And the slightly slurring character of his +nickname was apparently given for absent-mindedness, untidiness, +and a certain clumsiness of person. Tradition as late +as Vasari declared that Masaccio lived in a world of intense +speculation concerning his art. Contemporary tax-returns +show that he died deeply in debt and that he never really +knew how much he owed. Tradition again insists that he +never troubled to collect payments due him unless his need of +money were extreme.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All the same he was one of the most original minds of all +ages, and on the formal side, one of the most revolutionary. +He came to Florence early, probably learned his elements +under Masolino, but really drew more from the sculptor +naturalists of Donatello’s sort. In particular he frequented +the surly architect Brunellesco and from him learned the new +art of perspective. January 7, 1422, being twenty-one years +old, Masaccio was matriculated in the Druggists’ Guild as a +licensed painter. By this time he surely had made his great +discovery and taken his great decision. Reviewing the painting +of his contemporaries and predecessors, he judged that it +was all based on unnatural conventions. We can imagine him +in the Spanish Chapel viewing the carefully charted and contoured +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>and colored groups, and saying impatiently “things +don’t look like that.” And in truth the older painting at its +best was a select inventory or formal description of what the +artist saw, and not a representation. One can imagine Masaccio +exclaiming, as Francisco Goya was to do more than +three centuries later, “Lines, always lines, I don’t see them +in nature.” And, as a matter of fact, there are no lines in +nature, just the meeting of areas variously colored and lighted, +contrasts of tone which the eye instantaneously interprets +as form.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Young Masaccio, then, makes the radical innovation that +the brush should work according to nature’s laws, distributing +color and light and dark so as to give the swiftest and truest +representation of mass and distance. Besides functional light +and shade, Masaccio introduced into painting the idea of +aerial perspective. He saw that distant objects diminished +not merely in size but also in definition. He felt the air as a +palpable veil between the object and the eye, and he painted +not simply the object but, as well, its veil. By a swift impulse +of sheer genius this moody lad fixed ideals of naturalistic +painting which were to remain until yesterday and the Impressionists. +In fundamental principles Velasquez marks no +great advance on Masaccio.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is only in fresco painting that Masaccio fully reveals +his powers. So passing with mere mention such panels as The +Healing of a Demoniac, in the John G. Johnson Collection, +Philadelphia, the widely scattered parts of the altar-piece for +the Carmelites at Pisa, dated 1426, and the grim Madonna +with St. Ann in the Uffizi, the student will best turn +directly to the Carmelite Church at Florence and enter +that sanctuary of art, the Chapel of the Brancacci. The +Church itself was dedicated April 19, 1422. Shortly after +that date, young Masaccio did in fresco the dedicatory procession +with many portraits. Its realism produced a profound +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>impression. Nevertheless it was heedlessly destroyed after a +century or so. By 1424, according to all probability, Masaccio +was associated with Masolino in the decoration of the Brancacci +Chapel. It was dedicated to St. Peter, and the prescribed +subjects were drawn from the “Acts of the Apostles” and “The +Golden Legend.” The vaults which contained the four evangelists +and the three lunettes, which depicted The Calling of +Peter and Andrew, the Tempest-tossed Ship of the Apostles +on Galilee, and Peter denying his Lord, were by Masolino. +Unhappily these upper frescoes have been destroyed. The +Chapel now has only two rows of frescoes in twelve pictures. +Of these three and a part of a fourth, all in the lower row, are +certainly by Filippino Lippi, who about 1484 completed the +chapel, probably with the aid of Masaccio’s designs. Three +in the upper row, are ascribed by many critics to Masolino. +According to this view, which is largely based on the opinion +of Vasari, Masaccio would be responsible for only five pictures +and most of a sixth. Other critics, whose views I share, believe +that Masaccio painted eight of the pictures and most of +a ninth. The difference of opinion, then, concerns three +pictures which many think unworthy of Masaccio’s genius. +The problem cannot be fully debated here. The grounds of +my opinion, which was that of the great Italian critic Cavalcaselle, +will appear as we review the frescoes themselves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In general color effect these frescoes are strangely unlike +their Gothic predecessors. They have nothing of the flower-bed +gayety of the Spanish Chapel, of Lorenzo Monaco, or of +Masolino elsewhere. The effect is of a very rich smokiness, a +kind of monochrome from which only subdued colors emerge. +Yellow-browns and silvery grays predominate. There are no +hard contours. The relief is salient, but one form blends insensibly +into another. The edges of the figures are established +not by lines but by contrast of values, the contour is often +completely lost. The strong assertion of light and dark in a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>few structural planes builds out the forms from an investing +shadow. Indeed the whole chapel recalls not the Gothic fresco +painters, but such far later artists as Velasquez, Rembrandt, +or even Whistler. The method of the painter, whoever he +was, is completely modern, and uniform throughout the +chapel. He sacrifices minute definition to generalizations for +mass; and color, to emphatic construction in light and shade. +To obtain relief in the figures and distance in the backgrounds +is the main concern. It is in intention a luminist art and a +modelling art. The procedure is nearly uniform throughout +the Brancacci Chapel, though it grows abler from fresco to +fresco. It is a method that Masolino never commanded, not +at Castiglione d’Olona ten years later, nor still ten years later +at San Clemente, Rome. Hence I can only believe that the +admitted inequalities in the Brancacci Chapel merely represent +the swift development of Masaccio’s genius, and certain +interruptions in the work itself.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The first fresco, in the nave alongside, the entrance of the +chapel, depicts our first parents at the moment of the Temptation +in the Garden of Eden, Figure <a href='#f_087'>87</a>. It is stilted and awkward, +yet withal dignified. The theme, which indeed has seldom +been a happy one for any artist, has not greatly interested +the painter. He has made it an occasion for studying the +nude. We have what the modern student calls an academy. +As such, it is able. The construction is highly simplified and +is wholly in masses of light and dark, the contour +is freely effaced. The mystery of background foliage is well +suggested, the placing of the head of the serpent between the +tree and the figures is a perfect example of the new art of +aerial perspective. No painter but Masaccio had even the +notion of such an effect at this moment. Technically the +handling of this detail is just the same as that of the vastly +more beautiful angel in the Expulsion from Eden, Figure +<a href='#f_091'>91</a>. Finally, the impassive mask of the Eve is identical with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>that of the Virgin, in Masaccio’s panel in the Uffizi. We +presumably have to do with an experimental phase of Masaccio +about the year 1423–5. About that time Masolino probably +was called to Buda to work for the extraordinary +Florentine soldier of fortune, Filippo Scolari, better known by +his nickname of Pippo Spano. If Vasari is right, Masaccio +had been required to prove his ability to continue the work +by painting a St. Paul near the bell-cord of the Church, in +competition with a St. Jerome by Masolino. Both are lost.</p> + +<div id='f_087' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_087.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 87.</span> Masaccio. The Temptation.—<em>Brancacci Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_091' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_091.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 91.</span> Masaccio. The Expulsion.—<em>Brancacci Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_088' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span> +<img src='images/f_088.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 88.</span> Masaccio. St. Peter raising Tabitha and healing the Cripple.—<em>Brancacci Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>However that be, Masaccio probably succeeded to the work +in 1425, his twenty-fourth year, and the next fresco after the +Adam and Eve may well have been the adjoining subjects of +Peter raising Tabitha from the Dead and healing a Cripple, +Figure <a href='#f_088'>88</a>. As a whole the composition is somewhat marred +by inadvertences and afterthoughts. It shows the influence +of Masolino in the trite and conventional gestures of the +mourners about the bier, and in certain strained facial expressions, +notably that of the turbaned bystander. Such +survivals are precisely what one would expect in a young +painter just emancipated from his master. The entirely +Masolino-like pair of strollers in the centre seem to be due to +an afterthought. The first intention is registered in the unnaturally +straight back of St. Peter’s companion, in the centre. +The fresco was apparently to have been cut into two compartments +by a pilaster at that point.<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c012'><sup>[36]</sup></a> When the plan was abandoned +in favor of putting two episodes in one space, the two unrelated +figures had to be added to fill space and provide a transition. +One is a little ashamed of pointing out small defects in what +in all essentials is a noble and impassioned work. Technically +there is nothing better in the Chapel than the establishing of +the city background. It has scale, admirable atmospheric +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>placing, dignity and pictorial significance. How anybody who +knows Masolino’s niggling and haphazard treatment of such +architectural features at Castiglione d’Olona can imagine that +he had earlier created this grandiose setting remains a mystery +to me. Even more remarkable are the gravity and grandeur +of the Peter and the Tabitha. Here we are reminded +of Giotto. Masaccio must often have pored over the Stories +of St. John in Santa Croce, and while he by no means adopted +Giotto’s shorthand indications for mass, he did adopt Giotto’s +sense for classic dignity, beautifully calculated order, and +moderation. As we continue through these remarkable frescoes +we shall see continually that the quite ruthless innovator +that was Masaccio was also a reverent traditionalist. The +particular form of his art was settled between nature and +himself, as Leonardo da Vinci later justly observed; the spirit +of his art derived mostly from Giotto. It was highly important +for the whole ongoing of art in Italy that so revolutionary +a spirit was tempered by the finest respect for the great classic +tradition. And in this great fresco of St. Peter’s miracles +one may see how a quite homely and drastic realism can +be invested with abstract power and dignity. How different +it all is from the small and often charming vivacity which +Masolino displays at Castiglione d’Olona and at Rome.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Like the Temptation, the Tabitha is more linear and colorful +than the other frescoes of the Chapel. The painter has +not quite mastered the radically new method of construction +in light and shade. Thus there is a technical break between +the Tabitha and the frescoes on the back wall, which are in a +more developed manner. We may assume an interruption in +the work. Indeed we need not assume it, for records prove +that for most of the year 1426 Masaccio was occupied with +the great altar-piece for the Carmelites at Pisa. On October +15, 1426, Masaccio solemnly engaged not to do any other +work until the altar-piece should be finished. We may believe +<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>then that the work in the Brancacci Chapel was taken up +anew towards 1427.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The four frescoes on the back wall, which are divided into +two groups by the window, are the first of the new work. Of +these the most remarkable is St. Peter Baptizing, Figure <a href='#f_089'>89</a>. +The drawing is magnificent. Light and dark, without aid of +the line, create so many bosses and pits which not merely +establish form but suggest the gravest emotions. A few well +chosen and well placed figures give the sense of a multitude. +Mountains tower in gigantic scale, one feels the run of the +little river from its distant source amid high ravines. The +simplest modulations of light and dark, so many sweeps of a +broad brush, establish the constructional planes of the figures +and the mountains. All the early Italian writers mark with +wondering admiration the expressiveness of the shivering man +waiting his turn at the left. It is the smallest merit of the +picture. Masaccio in this great composition commands a +homely and impressive majesty, and therein shows himself +true successor of Giotto, but he also reveals a power of synthesis +entirely modern and hardly excelled since his day. +One has only to turn to Masolino’s Baptism at Castiglione +d’Olona, Figure <a href='#f_082'>82</a>, with its niggling insistence on details, to +appreciate the gulf between the master and the pupil.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Across the window from Masaccio’s Baptism is St. Peter +Preaching. The same towering, mountain background is +used. The somewhat linear treatment of the faces has led +Mr. Berenson, with other critics, to ascribe this fresco to +Masolino. It seems to me merely less strenuously seen, +because the subject offers little inspiration. Masaccio has +lent the theme real dignity, and, in the eager face of the nun +at the front of the audience achieves an unusual sweetness. +Technically there are good but not compelling reasons for +supposing this fresco may have been done among the first, +about 1425.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>The lower scenes at the back of the Chapel are, at your +right, St. Peter healing the Sick, by the mere fall of his +shadow and, at the left, St. Peter giving Alms. In both +cases we have Florentine street scenes with a classic air +lent by the solemn figures of the apostles. We feel +the figures as far or near, and the air that veils them. +There is great intentness in the poor folk, and a rugged impersonality +in St. Peter and St. James. They are not indulging +personal compassion so much as fulfilling a divine +mission. Again the combination of a drastic realism with a +stylistic majesty is what makes these frescoes unique. They +contain vivid portraits, among these the traditional portrait +of Masolino, a gentle, heavy, middle-aged face, bearded, and +crowned with a sort of tuque—just the man to have conceived +the charming but loosely organized compositions at +Castiglione d’Olona.</p> + +<p class='c007'>What Masaccio looked like we may see in the upper fresco +on the right wall. He is the alert and determined figure impersonating +St. Thomas, at the left of the group. The story +of the Tribute Money, Figure <a href='#f_090'>90</a>, is one of the grandest +creations of European art. If, as Leonardo da Vinci asserts, +the highest task of painting is to show by the pose and gestures +of the body the emotions of the soul, this is one of the +greatest paintings. It is remarkable for the dignity lent to an +apparently unpromising theme. The story is simply that +Christ is required to pay the <i><span lang="la">denarius</span></i> when there is no money +in the company. By a miracle Peter finds the coin in the +mouth of a fish and pays it to the tax-gatherer. How the +creative imagination has magnified this slender theme! Masaccio +has formed a group of potent and formidable individuals, +these simple men are fit to shake a world. He has shown +them in a moment in which discouragement and determination +blend. A technicality threatens to check the salvation of +the world. He has discriminated between the assured authority +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>of the Christ and the wrathful energy of St. Peter. +He has invested the majestic forms with massive draperies +grandly disposed in simple folds. He has given even the tax-gatherer +the grace of a Roman athlete. Finally he has set +the austere company before a noble river plain upon which +press the slopes of lofty mountains, while the undulating +crest of a remoter range almost bars off the sky. All objects, +human and inanimate, bear firmly on the ground and are +wrapped in an enveloping atmosphere. In the quality and +arrangement of the figures, it all derives from Giotto; in the +vastness of the scale, the introduction of mystery and distance, +it is wholly Masaccio’s own. Vasari rightly praised the +harmony and discretion with which these powerful assertions +of form are made, and sees here the beginnings of the modern +style of painting.</p> + +<div id='f_090' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_090.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 90.</span> Masaccio. The Tribute Money.—<em>Brancacci Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_089' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_089.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 89.</span> Masaccio. St. Peter Baptizing.—<em>Brancacci Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_092' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_092.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 92.</span> Masaccio. The Trinity, Fresco.—<em>Santa Maria Novella.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>The organizing power of Masaccio is at its height in the +Tribute Money. His emotional intensity is fully involved +only in the Expulsion from Eden, Figure <a href='#f_091'>91</a>, the adjoining +fresco in the nave of the church. Before the sword of a serenely +inexorable angel, Adam and Eve stalk forth into the +unknown. Their bodies cringe as they move, with shame and +grief. An ominous light reduces their bodies to so many pits +of shadow and bosses of light. Drawing of such accurate +economy will only rarely reappear in the world, in Leonardo +da Vinci, in Rembrandt, in Honoré Daumier. The desperate +emotion is well contained within the oblong, in a monumental +balance. Remorse in the two first sinners has its shades. +The man’s head is pressed into his hands in an attempt at +restraint, while Eve’s is thrown back in anguished ululation. +The high emotional pressure is new, and symptomatic, and +significantly it is contained within monumental bounds. The +Italian Renaissance in its striving for expressiveness will +rarely fail to keep expression noble. The ingrained classicism +of the Florentine point of view is never more favorably represented +than in a subject like this which seeks a maximum emotion +on terms of order and lucidity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>What remains of Masaccio is in a sense anti-climax. Very +stately is the fresco in this chapel, of the Resurrection of the +Prince of Tyre and St. Peter enthroned. The beauty is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>that of fine arrangement and characterization. The graceful +nude boy and about ten distinguished figures behind +him were added to the composition, presumably from Masaccio’s +designs, full fifty years later. They are the work +of Filippino Lippi, who also added some portraits at the left +of this fresco. He also filled the three unpainted panels, in +an excellent imitation of Masaccio’s style. Evidently Masaccio +was called rather abruptly to his last sojourn at Rome. +For the fresco of the Raising of the Boy could have been +finished in a fortnight.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I have omitted a fine fresco of a Pietà in the Collegiate +Church at Empoli, though I believe it to be a splendid example +of Masaccio’s early style, and I can only mention for its +magnificent architectural setting in Brunellesco’s new style the +fresco of the Trinity in Santa Maria Novella, Figure <a href='#f_092'>92</a>. +It is of his latest manner and of extraordinary gravity and +mass.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1428, being only twenty-six years old, Masaccio drops out +of sight at Rome. Some report that he was poisoned, others +that he was slain in a street brawl. We really know nothing +about it. What we do know is that in the recorded history of +art no painter had achieved so greatly in so short a time. +Within six short years Masaccio created that method of +painting which stood uncontested till the advent of luminism +only forty years ago. And he not merely illustrated the +method of construction in light and dark, painting in atmospheric +values rather than in lines and charted areas, but +he also expressed in the new technic both the noblest traditional +emotions as also poignant new emotions quite his +own. In one superb aggressive he had moved three generations +into the future. For a hundred years the most intelligent +and ambitious artists in Florence as a matter of course +studied and copied in the Brancacci Chapel to form their +style. Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>Raphael, Andrea del Sarto thus paid homage to the +untidy youth from Castel San Giovanni, and even the iconoclasts +of today, for whom Leonardo da Vinci and his peers +are scarcely artists at all, envy the gravity and force of Masaccio. +He is the real father of modern painting, which is most +true to itself when it tempers an ardent curiosity as regards +natural appearances with a respect for the great traditions +of moderation and taste.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Masaccio’s successors, very wisely, did not closely imitate +him. They saw he was an unsafe and unapproachable model. +By a swift impulse of genius, and apparently without +analytical study of anatomy and topography, he had mastered +the broad effects that register form. Details he neglected. +He gives the action of hands and feet, not their articulations, +the scale of landscape and not its component parts. +For men of lesser genius, these short-cuts were dangerous. +While using Masaccio as inspiration, they had to verify his +discoveries through analytical studies before those innovations +could become generally available. The process of verification +and minute research occupied about fifty years +and may be said to be complete with the maturity of Leonardo +da Vinci, say about the date of The Last Supper, 1498.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The successors of Masaccio may be divided into two groups +as they quietly adopted and popularized the immediately +available part of his discoveries, or strenuously carried his +work forward. To the moderate progressive group belong +Fra Filippo Lippi and Benozzo Gozzoli, and still later Ghirlandaio; +the experimentalists are birds of quite a different +feather.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These Florentine realists may be divided into two generations. +The first asserts itself before the middle of the fifteenth +century, and is trained chiefly under the influence of +such sculptors as Donatello, Brunellesco and Ghiberti. These +painters work at the problem of light and shade, anatomy, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>and perspective, accepting in their art the guidance of sculpture. +The second generation of realists come to their own +after the middle of the century, are mostly trained as silversmiths, +and work at the new technic of oil painting, at landscape +and at the figure in action. Both groups relatively +neglected the important matter of composition. Most of +the realists sacrificed pictorial effect the better to master detail, +but they also accumulated that vast body of knowledge +upon which rests the glory of the High Renaissance, and nobody +can understand the progress of Florentine painting +without following sympathetically their great effort.</p> + +<div id='f_093' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_093.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 93.</span> Paolo Uccello. Battle of Cavalry.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of the first generation, the quaintest figure is Paolo Uccello. +Born in 1397, he soon gave himself fanatically to the study +of the new science of perspective, especially to feats of foreshortening. +His pictures are so many experiments and have +a petrified inertness. Yet at his best he commands dignity +and a considerable decorative power. About the year 1435 +he painted for the Medici palace several battle scenes, three +of which are respectively in the Louvre, Figure <a href='#f_093'>93</a>, National +Gallery and Uffizi. The last, representing the Florentine victory +of San Romano, shows the style. The forms are squared, in a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>fashion anticipating modern Cubism, in order to simplify +the problem of placing and foreshortening. Corpses and +lances are deliberately pointed at the spectator to offer so +many problems in perspective. The landscape is minute +and topographical. The decorative coloring is bold and original +with interesting dissonances of oranges, russets, and greens. +It is quite splendid after the unreal fashion of a tapestry.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Paolo’s masterpiece is the equestrian portrait of Sir John +Hawkwood, Figure <a href='#f_094'>94</a>, the English soldier of fortune and +occasional captain of the Florentine army, which is in the +Cathedral. It is painted in gray-green touched with color, +and simulates a tomb. The date is 1437. Since Roman times +no equestrian monument of equal dignity had been created, +and one is inclined to suspect that Uccello profited by preliminary +studies of Donatello, his close friend, which later +developed into the superb Gattamelata statue at Padua. +Uccello has a lighter vein illustrated by furniture panels at +Oxford, (a Hunt), at Paris, and Vienna, (St. George and +the Dragon), but his most ambitious work is the decoration +of the lunettes in the great cloister of Santa Maria Novella. +The stories are drawn from the Old Testament, were started +by Paolo, about the year 1446, and continued by several +assistants. The medium was gray-green, <i><span lang="it">terra verde</span></i>, and the +place accordingly is called the Green Cloister. Uccello’s +manner may be best sensed in the fresco of the Deluge, in +which the endeavor to set problems in perspective clashes +unhappily with the desire to present a scene of terror. The +figures are felt one at a time, there is little relation between +them, and the picture has small merit apart from +its probity in the rendering of details and a sort of abstract +earnestness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Uccello lived on till 1475, an indulged eccentric, ignored +by the public and ridiculed by his greater friends. His zeal +for perspective was unabated with age, and many a night +his much-tried wife lost sleep as he murmured in the small +hours—“O! thou dear perspective!”</p> + +<div id='f_094' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span> +<img src='images/f_094.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 94.</span> Paolo Uccello. Tomb Portrait of Sir John Hawkwood.—<em>Cathedral.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_096' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_096.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 96.</span> Andrea del Castagno. Portrait of a young man.—<em>J. P. Morgan Coll., N. Y.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_095' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_095.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 95.</span> Andrea del Castagno. Pippo Spano.—<em>Sant’ Apollonia.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_097' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_097.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 97.</span> Andrea del Castagno. Tomb portrait of Niccolò da Tolentino.—<em>Cathedral.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>Far the most powerful of these early realists is Andrea +del Castagno.<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c012'><sup>[37]</sup></a> His aggressive and truculent forms savor +of Donatello without Donatello’s fineness. He searches the +secrets of anatomy, locates and describes the muscles and +sinews, depicts a world ruled by force of arm. Although he +builds in heavy shadows, after Masaccio’s fashion, he retains +an outline that vibrates with nervous strength. His +truthful sternness still wins approbation. He was born about +1390. We meet him first in full maturity, perhaps about +the year 1435, as decorator of the Villa of the Pandolfini. +To strengthen the ambition of that proud race, he painted +in their great hall nine figures of heroes and heroines noted +in war or in the arts. Recently transferred to the Convent +of Sant’ Apollonia, which already had a Last Supper and +a Calvary by Andrea, you may see the austere forms of Dante, +Petrarch, and Boccaccio, of Esther, Queen Thomyris and +the Cumean Sibyl, of the warrior Farinata degli Uberti, +Niccolò Accaiuoli, and Filippo Scolari. This potent and +melancholy figure of Pippo Spano, Figure <a href='#f_095'>95</a>, whom we already +know as the patron of Masolino, at Buda, is the +most striking representation that painting has given us of +those masterful Italian soldiers of fortune who managed war +and government for the less advanced nations. Pippo Spano +had gone to Buda as a clerk and had quickly become a +generalissimo, Obergespann of Temesvár. For King Sigismund +of Hungary he stemmed the Turkish onslaught, did +much to save Central Europe for Christianity. As he stands +thoughtfully confident, holding the scimitar, the weapon of +his foes, he is the beau ideal of that Italy soon to be immortalized +by Machiavelli, in which virtue meant successful force, +and both were on sale. A man’s portrait, Figure <a href='#f_096'>96</a>, in the +collection of Mr. J. P. Morgan, New York, has an even more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>sinister intensity. Equally remarkable for its heroic aggressiveness +in the young David adorning a tournament shield +in the Widener Collection, Figure <a href='#f_070'>70</a>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the fresco of the Crucifixion, now in the Uffizi, Andrea +reveals great knowledge linked to tragic expressiveness. No +tenderness veils the appalling theme. An athlete suffers +stoically while his mother and cousin shudder with grief. +Of its ruthless kind it is a great masterpiece and quite unforgettable.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1456 Andrea painted for the Cathedral the equestrian +portrait of the partisan leader, Niccolò da Tolentino, Figure +<a href='#f_097'>97</a>. It is a companion piece to Uccello’s Hawkwood, and +like it simulates statuary, in monochrome. It is more martial +and restless, in the toss of the horse’s head and the snap of +the rider’s cloak. It suggests not ceremonious dignity, but +noise and impending action. It may very powerfully have +influenced Verrocchio twenty years later when he modelled +for Venice the Colleoni statue.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The truculence of Andrea’s manner led to a false and +scandalous tradition, promulgated by Vasari, that he slew +his rival Domenico Veneziano out of jealousy. As a matter +of prosaic record, Domenico Veneziano survived his alleged +assassin’s death, in 1457, by all of four years.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Domenico came down from Venice somewhere about 1438 +and brought with him a new technical method. He finished +the pictures, which he began in tempera, with veilings or +glazes in an oil or varnish medium. He avoided the old frank +Gothic coloring in favor of pale tonalities which oddly forecast +our modern open-air school. The new method permitted +of bolder brushwork and successive over paintings. For the +moment it wrought havoc with the old conventional beauty, +but it offered the painter new resources and refinements, +and eventually made possible the triumphs of Leonardo and +Titian.</p> + +<div id='f_098' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span> +<img src='images/f_098.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 98.</span> Domenico Veneziano. Madonna with St. Lucy.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>On the whole, Domenico is merely the shadow of a great +name, for we have only a handful of works by him, and those +perhaps unrepresentative. The altar-piece of St. Lucy, in +the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_098'>98</a>, is novel only in its acid and original +dissonance of deep rose and pale green. The rugged St. John +the Baptist shows an attempt to obtain force of modelling +without exaggerating the shadows. This tendency persists +in such disciples of Domenico as Baldovinetti and Piero della +Francesca, and rules in Florence until Leonardo’s definitive +application of Masaccio’s methods. In the profile portraiture +of the period Domenico was a master, as shown in an admirable +female portrait in Mrs. John L. Gardner’s collection, +Figure <a href='#f_099'>99</a>. Many similar heads, which we can hardly +ascribe to particular masters, seem to derive from Domenico. +One of the most beautiful is in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum +at Milan. All of Domenico’s pupils and imitators excel +in a minute and topographical style of landscape of which +he was probably the inventor. It may be studied in Piero +della Francesca, in the Pollaiuoli, in Baldovinetti, and there +is even a trace of it in the spacious Alpine background of +the Mona Lisa.</p> + +<div id='f_099' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span> +<img src='images/f_099.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 99.</span> Domenico Veneziano. Portrait of a Girl.—<em>Coll. Mrs. John L. Gardner, Boston.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Domenico died in 1461. By that time Florentine realism +was emerging from its first phase, and was beginning to investigate +with its new resources the facts of motion. It was +the moment, too, when certain realists sought to regain the +grace which had largely been sacrificed in the struggle for +sheer knowledge.</p> + +<div id='f_100' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_100.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 100.</span> A. Baldovinetti. Madonna.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Alesso Baldovinetti<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c012'><sup>[38]</sup></a> well represents this moment in a +lovely Madonna in the Louvre, Figure <a href='#f_100'>100</a>, which shows in +perfection the new topographical landscape and that juvenile +graciousness which was to be the staple of the coming generation +of artists. Baldovinetti was born in 1425, and this loveliest +of all his pictures may represent him about the year 1460. +He had been an assistant of Fra Angelico, but in a long career, +he died in 1499, he fell behind the times. He taught Domenico +Ghirlandaio his elements, and profoundly influenced Andrea +Verrocchio and Antonio Pollaiuolo. Thus he keeps a sure if +modest place in the progress of Florentine art.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>In this chapter we have been dealing in a rough way with +the Florence of Cosimo de’ Medici. Under his astute and +delicate rule from behind the political scenes, Florence developed +in wealth, splendor, and worldliness. The old piety +was waning or assuming merely æsthetic forms. Greek +studies were beginning to pave the way for an enlightened +and sceptical humanism and, withal, a revival of the pagan +sense of beauty. And when the new beauty came, it was +gratefully mindful of those who had made it possible. Leonardo +de Vinci lauds Masaccio. He expresses the immense +debt that art owes to the first conscious realists. They did +good and harm, but to Florence at least they opened the only +way of progress. For whatever art may be elsewhere, in Florence +it was fruitful only as it was intellectualized. Good +theory, good practice—such was the creed imposed by the +early realists and later formulated by their great scion, Leonardo. +I do not offer it as a universal formula, but in these +days when pure spontaneity—that is no theory—and +false theory divide the field, the old Florentine credo is at +least worthy of consideration by all who produce art and by +all who love it. Baldovinetti was untouched by these new +stirrings which are associated with the rule of Lorenzo de’ +Medici, but he dimly forecasts the grace that was soon to +come. This new spirit and its exponents must be the theme +of our next chapter.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span> + <h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER III</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Vasari on Masaccio</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Vasari’s general estimate of Masaccio’s importance is still sound.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“With regard to the good manner of painting, we are indebted above +all to Masaccio, seeing that he, as one desirous of acquiring fame, perceived +that painting is nothing but the counterfeiting of all the things +of nature, vividly and simply, with drawing and with colours, even as +she produced them for us.... This truth, I say, being recognized by +Masaccio, brought it about that by means of continuous study he +learned so much that he can be numbered among the first who cleared +away, in a great measure, the hardness, the imperfections, and the +difficulties of the art, and that he gave a beginning to beautiful attitudes, +movements, liveliness, and vivacity, and to a certain relief +truly characteristic and natural; which no painter up to his time had +done.... And he painted his works with good unity and softness, +harmonizing the flesh-colours of the heads and of the nudes with the +colours of the draperies, which he delighted to make with few folds +and simple, as they are in life and nature....</p> + +<p class='c019'>“For this reason that chapel has been frequented continually up +to our own day [1554] by innumerable draughtsmen and masters; +and there still are therein some heads so life-like and so beautiful, +that it may truly be said that no master of that age approached so +nearly as this man did to the moderns. His labours, therefore, deserve +infinite praise, and above all because he gave form in his art to the +beautiful manner of the times.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>Vasari then names twenty-five artists who studied Masaccio’s frescoes. +From De Vere’s translation of the <cite>Lives</cite>, Vol. II, p. 189, 90.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Leonardo da Vinci on Masaccio</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Leonardo da Vinci uses Masaccio as the example of a painter who +goes to nature rather than to other men’s painting.</p> + +<p class='c020'><strong>That Painting declines and deteriorates from age to age, when +painters have no standard but painting already done.</strong></p> + +<p class='c020'>“Hence the painter will produce pictures of small merit if he takes +for his standard the pictures of others. But if he will study from natural +objects he will bear good fruit; as was seen in the painters after the +Romans who always imitated each other, and so their art declined +<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>from age to age. After these came Giotto the Florentine who—not +content with imitating the works of Cimabue; his master—being +born in the mountains and in a solitude inhabited only by goats and +such beasts, and being guided by nature to his art, began by drawing +on the rocks the movements of the goats of which he was keeper. And +thus he began to draw all the animals which were to be found in the +country, and in such wise that after much study he excelled not only +all the masters of his time but all those of many bygone ages.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>“Afterwards this art declined again, because everyone imitated the +pictures that were already done; thus it went on from century to century +until Tomaso, of Florence, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by his +perfect works how those who take for their standard any one but nature—the +mistress of all masters—weary themselves in vain.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c021'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>J. P. Richter “<cite>Literary Works of L. da V.</cite>,” Vol. I. p. 660.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c020'>But Leonardo approves also imitation of antiquity (Richter, Vol. II, +¶1445). “The imitation of antique things is better than that of modern +things.” He would probably have sanctioned Masaccio’s devout +study of Giotto. The warning is against slavish imitation of immediate +predecessors.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Vasari on Paolo Uccello</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>The admirable and self sacrificing ardor of these first realists is best +exemplified in the case of Paolo Uccello.</p> + +<p class='c020'>“For the sake of these investigations [in perspective] he kept himself +in seclusion and almost a hermit, having little intercourse with +anyone, and staying weeks and months in his house without shaving +himself. And although those were difficult and beautiful problems, if +he had spent that time in the study of figures, he would have brought +them to absolute perfection; for even so he made them with passing +good draughtsmanship. But, consuming his time in these researches, +he remained throughout his whole life more poor than famous; wherefore +the sculptor Donatello, who was very much his friend, said to him +very often—when Paolo showed him Mazzocchi (facetted head-fillets) +with pointed ornaments, and squares drawn in perspective +from diverse aspects; spheres with seventy-two diamond-shaped facets, +with wood-shavings wound round sticks on each facet; and other fantastic +devices on which he spent and wasted his time—‘Ah, Paolo, +this perspective of thine makes thee abandon the substance for the +shadow; those are things that are only useful to men who work at the inlaying +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>of wood, seeing that they fill their borders with chips and shavings, +with spirals both round and square, and with other similar things.’”</p> + +<p class='c020'>Vasari, in Schele de Vere’s translation; Vol. II. p. 132, 3.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>An Appraisal of Baldovinetti’s Frescoes</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Here I may illustrate a common practice of the times in an +appraisal of Baldovinetti’s frescoes in the choir of the Trinità by +fellow artists including Benozzo Gozzoli, Cosimo Rosselli and Pietro +Perugino.</p> + +<p class='c020'>“In the name of God—on the 19 of January 1496 (n. s. ’97)</p> + +<p class='c019'>We Benozzo di Lese, painter; and Piero di Cristofano da Castel +della Pieve, painter; and Cosimo di Lorenzo Rosselli, painter, chosen +by Alesso di Baldovinetti, painter, to see and judge and set +a price on—empowered by a contract which said Alesso has with M. +Bongianni de’Gianfigliazzi and his heirs—a chapel pictured in Santa +Trinità of Florence—that is the choir of the said church, having seen, +all together and agreeing, having examined all the costs of lime, azure, +gold and all other colours, scaffolds and everything else, including his +work, we judge from all this that the aforesaid Alesso should have +one thousand broad gold florins.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“And for clearness and truth of the said judgment I Cosimo di +Lorenzo aforesaid have made this writing with my own hand this +aforesaid day, and so I judge; and here at the foot they will sign with +their own hands that they are agreed with what is above written, and +so judge.</p> + +<p class='c019'>Benozzo di Lese &c.</p> + +<p class='c019'>I Piero Perugino &c.</p> + +<p class='c020'>Translated from Herbert Horne’s edition of Alesso’s <cite>Ricordi</cite> in <cite>Burlington +Magazine</cite>, Vol. II. (1903) p. 383.</p> + +<div id='f_101' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span> +<img src='images/f_101.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 101.</span> Ghirlandaio. Giovanna degli Albizzi.—<em>J. P. Morgan Coll., New York.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter IV</span></span><br> FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND THE NEW NARRATIVE STYLE</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>After Masaccio two tendencies,—towards prettiness and vivacious narrative; +towards strenuous research—Fra Filippo Lippi celebrant of Gay Florence—Benozzo +Gozzoli and Pageantry—Antonio Pollaiuolo and human +dynamics—Piero della Francesca and impersonal observation of appearances—Dissolving +tendencies in the new panoramic style—illustrated +by the early frescoes in the Sistine Chapel—Perugino’s return to +simple symmetries—The <em>Cassone</em> painters once more—Domenico +Ghirlandaio and spectacular narrative—His portraits—The charm +of the slighter narrative style.</p> + +<p class='c006'>In the last chapter we have dealt chiefly with innovators +and reformers. Whether in art or life, these are not always +the most agreeable companions. The charming person is +generally a traditionalist, or a tactful profiteer by other men’s +discoveries. So the popular favor has ever gone not to the +strenuous artists of Masaccio’s type or Castagno’s, but to +devotees of the charm of common folk and things, like Fra +Filippo Lippi; to masters of pageantry and incident, like +Benozzo Gozzoli; or to chroniclers of the festal richness +of Florence in her short prime, like Domenico Ghirlandaio. +These artists, while by no means giants, are highly representative +of their times. They one and all aimed to please, and +amply succeeded. Their importance in the history of art is +rather slight; in the history of taste, on the contrary, they +are very important. And it is from that point of view that +we shall do well to consider them. These three masters cover +the last two-thirds of the fifteenth century. They exemplify +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>the taste of the new-rich merchants who flourished under +the benevolent tyranny of the Medici.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Alongside of these gracious and adaptable spirits, struggled +the continuers of the realistic reform—Antonio Pollaiuolo, +who first systematically studied the anatomy and dynamics +of the human form; Andrea Verrocchio, who imbued accuracy +and power with grace; Sandro Botticelli, who explored solitary +roads of sentiment and wrought out of the ruggedness +of the realists strange forms of recondite beauty. At all times +we find the endeavor for artistic adaptation running alongside +the passion for sheer discovery, and producing its own +triumphs. It is this complicated, dual process which makes +the richness and continuity of the Early Renaissance. If +we compare the seventy-two years between the beginnings of +Masaccio, say 1422, and the death of Ghirlandaio, in 1494, +with the century and a half preceding, we shall note an extraordinary +acceleration both of production and progress. +There are no gaps and rests; each generation makes its discoveries +and cashes them in. Architecture, sculpture, classical +scholarship develop with a whirling rapidity which by +no means precludes taste and reflection. In an almost reckless +expansion of emotion, experience, and creative activity, +Florence keeps her head though she risks losing her soul. +And the true harbinger of this intoxicating new life is one +who often lost his head and whose soul remains enigmatic, +the wayward and fascinating painter-monk, Fra Filippo +Lippi.<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c012'><sup>[39]</sup></a></p> + +<div id='f_102' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span> +<img src='images/f_102.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 102.</span> Filippo Lippi. Madonna in Adoration.—<em>Berlin.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>He was the first Italian painter to care greatly for the look +of everyday people. Born about the year 1400, he was early +orphaned and thrust willy-nilly into the Carmelite Order. +As a young man he must have seen Masaccio painting those +titanic designs in the Brancacci Chapel. From Masaccio +Fra Filippo learned his trade, rather by observation than by +direct instruction. But he cared for far different things. +He really follows the tender narrative vein of Lorenzo Monaco. +To the grandeur of miracle-working apostles, he preferred the +gentle quaintness of the old man who kept the shops and +practiced the trades of Florence; to the matronly dignity +of Masaccio’s women, he preferred the shy and alluring sweetness +of the Florentine girls about him; to the majestic sweeps +of mountain and valley in Masaccio, the intimate appeal of +the cypress groves, the little ledges and trickling springs. +In technique, too, he avoided the bold short-cuts of his master. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>He hung on to the line, loved details, described everything +with solicitude. It is an art of amiability and curiosity, generally +disregardful of that grand +style towards which in her greater +moments Florence ever aspired. +The advent of Fra Filippo in the +Florence of Giotto and Orcagna +and Masaccio, was like that of +an irresistibly attractive youth in +a solemn company. He loosened +everything up. Unconsciously he +demoralized the assembly; for two +generations the art of Florence +was to be boyish and girlish. +That is its charm and its limitation, +and the difference between +the Early Renaissance and the +Golden Age will be largely that +the latter will prefer to depict with the gravity of maturity a +world that has grown up.</p> + +<div id='f_103' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_103.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 103.</span> Fra Fillipo Lippi. Madonna and Child.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>One of the earliest and most exquisite panels by Fra Filippo +was painted shortly after 1435 for the private chapel of Cosimo +de’ Medici’s new palace, and is now at Berlin. The theme, +young Mary kneeling before her Divine Infant, Figure <a href='#f_102'>102</a>, +is a favorite with the Florentine artists of this century. Perhaps +no one has conceived it more delightfully than Fra Filippo. +The picture gets its peculiar sweetness from the gentle, girlish +figure of the Maiden Mother, its quality of romance from +the ledgy background watered by springs and spangled with +modest flowers, its tang of reality from the chubby and stolid +Christchild and the boyish St. John the Baptist. You could +almost see such a thing today along the shaded upper Mensola +when a young Florentine mother has taken the children for +a Sunday picnic. For the old Gothic conventions and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>bare majesty of Masaccio’s painting, Fra Filippo has substituted +the everyday joys of a feeling eye, and the charm of +closely-observed little things.</p> + +<div id='f_104' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_104.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 104.</span> Fra Filippo Lippi. Coronation of the Virgin.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In most of his pictures this familiar quality is marked. +His saints are not types, but people of the Florentine middle +class. An early Madonna in the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_103'>103</a>, shows the +Virgin as a slight girl with her ash-blond locks elaborately +dressed and braided for a holiday. She is almost overborne +by her sturdy Son, an exacting brute, one may imagine, +while the attendant angel is a grinning street Arab caught +in the intervals of mischief. Such pictures with their winsomeness +and actuality worked powerfully to break down both +the old Gothic decorum and the new sublimity of Masaccio.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To grasp the novelty of Fra Filippo’s most famous panel +picture, The Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the nuns +of St. Ambrogio in 1441, Figure <a href='#f_104'>104</a>, and now in the Uffizi, +one has only to recall the devoutly formal and simple version +of the subject which Fra Angelico painted about the same +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>time for the convent of San Marco. The composition of Fra +Filippo, on the contrary, is radiantly informal. We breathe +the air of the commencement at a very nice girls’ school, +with adoring friends and proud relatives moving at the edges +of the ceremony. Indeed God the Father has merely the air +of a benevolent trustee or visiting minor celebrity awarding +a prize to the best girl. It is all like the crowning of a <i><span lang="fr">Rosière</span></i> +in a French village. Robert Browning in one of the most +admirable poems in “Men and Women” makes Fra Filippo +promise</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in22'>“I shall paint</div> + <div class='line'>God in the midst, Madonna and her Babe.</div> + <div class='line'>Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood,</div> + <div class='line'>Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet</div> + <div class='line'>As puff on puff of grated orris-root</div> + <div class='line'>When ladies crowd to church at Midsummer.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>Our picture is evidence enough that the time has come to +Florentine art when youth shall be served.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Monastic vows, and in fact duties of any sort, bore lightly +on Fra Filippo. He tasted the forbidden sweets of life recklessly, +and worked only when the rare mood urged. He was +in and out of the good graces of the Medici. Called to Prato +to fresco the choir of the Collegiata, in 1455, he was nine +years achieving what a steady workman would have done +in two. But in the meantime Fra Filippo had run away with +the nun, Lucrezia Buti, shuffled off his monastic vows (through +the indulgence of the humanist Pope, Pius II), married and +settled down as the father of a family. His random joyous +course was nearly run, and his last frescoes at Prato show a +kind of discipline that is foreign to his earlier work. In 1464 +he completed the Feast of Herod and the Funeral of St. +Stephen, frescoes which forecast the sort of narrative painting +that was to mark the close of the century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>About the brutality of the Feast of Herod, Figure <a href='#f_105'>105</a>, Fra +<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>Filippo has cast a dreamy glamour, as indeed Giotto had before +him. The youthful guests are absorbed in Salome’s +dancing. Following the sculptors of the day, Fra Filippo has +made her slight and graceful, as she trips a careless measure. +The air is simply that of a gentle society. The grim motive +of the delivery of the head of John the Baptist to Herodias +is gently emphasized by the charming act of two little handmaids +who clutch each other for fright. The sprightliness +of the invention, the generalized idyllic charm of the feeling, +the rich variety of accessories, the youthful timbre of the +whole—make this not merely one of the best but also one +of the most characteristic narrative mural paintings of the +Early Renaissance. It strikes the note which will be echoed +by Fra Filippo’s apprentice, Sandro Botticelli; which will be +exaggerated by Fra Filippo’s son, Filippino, and distantly +imitated by many another Florentine successor.</p> + +<div id='f_105' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_105.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 105.</span> Fra Filippo Lippi. Feast of Herod. Salome’s Dance. Fresco.—<em>Collegiata. Prato.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>If the Feast of Herod best exemplifies the element of homely +poetry and inventive grace in Fra Filippo, the Burial of St. +Stephen, Figure <a href='#f_106'>106</a>, just opposite in the choir proves that +he was not oblivious to the high and decorous prose of his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>master Masaccio. In formality and power of construction +few painters then living could have equalled it, and those +few could not have rivalled its spacious architectural setting +and its suggestion of atmosphere. At first sight it seems +nearly equal to the Tribute Money or at least to the Tabitha. +On more careful survey it is less noble, more insistently pathetic, +and in every way more loosely knit. In particular +the portraits at the sides have little but a mechanical relation +to the theme. Masaccio himself had admitted a similar +gallery of mere bystanders in The Miracle of the Prince, but +had he lived to complete the fresco, he would doubtless have +brought the portrait figures into some relation of interest +in the miracle. Fra Filippo virtually waives that problem +and merely flanks his real subject with bordering groups of +persons of contemporary importance. As a matter of fact, the +Florentine donor was no longer humble-minded and content +to appear among the saints in miniature and unobtrusive +guise. He now insisted in being painted to the life with his +family, friends, and dependents,—a complacent, incongruous +apparition amid the humility or heroism of the saints. +Fra Filippo made the sensible adjustment that the donors +should serve as a sort of human frame for the religious picture +in the centre. This solution became tiresomely standard +and lasted for fifty years or so, until the High Renaissance +had authority enough to impose considerations of taste and +self-effacement even upon wealthy donors.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1465 Fra Filippo was called to Spoleto, and there having +started a lovely apse decoration, A Coronation, for the cathedral, +he died and was buried. Quite unconsciously he had +temporarily shattered that intellectual formalism which is +the very essence of Florentine art, and had inaugurated that +moral and artistic holiday which is made visible in the painting +of Botticelli and Ghirlandaio and audible in the songs +of Lorenzo de’ Medici.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>This holiday mood is strong in Benozzo Gozzoli, and he +spread it through Umbria and the Sienese country. Born +in 1420, for a time an assistant of Fra Angelico, Benozzo’s +task was to depict with more vivacity than insight the splendors +and humors of life. This he does, whether his theme be +the legend of St. Francis, as at Montefalco in 1462, the Cavalcade +of the Magi, Florence, 1469, the Life of St. Augustine, +San Gimignano, 1465, or the doings of the Old Testament +Patriarchs and Matriarchs, at Pisa, 1468–1484. He is always +sunny, profuse, witty in an obvious way; and not without +his tinge of the poetry of youth. He loves gardens, courtyards, +forests, and equally well palaces, colonnades, crowds +and incidents. He is indefatigably panoramic, and his frescoes, +if hardly good pictures, are at least good pickings, for +their abundant and often refreshing detail.</p> + +<div id='f_106' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_106.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 106.</span> Fra Filippo Lippi. Funeral of St. Stephen. Fresco.—<em>Collegiata. Prato.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Very splendid is that pageant of the Wise Men from the +East, Figure <a href='#f_107'>107</a>, which he painted about 1469<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c012'><sup>[40]</sup></a> for the private +chapel of Cosimo de’ Medici’s palace. The gorgeous procession +winds about the walls, moving over the mountain +roads and through the forests which you may still see up +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>the Arno valley towards Vallombrosa. Their goal was the +little panel over the altar where Filippo Lippi painted the +Madonna reverently kneeling before her Son, Figure <a href='#f_102'>102</a>. +This little picture was flanked by choirs, in fresco, of singing +angels. For the oldest of the Three Kings Benozzo chose, +according to tradition, the unfortunate Emperor John Palaeologus, +who thirty years earlier had come to Florence on the +vain mission of uniting the Eastern and Western branches of +the Christian Church. The youthful kings are said to portray +Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici. What we really have is a +pictorial version of those religious pageants or representations +which were common at the times. Many times Florence had +seen her patricians in such a cavalcade. Benozzo’s fresco in +its undiminished loveliness of color and gold—the Medici apparently +either ordered few masses or burned few candles +in their family chapel—is a most precious relic of bygone +splendors. Indeed they passed before Benozzo himself, for +he lived on till 1498, four years after Lorenzo the Magnificent’s +death, and the year of Savonarola’s martyrdom; the +year, too, when Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper was being +finished. Few artists have had such emphatic intimations +that their world and they themselves were obsolete. It is +in every way to be hoped in Benozzo’s case that he was at +once too cheerful and too unintelligent to grasp the situation. +This may be fairly supposed of a man who was content for +fifty years of a swiftly moving world with what could be learned +from Fra Angelico.</p> + +<div id='f_107' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span> +<img src='images/f_107.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 107.</span> Benozzo Gozzoli. Detail from Procession of Magi.—<em>Riccardi Palace.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_108' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_108.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 108.</span> Antonio Pollaiuolo. Martyrdom of St. Sebastian.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of course some painters declined to keep holiday and feverishly +pursued the lines of realistic investigation laid down by +Castagno and his contemporaries. The most notable of these +is Antonio Pollaiuolo.<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c012'><sup>[41]</sup></a> He was trained in sculpture under +Ghiberti, and worked most variously, at sculpture, painting, +engraving, glass designing, and even embroiderers’ patterns. +Everywhere he pursued with an almost ferocious intensity +the secrets of anatomy and especially of the human body in +violent action. He conceived the body as a powerful machine +and rejoiced to display its mechanisms—knotted muscles, +straining sinews. He chose his subjects with this sort of display +in mind: Hercules and his feats, the archers setting their +bows and crossbows for the slaying of St. Sebastian, nude men +in deadly combat with dirks and axes, nude men wildly dancing. +Nearly all these works suffer from their avowed experimentalism, +but all are alive with a tingling not to say brutal +energy. Antonio Pollaiuolo is the ancestor of all the strong +painters who for over four centuries have delighted to appal +the mild and sheeplike throng with wolfish antics. He is +the first artist who is a specialist, pursuing his own ends in +disregard of the surrounding public. As a matter of fact, +Antonio’s muscular paganism fitted in fairly well with the +notions of a Florence that worshipped power. The Medici +ordered the twelve feats of Hercules for their palace, about +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>the year 1460. The great pictures are lost, but little copies +by Antonio himself give an idea of their truculent force. In +the Uffizi are Hercules crushing the breath out of the earthborn +demigod Antæus, and Hercules slaying the Hydra. +The tension, ardor, and ferocity of these tiny pictures are +extraordinary. They seem to enhance our own physical +life. At New Haven is the panel of Hercules shooting the +Centaur Nessus, who races across a ford with Deinaira +on his back. The background is an exact picture of the Arno +valley looking from the west towards Florence. The representation +of the run of the river is extraordinary. Pollaiuolo +had adopted Domenico Veneziano’s miniature conception +of landscape, but has introduced swing and motion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Equally remarkable is the Arno landscape in the Martyrdom +of St. Sebastian, Figure <a href='#f_108'>108</a>, which was painted in 1475. +It has the defects of an experimental and academic performance, +is a show piece. The executioners are even repeated, +to show both front and rear aspects. All the same, its power +is impressive and beyond the range of any artist then living, +with the possible exception of Piero della Francesca. In +painting Pollaiuolo’s accomplishment is so even, and in draped +figures so ugly, that we may well pass the series of Virtues +which with his brother Piero he did in 1469 for the Mercantile +Court, and consider his great engraving known as the +Ten Nudes, Figure <a href='#f_109'>109</a>, the odd decorative disposition of which +is imitated by Botticelli in the Allegory of Spring; and the +fresco of Dancing Men, in which Pollaiuolo successfully vies +with the convivial and Bacchic themes of the Greek vase +painters. The group is odd and effective as pattern, and +inspired by a joyous energy.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Painting only claimed a fraction of Antonio’s effort; often +he merely made the sketch and left the execution to his rather +tame brother, Piero. At the end of his life he was called down +to Rome to make the bronze tomb for Sixtus IV. There he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>died in the year 1498, being sixty-three years old. While +his own achievement was somewhat cramped and limited, +he had made the most valuable contributions to the art, or +rather to the science of painting. He had inspired a titan +like Signorelli and a poet like Botticelli, and in certain aspects +Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo only continued and perfected +his work. As late as Benvenuto Cellini’s day his sketches +were passed about the studios for the instruction of young +painters in anatomy.</p> + +<div id='f_109' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_109.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 109.</span> Antonio Pollaiuolo. Fighting Men—“The Ten Nudes.” Engraving.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A kindred strenuous spirit, Piero della Francesca,<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c012'><sup>[42]</sup></a> affords +an interesting contrast to Pollaiuolo. Though an Umbrian, +he belongs spiritually to Florence. For Piero the world was +a frozen thing. He investigated with utmost zeal the mathematical +basis of perspective, producing on that topic a laborious +and quite unreadable book. He studied anatomy +and construction in light and dark, and all the atmospheric +problems therewith associated. To attain atmospheric envelopment, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>he sacrificed color. His pictures exist in silvery +grays, suggesting the blondness and tonal unity of modern +open-air painting. The drama of life never engrossed him. +His world is passionless and +almost motionless, coldly impressive. +Although he practiced +all refinements of modelling, he +never made those relaxations of +contour which suggest movement. +His figures are finely constructed +and beautifully placed +but emotionally unrelated. They +merely exist rather splendidly, as +do some of Manet’s figures. Indeed +the warning of George Moore +as regards Manet applies equally +to Piero. It is futile to seek from +him anything but fine painting.</p> + +<div id='f_110' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_110.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 110.</span> Piero della Francesca. The Resurrection.—<em>Borgo S. Sepolcro.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of his origins we know next to nothing. He was born about +1410 in the Umbrian town of Borgo San Sepolcro. For several +years after 1439 we find him at Florence as a paid assistant +of Domenico Veneziano, whose pale tonalities and topographically +minute landscape reappear throughout Piero’s +work. His austere power is best represented in the bleak +Resurrection, Figure <a href='#f_110'>110</a>, which he painted in 1460 for his +native city. The stalwart Conqueror of Death has an apparitional +impressiveness. He comes with power from beyond +the grave. He dominates the world as represented by the +sleeping athletes of the guard. A most potent effect is obtained +without sacrifice to sentiment. There is a similar detachment +in the Baptism of Christ, in the National Gallery, +London. Its pearly loveliness of color is in odd contrast to +its evasions of anything like warmth or tenderness. It is less +an event than a magnificently posed scene. The landscape +<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>is a liberating and informal feature, a skilful adaptation of +the method of Domenico Veneziano and Pollaiuolo. It is +as crisp and calculated as a Japanese print, yet it gives +its effect of space and breadth.</p> + +<div id='f_111' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_111.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 111.</span> Piero della Francesca. Battle of Constantine, detail from fresco.—<em>S. Francesco, Arezzo.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Piero’s great opportunity came about 1465 when he painted +in the choir of San Francesco at Arezzo ten stories from the +Legend of the Holy Cross. For stark impressiveness it is hard +to match them in Italy in this century. Only Masaccio and +Leonardo da Vinci will at all bear the comparison. On analysis, +the power rests mostly on the seriousness with which Piero +takes his technical problem. There is little real grief or pathos +in the Last Days of Adam, it is merely impersonally solemn. +Even of the admirable fresco which represents Constantine in +the uneasy dream in which he saw the vision of the cross, +there is no warmth, no unexpected or emotional quality. So +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>it is throughout the series; in the Queen of Sheba visiting +Solomon, even in the splendid battle-piece, the Victory over +Maxentius, Figure <a href='#f_111'>111</a>, the obvious sentiment of the theme is +ignored, the figures have a kind of splendid unrelated existence +that requires no apology or explanation. It is an effect that +recalls the best archaic Greek sculpture.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Taken all in all, Piero is a formidable and enigmatic figure, +an exception in an eager and emotional age. His truth to his +vision is what counts. One feels it in the portrait of the humanist +sovereign and captain of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro. +It was painted about 1472 and is in the Uffizi, Figure +<a href='#f_112'>112</a>. How sternly honest it is, and what a presentation of +a powerful and beneficent personality. Even the little decorative +picture on the back of the panel, a Triumph of Fame, +has an effect beyond its scale and obvious intention. It suggests +wide dominions and heavy responsibilities manfully +met.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Piero della Francesca lived out his life mostly in Umbria +and far from the artistic centre of things. There is a self-sufficing +quality in this voluntary isolation. He lived on to +great old age, dying in 1492, and unless his declining years +were perturbed by the faintly rising star of Leonardo da Vinci, +he might boast himself, in the words of his and Leonardo’s +friend, Fra Luca Pacioli, “the monarch of his times in the +science of painting.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>We must leave for the Umbrian chapter such sturdy continuers +of Piero della Francesca’s experimentalism as Melozzo +da Forlì and Luca Signorelli. What is more important to +note in leaving him is that such triumphs as his in fresco +painting were highly exceptional in the second half of the +fifteenth century. The successes of the period are in the +minor art of panel painting. The fantasies of Botticelli, +the best portraits of Ghirlandaio, the early panels of Perugino +and Signorelli and Leonardo da Vinci—these are the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>outstanding things. In mural painting Florence actually +retrograded, not merely as compared with the days of Masaccio, +Fra Filippo and Fra Angelico, but even as compared with +the earlier days of Andrea Bonaiuti, +Agnolo Gaddi and Spinello +Aretino. The fact has been obscured +by the superficial gain in +small realism, in sprightliness, +and mere prettiness, but in all +the serious qualities of monumental +design the decadence is +unmistakable. The favorite decorators +simply executed on a +large scale the sort of compositions +that would have been +charming on the front of a bride-chest. +In the general enthusiasm +for the parts of pictures the +sense of pictures as a whole +seemed in danger of being lost. +The undiscriminating enthusiasm for the primitive painting of +the Early Renaissance which has ruled for two generations has +so clouded critical opinion on this point, that I must be at +some pains to make my case good.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps I can do no better than to review some of the +frescoes which Pope Sixtus IV ordered about 1481 for the +new chapel of the Vatican Palace.<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c012'><sup>[43]</sup></a> He summoned to the +Sistine Chapel the best available artists from both Tuscany +and Umbria. By the measure of their success we may estimate +the mural painting of the time.</p> + +<div id='f_112' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_112.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 112.</span> Piero della Francesca. Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, despot of Urbino.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Originally the decorative scheme, later amplified by Michelangelo, +required sixteen scriptural stories, in which the deeds +of Moses were parallelled by those of Christ. The two first +and two last subjects, on the end walls, have been destroyed, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>but we still see the twelve on the side walls. In general they +all show the old Gothic coloring, are mostly vivacious in a +confused and over-rich way, and lack unity of pattern and +dramatic coherence.</p> + +<div id='f_113' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_113.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 113.</span> Assistant of Perugino. Baptism. Fresco.—<em>Sistine Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>One of the most admired is the Baptism of Christ, Figure +<a href='#f_113'>113</a>, by Pintorricchio, (or, as Venturi suggests, Andrea of +Assisi) who here works as Perugino’s assistant. The story +is told in the centre and reinforced by a spacious landscape +which is confusingly full of attractive features. The theme +is mechanically stretched to fill the space by adding at both +flanks groups which have slight or no connection with the subject. +These groups are interestingly diversified with fine +portraits of the Pope’s relatives, the Roveres, and by the +alert forms of children. The effect is fairly restful and idyllic, +but the pattern is mechanical, and the emotional effect of the +real theme is frittered away in the accessories. The method +of enlarging a stock composition by adding portrait groups +is standard for the Sistine Chapel and for the period. Masaccio +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>had tried it more effectively in the Miracle of the Boy, and +Filippo Lippi had made it seem almost organic in The Funeral +of St. Stephen. Pintorricchio, if it be he, is more superficially +alluring for his richness and variety, but really stands +on a far lower plane of design than his predecessors.</p> + +<div id='f_114' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_114.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 114.</span> Botticelli. Moses in the Land of Midian. Fresco.—<em>Sistine Chapel, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>If this mechanical symmetry is the standard method, there +are significant exceptions in the Sistine Chapel. The more +sensitive spirits, Botticelli and Luca Signorelli, reject so trite +a solution. Botticelli’s Moses in Midian, Figure <a href='#f_114'>114</a>, offers +a delicate evasion, by promoting a minor motive to be the +central theme. All the incidents that are dramatically important—the +slaying of the Egyptian taskmaster, and the +adoration of the Burning Bush from which Jehovah spoke—are +done with the most energetic feeling, but are relegated +to the background and edges of the composition. The picture +is really the fine grove in which Moses gallantly helps +the nymph-like daughters of Jethro to draw water. A fantastic +<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>idyl is foisted off on us as a substitute for one of the +decisive moments in the Providential order. Botticelli is +so winning in his evasion, that it seems almost unfeeling to +note that no Gothic painter would have done anything so +shifty. His success is not merely at the expense of the expression +of his real theme, but also at the expense of the order +and dignity proper to mural design. Having ordered a canto +of an epic, the Pope received a delicious madrigal. His contentment +is characteristic of the æsthetic casualness of the +times.</p> + +<div id='f_115' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_115.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 115.</span> Signorelli, Design only. Last Days of Moses. Fresco.—<em>Sistine Chapel, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Signorelli, in the Last Days of Moses, Figure <a href='#f_115'>115</a>, makes a +similar but less egregious evasion. His centre of interest is +the nude youth in the foreground, but he does give a certain +prominence to the scenes where Moses invests Joshua with +authority, and where both view the Promised Land from +Mount Horeb. Though without much emotional accent, +the crowds are agreeably disposed and diversified by graceful +forms of women and children. Only the design is by Signorelli, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>the execution being by an assistant, Don Bartolommeo +della Gatta. The picture is more delightful for such passages +as the Apollo-like nude youth and the mother with her children +in the right foreground than it is as a whole, though it +is full of idyllic charm, and inadequate only when one considers +the gravity of its theme.</p> + +<div id='f_116' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_116.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 116.</span> Ghirlandaio. Christ calling Peter and Andrew. Fresco.—<em>Sistine Chapel, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In his Calling of Peter and Andrew, Figure <a href='#f_116'>116</a>, to be fishers +of men, Domenico Ghirlandaio makes a skilful and impressive +use of that approved mechanical symmetry which has +already been noticed in Pintorricchio’s Baptism. Everything +is well centralized, the river view is a welcome outlet, +the stereotyped bystanders on the flanks at least are telling +portraits and, while not bound into the central motive, have +withal a gravity that sufficiently accords with it. The arrangement +is lucid, and the surplus accessories fairly well +subordinated. A rather perfunctory quality in the central +scene of homage and dedication reveals Ghirlandaio’s scanty +imagination. His impressiveness has a certain dullness about it.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>Few words need be spent on the picturesque and irresponsible +confusion which reigns in Cosimo Rosselli’s Destruction +of Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea, Figure <a href='#f_117'>117</a>. Cosimo was +one of the older painters in the chapel, forty-two years old. +Yet a juvenile sensationalism and uncalculated restlessness +prevail, and his attempts at vivacity and grace are as unhappy +as his striving for effects of terror. It may well be +that his eccentric young pupil, Piero di Cosimo, gave this +fresco its febrile energy and its theatrical landscape. Certain +it is that the three other frescoes by Cosimo are unmitigatedly +dull. Oddly it was he alone who won the praise of Pope Sixtus, +mostly for his profuse introduction of gold ornament.</p> + +<div id='f_117' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_117.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 117.</span> Cosimo Rosselli. Destruction of Pharaoh’s Army. Fresco.—<em>Sistine Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_118' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span> +<img src='images/f_118.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 118.</span> Perugino. Christ giving the Keys to Peter. Fresco.—<em>Sistine Chapel, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We have seen in the Sistine Chapel a mechanical and rather +perfunctory symmetry, various clever evasions of an idyllic +sort, and a picturesque disorder side by side. The most ambitious +decorative scheme of the time seems to result in a +kind of artistic bankruptcy. But fortunately the Sistine +Chapel contains its own self-criticism and remedy, in the +extraordinary fresco by Pietro Perugino, Christ delivering +the Keys to Peter, Figure <a href='#f_118'>118</a>. Perugino is an Umbrian from +Città della Pieve, thirty-five years old, and with a certain +amount of Florentine training. He has, like Masaccio sixty +years before, looked at the art of his times and found it wanting. +He has had the lucidity to see that the malady is surplusage +and disorder. Hence, he argues, the remedy is simplicity +and order. To this he adds a sense of vastness. In +this picture the temple platform, a vastness made by man, +is set within the vastness of a river valley made by nature. +The foreground group is arranged in a formal half military +order which is cunningly made easy and flexible by differences +of posture and gesture. Every tilted head and pointed foot +has its reason. Without undue insistence, all the apostles +are interested in the rite which ordains their chief. Here is +no casual pleasure ground in which you may delightfully look +about, here is a definite vision of a momentous act which you +must see swiftly, completely, and precisely as the artist intends +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>you shall see. It is the only well-considered design +among these frescoes. It points the simplest and surest way +by which the exuberance of the Early Renaissance might be +disciplined into a noble order, and within twenty years the +lesson was to be reread for all Italy by young Raphael of +Urbino. Meanwhile the somewhat irresponsible exuberance +of the new narrative painting has after all its winning aspect, +is a sign of an energy and enthusiasm that need not so much +to be tamed as to be intellectualized.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In discussing the last twenty years of the fifteenth century +in Florence I am embarrassed by the richness of the +field. Beside such typical figures as Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, +we have to do with such sensitive and morbid spirits +as Filippino Lippo and Piero di Cosimo; with Andrea Verrocchio +and a group of imitators of his fastidious manner, +notable among them young Leonardo da Vinci; with a host +of secondary painters, particularly of furniture panels, and +small altar-pieces, while if we consider rather artistic training +than accident of birth, we must reckon with the Florentine +achievement the rugged triumphs of Luca Signorelli. +But since the more distinctive and progressive of these artists +are really precursors of the Golden Age, or symptomatic +of the unrest that was its prelude, they may best be treated +later. That will leave us only the painters who are fully +representative of the festal moment of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s +greatness—the furniture painters and Ghirlandaio.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Those excesses of vivacity, those extravagances of invention, +those juvenile graces which were a weakness in mural +painting, were admirably in place in the decoration of chests +and wainscots. The greater artists gladly accepted this +little work, and some painters painted exclusively trousseau +chests (<i><span lang="it">cassoni</span></i>) for young brides—an enviable occupation, +for surely these fair young creatures had to be personally +consulted. The subjects glorify love, magnify valor, celebrate +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>the festal life of the day, its pageants, feasts, and dances. +Of professional <i><span lang="it">cassoni</span></i> painters Francesco Pesellino<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c012'><sup>[44]</sup></a> (1422–1457) +is the most famous. He is bewitching in variety and +sensitiveness of invention, in refinement of story telling, +and in glamour of color. Two admirable <em>cassone</em> fronts by +him are owned by Mrs. John L. Gardner, Figure <a href='#f_119'>119</a>. They +represent the six triumphs described by Petrarch in so many +<i><span lang="it">Canzoni</span></i>. Love, Chastity, Death, Time, Fame, and Eternity +are figured forth much as these themes were embodied +in contemporary pageants, about the year 1450. The subjects +were favorites for <i><span lang="it">cassoni</span></i> less because of their grave moral +import than because Petrarch was Love’s accredited Poet +Laureate.</p> + +<div id='f_119' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_119.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 119.</span> Francesco Pesellino. Cassone Front. Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death.—<em>Mrs. John L. Gardner, Boston.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We have in the New York Historical Society the superb +salver, Figure <a href='#f_119a'>119a</a>, which was prepared against the birth of +Lorenzo de’ Medici. Appropriately it shows knights acclaiming +fame. The date is 1448, the painter of the school of +Domenico Veneziano.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We often see the Queen of Sheba reverently approaching +Solomon. It is the admonition that a young bride should +seek wisdom. Battles and Roman triumphs are tediously +common. They set a mark of valor for the bridegroom. Wedding +Feasts are almost tautological on a bride-chest, but they +afford charming pictures of the Florence that amused itself.</p> + +<div id='f_119a' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span> +<img src='images/f_119a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 119</span><em>a.</em>> Follower of Domenico Veneziano, perhaps Baldovinetti. Triumph of Fame. Birth Salver for Lorenzo de’ Medici.—<em>N. Y. Historical Society.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Mythology often dignifies these painted stories, the reference being generally to that beauty which is institutional +in brides. Thus we have in a <i><span lang="it">spalliera</span></i> panel in the Fogg +Museum the Judgment of Paris, with the competing goddesses +more modestly clothed than Ovid’s record justifies. +The work is possibly an exceptionally amiable product of +Cosimo Rosselli, and the date may be about 1475. The Rape of +Helen, which was of course due to her fatal beauty, is a common +if unedifying subject for bride-chests. So is Actæon torn by +the hounds of the Divine Huntress for his temerity in surprising +Diana at her bath. A delightful panel in the possession +of Mr. Martin Ryerson at Chicago recounts in many +<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>episodes the adventures of Ulysses from his escape from +Polyphemus to his home-coming at Ithaca. The dalliances +of the much-experienced wanderer are by no means concealed, +but at least the scene opens with prominent display +of the episode most creditable to him as a married man, +the baffling of the Sirens, and closes with the exemplary figure +of constant Penelope weaving her interminable web.</p> + +<div id='f_120' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_120.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 120.</span> Bartolommeo di Giovanni under Botticelli’s direction. Nastagio degli Onesti’s Feast. Spalliera panel.—<em>Spiridon Coll., Paris.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In furniture painting we are generally in the realm of +comedy. But we touch pathos in Boccaccio’s story of patient +Griselda, at Bergamo, Modena, and elsewhere; while we approach +tragedy in the many versions of chaste Susanna assailed +and traduced by the elders, and attain to notable melodrama +in Boccaccio’s grim vision of the spirit lover eternally +harrying the miserable ghost of his merciless lady through +the pine wood of Ravenna. The best of these panels is +in the Spiridon Collection, Paris. The ghostly scene of the +chase takes place before the picnic party, Figure <a href='#f_120'>120</a>, artfully +arranged by Nastagio degli Onesti to prove to his unfeeling +<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>lady that there is a penalty in the next world for being too +cruel to a lover in this. The lesson Boccaccio tells us was +effective, and they lived happily together ever afterwards. +The panel was designed by Botticelli and painted by his +assistant, Bartolommeo di Giovanni, for the wedding of a Bini +groom and a Pucci bride in the year 1487.</p> + +<p class='c007'>With it we take leave of Florentine furniture painting, +an art too unpretentious to be considered at length in a general +survey, yet too charming in itself and too representative of the +heyday of Florentine wealth and gayety to be wholly neglected.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio mark in very +different fashions the culmination and the close of the Early +Renaissance in Florence. Botticelli is the poet of its nostalgia. +He expresses not its joyous average, but the erotic and mystical +subtilities of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Platonic Academy, +and later the Apocalyptic hopes and despairs that gathered +around Savonarola. He utters a discontent and ideality +which in part are completely contained in his work and in +part were only fulfilled in the rapidly approaching Golden +Age. He is aristocratic and individual, hence we shall consider +him in connection with his fellow <i><span lang="fr">intellectuel</span></i>, Leonardo +da Vinci. Domenico Ghirlandaio,<a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c012'><sup>[45]</sup></a> on the contrary, is the +most completely contented creature, imaginable. He never +even dreamt of anything desirable beyond his Florence. He +loved the local spectacle too dearly to represent it literally. +He generally prettified it, more rarely he glorified it. Its +mundane ideals were his. Towards its people, its young men +and maidens and grave merchants and magistrates he brought, +without Fra Filippo Lippi’s sensitiveness, an equal curiosity +and admiration. And Florence fairly deserved the adoration +of such a man as was he. Wisely and generously ruled by +Lorenzo de’ Medici, who exemplified not merely the practical +virtues of the city but also her more engaging vices, author +<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>of wise policy and of wittily dissolute songs; combining the +self-respecting appearances of liberty with the advantages +of benevolent despotism, abounding in new wealth, lavish +in pleasure and spectacle, unrestrained +by a religion which was +becoming merely a social decency +and a form of fire-insurance +against a not impossible hell—Florence +had reached a pitch of +complacency and worldly well-being +the like of which the world +has perhaps never seen before or +since. The menacing sword of +the spirit was already swaying +over it in the eloquence of a +young Dominican monk at Ferrara. +But Florence trod the +primrose path unconscious of +the doom at hand for her. And Ghirlandaio was present to +immortalize everything that was pleasant in her short prime.</p> + +<div id='f_121' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_121.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 121.</span> Domenico Ghirlandaio. St. Jerome. Fresco.—<em>Ognissanti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>He was born in 1449, his father appropriately being a garland-maker +for gay Florence. He was trained under Alesso +Baldovinetti, but prudently declined to compromise his own +bright coloring with the new technic of oil painting. He +studied with profit the ornate narratives of Benozzo Gozzoli. +One of his earliest frescoes, painted about 1470 in Ognissanti, +already reveals the grounds of his later popularity. The +vivid portraits of the Vespucci family so crowd about a Madonna +of Pity as to make her seem quite secondary.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Somewhat later he painted the legend of Santa Fina at +San Gimignano. Here Gozzoli’s simpler vein is imitated, +and the effect has a rusticity befitting the theme. Soon +the <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> at Florence flourished mightily. There were +two younger brothers to help, and all commissions were executed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>with businesslike dispatch. About 1480 we find him +once more painting for the Church of Ognissanti. His St. +Jerome there, Figure <a href='#f_121'>121</a>, is a beautifully groomed old prelate +in a wonderfully kept study. The Saint is caught in an +interval of work, searching perhaps for the right Latin word +to render the Hebrew text before him. He is grave and not +too stern. The colors are vivid without much regard for harmony. +Very little of the fire of the missionary who declined +to subject the mysteries of God to the rules of the grammarian +Donatus is suggested. One has only to look at Botticelli’s +St. Augustine, opposite in the church, agonized by the burden +of thought, to realize that Ghirlandaio has cared nothing for +the psychology of his theme, but has given us any comfortable +old Florentine scholar placidly occupied in his <i><span lang="la">scriptorium</span></i>.</p> + +<div id='f_122' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_122.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 122.</span> Ghirlandaio. The Last Supper. Fresco.—<em>Refectory, Ognissanti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A similar lack of emotional content mars the otherwise +delightful Last Supper, Figure <a href='#f_122'>122</a>, which was painted that +same year for the refectory of Ognissanti. Pathos, not to +say tragedy, is carefully kept out of the most solemn of scenes. +The eye is likely to go first to the tree-tops and flying birds +seen above the screen, then it becomes vaguely aware of a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>gentle company quietly feasting. Except for a faint trace of +classicism in the costumes, it could be any governing board +of any religious confraternity of the day, decorously enjoying +its annual dinner. The qualities and defects of Ghirlandaio +are fully apparent in this fresco—his lucidity and +sweetness, his emotional nullity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The next year, 1481, Ghirlandaio painted in the Sistine +Chapel at Rome Christ Calling Peter and Andrew. We +have already considered this his nearest approach to monumental +design. Shortly before the Roman trip he married, +and when his wife Costanza died, after a decent interval, +he repeated the adventure. The two wedlocks were blessed +by nine children of whom one, Ridolfo, was to become in turn +a notable painter. Such fecundity was worthy of the man +who once sighed for a commission to fresco the seven-mile +circuit of the walls of Florence. On his return from Rome +Ghirlandaio decorated the great hall of the Palace of the Priors, +and from now on merely a list of his commissions and patrons +would be a blue book of the old aristocracy and new wealth +of Florence.</p> + +<div id='f_123' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span> +<img src='images/f_123.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 123.</span> Domenico Ghirlandaio. Miracle of the Spini Boy. Fresco.—<em>Trinità.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Thus in 1485 he contracted with Francesco Sassetti to do +a chapel in the Trinità with Stories of St. Francis. Sassetti +was confidential treasurer for Lorenzo the Magnificent, about +the most important financial position in the world at the +moment; a selfmade and ambitious man. He had tried in +vain to get a finer chapel in a bigger church, but the patrician +vested interests prevented. Still the chapel to the right of +the Choir of the Trinità was no mean place, this Vallombrosan +foundation being one of the oldest in Florence. Ghirlandaio +took special pains with the frescoes, studying with intelligence +Giotto’s famous versions of the stories at Santa Croce. +He is most nearly monumental where he follows Giotto, as +in the Death of St. Francis, but he also shows surprising felicities +of his own. The scene where Pope Honorius III constitutes St. Francis and his fellows a monastic order, is +remarkable for not only fine incidental portraiture, but +for a nobility of space composition faintly anticipating +Raphael. One scarcely realizes the subject as such. All the +dramatic features with which Giotto emphasized the eagerness +of the saint, the humility of his companions, the professional +dignity of the Pope and the half-veiled hostility of the +papal court are absent. One’s eyes go over the group to the +familiar grandiose prospect of the Piazza della Signoria at +Florence, and one feels that never till now has he rightly apprehended +its amplitude and splendor. Then there are sharp +pleasant surprises. At the left is the ugly and fascinating +figure of Lorenzo de’ Medici and behind him the gross +apparition of Francesco Sassetti himself. And in front there +are people coming up from a lower level, only their heads and +shoulders emerging. The swarthy man who leads is Angelo +Poliziano, greatest of humanistic poets, tutor of Lorenzo’s +sons. And the boys are these gifted children destined to be +popes, and granddukes. The combination of great spaciousness +and centrality with casual unexpected graces is so piquant +and original, that I suppose Ghirlandaio may have hit upon it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>almost accidentally, owing to the inevitable relations of his +Gothic lunette to the architectural forms in the fresco. In +any case Ghirlandaio never again did anything as impressive. +It is his greatest hymn of praise +to the Florence that he so dearly +loved.</p> + +<div id='f_124' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_124.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 124.</span> Domenico Ghirlandaio. Adoration of the Magi.—<em>Innocenti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the same chapel is a remarkable +picture representing +the Piazza of the Trinità with +St. Francis resuscitating a boy +of the Spini family, Figure <a href='#f_123'>123</a>. +It has extraordinary bits of invention, +but lacks the organization +of the fresco just discussed. +The altar-piece for the chapel, +an Adoration of the Shepherds, +now in the Uffizi, represents the +graciousness of Ghirlandaio in +familiar narrative his willing acceptance of the panoramic +richness of the age, and his exceptional power of portraiture +in these rustics painted from himself and from members of +the Sassetti family. The ruggedness of the characterization +suggests Flemish painting. Ghirlandaio may well have been +influenced by the great Nativity with Portraits which Hugo +van der Goes sent down from Ghent, in 1476, to the Hospital +Church of Santa Maria Nuova.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Ghirlandaio’s altar-pieces are many. They are brilliant +without real harmony of color; pretty, without much insight, in +the types of the Virgin and youthful saints. The most +elaborate of these panels, An Adoration of the Magi, Figure +<a href='#f_124'>124</a>, was finished in 1488 for the Foundling Hospital dedicated +to the Massacred Innocents of Bethlehem. It still stands on +its original altar in the chapel of the Innocenti, and is a radiant +thing. The crowded group of adorers in the foreground is well +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>knit together. Ghirlandaio had taken a shrewd look at Botticelli’s +Epiphany (now at Petrograd), or at Leonardo da Vinci’s +unfinished masterpiece. By a touching and appropriate invention, +Ghirlandaio has set two of the martyred Innocents kneeling +in white robes and crowned with a saint’s nimbus among +the Wise Men. There are, as usual, many portraits, including +Ghirlandaio’s own, by the pillar at the right. The deep river +valley, suggested by northern paintings or engravings, relieves +the somewhat congested character of the figure arrangement. +The girlish Madonna would do no discredit to the front cover +of a nation-wide periodical today. So gracious and ingenious +is this picture that one regrets to note that it is rather cleverly +staged than deeply felt, its manifold prettiness and picturesqueness, +of a quite obvious character.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As Ghirlandaio had moved from success to success, so he +was destined to end in his day of highest glory. In 1485 he +signed a contract with Giovanni Tornabuoni, of the old nobility, +to decorate the choir of the most aristocratic church in +Florence, Santa Maria Novella. The subjects, the Life of the +Virgin and St. John the Baptist, were already on the wall in +the guise of water-soaked and ruined frescoes by Andrea +Orcagna. Ghirlandaio provided pastoral scenes with wide +landscapes, city prospects with charming girls plentiful in +foreground, rich patrician interiors with graceful women and +their attendants making visits of ceremony, rare religious +events with heavy magistrates and dignitaries standing inattentively +by—everything in short that a prosperous and +well-bred Florentine of the moment was accustomed to think +desirable in beauty, gentleness, or worldly estate. Characteristic +are the Salutation of Mary and Elizabeth, a picture +in which the solemnity of the scene, so magnificently asserted +by Giotto at Padua, slips away into mere spectacle and civility; +the Birth of Saint John, Figure <a href='#f_125'>125</a>, with a young girl +of the Tornabuoni family making her visit with her maids, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>and all manner of graceful and rich accessories; or again, the +Presentation in The Temple, with a whole tribe of Tornabuonis +and Ghirlandaios in negligent attendance on the sacred +rite. These may stand for the whole. For their casual and +mundane richness John Ruskin has poured upon these frescoes +his double-distilled vials of wrath. What he says as to +their superficiality and emptiness of religious feeling is true +enough, yet his denunciatory rhetoric serves but as a trip-hammer +to demolish an eggshell which has after all its iridescent +frail beauty. Gentler methods are better with so +gently mundane a creature as Ghirlandaio. The Lord’s +people, as he saw them about him, were good enough for him +and for his art. Criticism should rather insist that, being +worldly, he was not worldly enough to be strong and lucid, +but too readily had recourse to promiscuous richness and perfunctory +ideals of prettiness. Still, it does not befit the age +or race whose characteristic art product is the smiling or +pensive girl on the cover of the popular magazine to throw +the first stone at Domenico Ghirlandaio.</p> + +<div id='f_125' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_125.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 125.</span> Domenico Ghirlandaio. Birth of St. John.—<em>Santa Maria Novella.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_126' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span> +<img src='images/f_126.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 126.</span> Domenico Ghirlandaio. Old Man and Boy.—<em>Paris.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Whatever the verdict as to +his nominally religious painting, +in portraiture Ghirlandaio +is one of the greatest +figures of his time. Portraits +of the finest qualities abound +in his frescoes, and he has left +a few incomparable things on +panel. Few Renaissance portraits +have the authority of +the amazing old man, Figure +<a href='#f_126'>126</a>, in the Louvre, who +fondles an adoring boy. In +this picture, deformity becomes +a grace, and the spiritual +and material interpretation +are of equal incisiveness +and beauty. As fine in another vein is the profile of Giovanna +degli Albizzi in the J. P. Morgan Collection, Figure <a href='#f_101'>101</a>. It +is dated in 1488. It is the supreme portrait of a Florentine +beauty of a passing and lovely moment. An instant of time, +when the old simplicity had enriched itself with new learning; +when with the new humanism the tournament and court of +love persisted; when courtly manners had become an ideal +without freezing into an official code—all this is for a sensitive +and informed observer in this placid well-poised head of +an ill-starred Florentine bride. She died in 1488, a little before +the overthrow of the Florence she typifies. Her accomplished +young husband, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, equally adequate +in the tilt yard, the study, or the council hall, lived on +for nine years and shared the death agony of the society of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>which he was a chief ornament. When his head fell under +Savonarola’s orders, a splendid chapter of early Florentine +humanism closed. Thus these young people died with their +Florence, leaving no descendants, but a memory eternally +fragrant.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The year of Giovanna’s death, 1488, Ghirlandaio, being +thirty-nine years old, took a new wife, and continued diligently +at the frescoes of Santa Maria Novella. Not being +overburdened with imagination, he probably never guessed he +was occupied with a memorial of a society already doomed. +Doubtless he followed the fashionable throng to San Marco +where for a year Fra Girolamo Savonarola had been preaching +against the current vanities. Ghirlandaio presumably approved +the oratory, with a comfortable sense that while unworldliness +might very properly be preached, no sensible +city could ever be induced to practice it. Perhaps he never +woke up to the appalling fact that Savonarola literally meant +business both evangelically and politically.</p> + +<p class='c007'>So Ghirlandaio’s Florence moved swiftly to its doom, and +the while he saved much of its look and grace on the walls +of his choir. For a year a touchy and ugly little boy +who carried the disproportionately great name of Michelangelo +Buonarotti scrambled discontentedly about the scaffolding +of the choir, lending a hand here and there, and learning +the old art of fresco painting. Ghirlandaio of course never +knew that in the restless apprentice he was training a titan. +He probably thought him a nuisance. By the end of 1493 the +frescoes of the Virgin and St. John the patron of Florence were +nearly finished, and the altar-piece, an Assumption, was already +planned. At forty-four Ghirlandaio had at once reached +his climax and painted himself down an anachronism. Of +course he didn’t know it; such self-knowledge is mercifully +spared us. The luck of Ghirlandaio was extraordinarily constant. +Nowhere is it more signally shown than in the date of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>his death. Some inkling that things were going ill under +Piero de’ Medici’s fitful rule must have come to him, but he +died in January 1494, a good ten months before the Medici +were expelled, their palaces sacked, and Savonarola in charge +of a Florence terrified into sobriety.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To those painters from Fra Filippo to Ghirlandaio who +caught the look and unpretentious poetry of Medicean Florence +we owe an especial gratitude. They are not in the direct +line of progress and they none of them reached the heights +of art. But for centuries they have never failed to give delightful +information, while infallibly touching average human +sympathies. We do ill to idolize them, for they were after +all rather small men, but we do well also to honor them according +to their accomplishment. They did their particular +task of enlivening decoration with illustrative episodes, with +tact, refinement and knowledge; with all the sympathy of +the modestly observant eye. Most of their work had to be +undone before the Grand Style was possible, but it all evinces +the vitality and variety without which as preliminary training +the Grand Style itself could hardly have attained its +elaborate and strictly ordered composure. We do well to take +Vasari’s general view of these artists of the human spectacle—not +considering them so much as weak links in a mighty +chain, but as complete in themselves, as a youth may be complete +even though the young man dies in the glory of his unfolding. +Why expect prematurely the sedate splendors of +middle age? Take then this art for what it offers—an unsystematic +fairy land which is yet half real, and keep your +higher standards in reserve for artists who better deserve them. +For austere standards are held by a truly civilized person for +purposes of discriminate praise and not as a ready means of +promiscuous blame.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span> + <h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER I</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Pageantry in Old Florence</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>The art of Gozzoli and the <em>cassone</em> painters, and, in part, that of +Filippo Lippi and Ghirlandaio implies the background of public pageantry +at Florence. There is a precious piece of old doggerel which +describes the festivities, in May 1459, for the reception of Pope Pius II +and Gian Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan. The palaces and churches +were completely hung with rich stuffs, the sumptuary laws were suspended +in favor of the fair sex; besides many processions and feasts, +there was bear baiting in the Piazza della Signoria, an all night open-air ball in the Mercato Nuovo, and a tournament in the Piazza di Santa +Croce. I paraphrase the verses which describe the pageant of a Triumph +of Love which was conducted by ten year old Lorenzo de’ Medici. +The subject is common in <i><span lang="it">cassoni</span></i> and <i><span lang="it">deschi da parto</span></i>. The boy Lorenzo +mounted on a marvellously caparisoned horse headed the pageant, +and while all the people whispered their admiration—</p> + +<p class='c019'>“As prudent and wise lad he conducted the Triumph of the God of +Love.... In all triumph he made Cupid come, who so gently smites +the gentle heart. Upon a car I saw him, and so I tell, most marvellously +adorned and wrought, how it was made I dare not say. On four wheels +it was finely adorned with a raised stand and fixed on every corner +thereof as a column the form and fashion of an angel. And I who saw +it thought of a castle. Upon the four columns was a great ball and above +it another ornamented piece. This was gilded everywhere ... +so that it sparkled like the sun. I cannot tell of such beauties, but +I can tell about the top part which was most delightful. Above all ... +I saw stand a youth, with two great wings of many colors on his shoulders +and all the rest nude, holding that bow with which he wounds all hearts, +and playfully puts venom therein, so that while burning within, nothing +shows without. This Triumph so marvellous and so invested with +colors, its adornment very glorious—with so many pearls, carbuncles +and sapphires—I couldn’t reckon how many florins that Triumph was +worth I say.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>The whole poem is a real treasure of such lore and should be translated. +It is found in the new edition of Muratori, <cite>Rerum Italicarum Scriptores</cite>, +Tom. XXVII. The quotation is from page 31, lines 1330–1363.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>The Procession of the Magi</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>On St. John’s Day, 1354, Matteo Palmieri tells us in his <cite>Annals</cite>, +there were many religious representations of which the most interesting +to us, as a probable inspirer of Gozzoli’s frescoes, is that of the +Three Kings from the East. There was—</p> + +<p class='c019'>“A magnificent and triumphant temple for the habitation [stage +setting] of the Magi, in which was inclosed an octagonal temple adorned +with the seven Virtues, and on the east side the Virgin with the New +Born Christ. [Probably figures in a tableau vivant]</p> + +<p class='c019'>“The three Magi with a cavalcade of more than 200 horse adorned +with many splendors came to make offerings to the New Born Christ.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>New ed. of Muratori, Tom. XXII, p. 173.</p> + +<p class='c019'>Probably all the artists mentioned in this chapter saw these two +splendid pageants and many more. Such sights count for much +in the alert and profusely ornamented painting of the fifteenth +century.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Pageants in 1466</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Piero de’ Medici “in order to give men something to think about +which should take their thoughts from the state, and a year having +passed since Cosimo had died, seized the occasion to enliven the city +and ordered two elaborate celebrations, following the others that are +customary in that city. One which represented, when the three Kings, +the Magi, came from the East behind the star which showed the birth +of Christ; the which was of such pomp and so magnificent, that in +arranging and holding it the entire city was occupied for several months.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>Machiavelli, <cite>Istorie fiorentine</cite>, Lib. VII, cap. xii.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“The other [festival, Machiavelli continues] was a tournament (for +so they used to call a spectacle, which represented a cavalry skirmish) +where the first youths of the city exercised themselves against the most +famous knights of Italy; and among the young men of Florence the +most in repute was Lorenzo, first-born son of Piero, who not by favor, +but by his own valor carried off the first honours.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>Lorenzo was then a likely lad of seventeen.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>A Side-light on Ghirlandaio’s Patrons</span></h4> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div><em>A Trick for getting a Family Chapel in 1488</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'>The choir of Santa Maria Novella was under the patronage of the Ricci +family, but they were poor and had been unable to repair the waterstained +<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>frescoes of Orcagna, which had been painted a century and a +quarter earlier. So Giovanni Tornabuoni got permission to redecorate +the chapel on condition of setting the Ricci arms “in the most conspicuous +and honourable place in that chapel.” And so the contract +was drawn. Domenico Ghirlandaio actually set the Tornabuoni arms +in huge scale on the side pilasters, whereas he painted the Ricci arms +half a foot high on the door of the ciborium in the centre of the base +of his altar-piece. The rest in Vasari’s words (de Vere’s translation, +Vol. III, p. 224):</p> + +<p class='c019'>“And a fine jest it was at the opening of the chapel, for these Ricci +looked for their arms with much ado, and finally, not being able to find +them, went off to the Tribunal of Eight, contract in hand. Whereupon +the Tornabuoni showed that these arms had been placed in the most +conspicuous and honourable part of the work; and although the others +exclaimed that they were invisible, they were told that they were in +the wrong, and that they must be content, since the Tornabuoni had +caused them to be placed in so honourable a position as the neighborhood +of the most Holy Sacrament. And so it was decided by that tribunal +that they should be left untouched, as they may be seen today. +Now, if this should appear to anyone to be outside the scope of the Life +that I have to write, let him not be vexed, for it all flowed naturally +from the tip of my pen. And it should serve, if for nothing else, at least +to show how easily poverty falls a prey to riches, and how riches, if +accompanied by discretion, achieve without censure anything that a +man desires.”</p> + +<div id='f_127' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span> +<img src='images/f_127.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 127.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. Cartoon of Madonna and St. Ann.—<em>Burlington House, London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter V</span></span><br> DAWN OF THE GOLDEN AGE: BOTTICELLI AND LEONARDO DA VINCI</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>Leonardo da Vinci as assimilator of the Realistic reforms—Botticelli as +reactionary—His beginnings under Fra Filippo and Pollaiuolo—Height +of his realistic achievement in Adoration of the Magi—Assertion of his +fantastic vein in the Primavera—The Dante drawings and the distraught +style of the later works, its æsthetic value—Minor Eccentrics: +Filippino Lippi—Piero di Cosimo—Leonardo da Vinci, his gradual +advance towards Chiaroscuro method, his ideals—His work with Verrocchio—The +Adoration of the Kings, its disciplined richness—Cartoon +of St. Ann—First Madonna of the Rocks—Leonardo at Milan. The +Last Supper—At Florence again. The Battle Cartoon. Mona Lisa—Second +Sojourn at Milan. The St. Ann, his influence—At Rome, in +France and the end—Leonardo’s successors at Florence; Fra Bartolommeo— +Andrea del Sarto—Agnolo Bronzino—Pontormo—Decline of +Florentine independence and of the School.</p> + +<p class='c006'>The task before an ambitious young Florentine artist about +1475 was one of assimilation. Pretty much all the knowledge +essential for the new painting existed, but in scattered shape. +Masaccio had modernized Giotto’s monumental patterns, and +had found for himself the new structural values of light and +shade. Domenico Veneziano had introduced the handier +method of oil painting, and, with Piero della Francesca, had +attempted novel refinements in paler tonalities. He and +Paolo Uccello had worked out the mysteries of linear perspective. +Andrea del Castagno had achieved a systematic +and learned anatomy. Antonio Pollaiuolo had added to this +an extraordinary knowledge of the human body in violent action. +Andrea Verrocchio had demonstrated that these realistic +strivings were compatible with grace. It had occurred to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>no one to combine all these discoveries until Leonardo da +Vinci reached his early maturity. The synthesis worked out +by him between 1480 and 1498, the dates of his unfinished +Adoration of the Kings and Last Supper respectively, is the +foundation on which Raphael built. Leonardo da Vinci is +the pioneer of the Golden Age.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It will help us to realize the greatness of his accomplishment +to study first the career of a contemporary and friend, +the exquisite artist, Sandro Botticelli. Botticelli, like Leonardo, +came under the spell of Verrocchio’s fastidiousness, and +went some distance in the direction of the new monumental +beauty. Then abruptly he turned aside along solitary lines +quite unprecedented, but akin to the mystic past of Siena. +His great refusal of progress, his broken and eccentric career, +give point to the humanistic centrality and social authority +of Leonardo’s painting. The two men represent opposite +escapes from the superficial brilliance of the art dominated +by Ghirlandaio. Leonardo moved out towards the future, +and has lived on as a fine inspiration of academic painting +ever since. Botticelli withdrew into himself, and has survived +flickeringly in the occasional admiration of kindred spirits. +Both express, if in very different fashion, the profound discontent +that preluded a new era of art. It will help us to perceive +how great Botticelli is in his solitary poetry, to consider +two younger contemporaries, Filippino Lippi, his pupil, and +Piero di Cosimo, an intelligent imitator of Leonardo, both +of whom, sharing Botticelli’s discontent, also sought escape +in self-assertiveness of an eccentric sort. As the modern age +begins to dawn, the modern temperamental artist appears. +The <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> begins to be a studio. Thus Sandro Botticelli<a id='r46'></a><a href='#f46' class='c012'><sup>[46]</sup></a> +has a double importance for us—as an exquisite artist, and +even more as the first individualist who strained sorely at +the bounds imposed by the collective taste, required a select +public, and painted to please himself.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>There is nothing of this romantic isolation in his origins. +He was born a tanner’s son, in 1444, and brought up in the +smiling country towards Careggi. At thirteen he was still at +school, hence was better educated than the average painter. +Soon he was put with a goldsmith, very likely his brother +Antonio, whose nickname—Il Botticello, the cask, paradoxically +attached itself to the creator of the Primavera. +Before his fifteenth year, 1459, young Botticelli was apprenticed +to Fra Filippo Lippi, the most sensitive eye of the time. +Young Botticelli presumably painted on the later frescoes at +Prato, and I believe may have been permitted to design certain +of the figures in The Feast of Herod. Two early pictures +of the Adoration of the Kings, both in the National Gallery, +London, show us how whole-heartedly Botticelli adopted his +master’s discursive style, how sedulously he sought variety +and richness of gesture and facial expression. But these +crowded compositions lack Fra Filippo’s direct geniality. +They are already imagined before they are observed. Fra +Filippo went to Spoleto some time before 1468 and soon died +there. So Botticelli was perhaps on his own resources from his +twenty-fourth year, though he was not inscribed in the Company +of St. Luke till 1472. What is certain is that he was +fortifying himself by imitation of far more strenuous artists +than his master. The delicate incisiveness of Verrocchio appears +as an occasional inspiration, the rugged power of Antonio +Pollaiuolo dominates his pictorial expression for many +years.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A group of early pictures shows strikingly the interplay +of realistic influences with the assertion of his own originality. +The delicately expressive Madonna, Figure <a href='#f_128'>128</a>, in Mrs. John +L. Gardner’s collection, is based on Filippo Lippi’s Madonna +in the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_103'>103</a>. The general arrangement is the +same. But what a change in feeling! All the overt picturesque +relations which Fra Filippo loved—the girlish Virgin +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>praying to her child, the chubby baby clutching at its mother, +the impish angel grinning out of the picture—all that is +eliminated. The Virgin wistfully reaches for the ear of wheat +signifying her Son’s body that must be broken. A well-grown, +reverent angel, enigmatically smiling, offers the grapes and +wheat, symbols of the sacrament. The relation is between +the Madonna and this mysterious acolyte. Their consciousness +of a prophetic rite gains emphasis and pathos from the +only unconscious thing in the picture, the graceful babyish +action of the Divine Child. The forms of mother and Child +are those of Filippo Lippi, but with elimination of superfluous +ornament and commonplace action. The reserved, half-concealed +smile of the angel and his strange beauty derive +from Andrea Verrocchio. You may trace it from his youthful +David to his disciple’s Mona Lisa. The date of the picture +is merely a good guess, but since it is free from the influence +of Pollaiuolo, it may be before 1469.</p> + +<div id='f_128' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_128.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 128.</span> Botticelli. Chigi Madonna.—<em>Mrs. John L. Gardner, Boston.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_130' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_130.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 130.</span> Botticelli. Judith.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In that year the brothers Pollaiuolo undertook the painting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>of seven figures of the Virtues to decorate the wainscot behind +the magistrates’ bench in the Mercanzia, the mercantile court. +Evidently they were pressed for +time, for they assigned one +panel representing Fortitude, +Figure <a href='#f_129'>129</a>, to Botticelli. John +Ruskin has celebrated in eloquent +phrase this frail embodiment +of the courage of the +mind. “Worn, somewhat, and +not a little weary; instead of +standing ready for all comers, +she is sitting—apparently in +revery; her fingers playing restlessly +and idly—nay, I think, +even nervously about the hilt +of her sword. For her battle is +not to begin today, nor did it +begin yesterday. Many a morn +and even have passed since it +began, and now—is this to be +the ending of it? And if this—by +what manner of end?”</p> + +<div id='f_129' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_129.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 129.</span> Botticelli. Fortitude.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The passage beautifully illustrates the odd blend of purest +insight and casual chatter in Ruskin’s criticism. Forget that +the sword is a mace—Ruskin is never right in such trifles. +Fortitude sits merely because her sister Virtues do so in the +imposed decorative scheme. The nervous action of the hands is +chiefly an elegance. Yet the whole characterization expresses +with singular felicity the alert and thoughtful charm of this +Fortitude amid the stolid effigies of Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. +Ruskin, as often, is most wrong where it least matters. +We have more prosaic business with the Fortitude—to note +the pouting snub-nosed type, and the elaborate ornaments, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>which are Fra Filippo’s, the solidly drawn but ill-shapen foot, +which is Pollaiuolo’s, and the sensitiveness, which is Botticelli’s +own.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A still more complete assimilation of Pollaiuolo’s energetic +mode is revealed in the admirable little Judith, Figure <a href='#f_130'>130</a>, +which must have been painted towards 1475. The faces are +still Fra Filippo’s, and he could have invented the eager doglike +obsequiousness of the maid. But the springy action and +the fine, lean ankles and feet, the bony, expressive wrists and +hands, the minutely featured landscape, are completely in +Pollaiuolo’s vein. Botticelli’s specific invention is the sublimation +of the theme—Judith’s sense of walking in a dream after +the unspeakable ordeal of the night. And the flutter of the +robes in the clean morning wind has a stylistic grace that +amounts to Sandro’s signature.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As he came into his thirty-fifth year, 1478, Botticelli painted +two pictures so different that without conclusive evidence +we should hardly believe them the work of a single mind and +hand. The Adoration of the Kings, Figure <a href='#f_131'>131</a>, with the +sturdy Medici portraits, sums up all Botticelli’s realistic +achievement, shows him the greatest and most typical Florentine +master of the moment, and proves that his way was easy +to such triumphs of popularity as Ghirlandaio was soon to +enjoy uncontested. The other picture, The Allegory of Spring, +evinces a strange and to many repellant originality, indulges +dreams not of this earth, appeals to experiences inaccessible +save to the æsthetically elect. It was an earnest of neglect +and unpopularity, the opening of a solitary road that no +artist would travel save under inner imperious impulsion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Adoration of the Kings is composed after the fashion +of Fra Filippo and rendered with all the improvements of Pollaiuolo. +The group of the Mother, Child and Joseph is set +high and well back, the minutely drawn ruin, with its grace of +wall-flowers, and the peacock on the ruined edge of the masonry +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>are again pure Fra Filippo, as are the juvenile charm of Our +Lady and the alertness of the Bambino. In Fra Filippo’s +best style, too, are the flanking groups of portraits which swing +back towards the central motive, leaving the centre free. +Here are great personnages set forth with dignity and force. +Masaccio also has counted for much in these portraits, and +Antonio Pollaiuolo for more. The Mage kneeling by the Child +is Piero de’ Medici, the one in front with his back turned is +Cosimo. The beautiful young king addressing him is probably +Giuliano, lately slain by the Pazzi conspirators. Lorenzo +is unmistakable at the left with his proud military pose, his +hands resting on a great sword. At the right, robed in yellow, +is the fine manly figure of Botticelli himself. There are many +other portraits of the most authoritative accent, but we have +no means of identifying them.</p> + +<div id='f_131' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_131.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 131.</span> Botticelli. Adoration of the Magi.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>Artistically this magnificent little picture suffers from two +centres of interest. It is an ambiguity, however, that would +have troubled no contemporary Florentine. He was willing +to take the sacred group for granted and to gaze delightedly +at the figures of his rulers and benefactors. In technical +expression the picture is established through light, shade, +and color, its linear quality counting for rather little in the +effect. It is a logical and attractive combination of all the +realistic experiments of fifty years past, no single feature being +over-emphasized. It is prose of a most convincing and eloquent +cadence.</p> + +<div id='f_132' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_132.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 132.</span> Botticelli. Primavera—Allegory of Spring.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Before turning to a picture which is all poetry, the Primavera, +we may profitably consider Botticelli’s portrait, the +robust body, the moody sensual face. He was a celibate. +One need not espouse the vagaries of a Freud to know that +such men, when gifted with imagination, dream strange dreams. +The Primavera, Figure <a href='#f_132'>132</a>, was painted for the Medici Villa +of Castello, where later Botticelli placed his Birth of Venus +<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>and Signorelli his Pan as God of Music. All these pictures represent +that sudden homesickness for the idyllic scenes of +classical antiquity which fell upon the Italian world about +this time. The <em>cassone</em> painters, working for work-a-day +people, had represented the mythologies as so many jolly +stories. For the deeply cultured circle of the Medici, these +retrospections were fraught with sadness. The life where the +gods moved among alluring nymphs and amusing fauns seemed +infinitely far off and infinitely desirable. Through Horace and +Virgil and Theocritus one could glimpse it tantalizingly. +Modern poets, like Angelo Poliziano, could recover it faintly +in Greek and Latin, or more rarely in Italian verse. But the +Italian loves to see, and here was the difficulty. The brown +soil had not yet yielded up the great store of old marbles. The +actual look of the bygone Golden Age, which within half a +century was to become matter of archæological certainty, was +now matter of hesitant intuition. One could brood over the +old poets, arrange masques in which lightly robed Tuscan girls +played the nymph or goddess—whatever expedient was used +to live oneself back, the visual ingredients of the dream were +inevitably local and Tuscan. Such pictures as the Primavera +represent this transient and appealing mood. They tremble +with unfulfilled aspirations, breathe exquisite nostalgias, +perpetuate as no other records do the very soul of the humanists +that surrounded Lorenzo the Magnificent.</p> + +<div id='f_133' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span> +<img src='images/f_133.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 133.</span> Botticelli. Primavera. Detail. Venus, Flora, Spring, Zephyr.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>For the fundamental decorative arrangement of the picture, +white forms swaying before a vertical paling, Botticelli +skilfully borrowed the motive of Pollaiuolo’s engraving, +the Ten Nudes. Figure <a href='#f_109'>109</a>. From Pollaiuolo, too, come the +nervous contours, the wiry ankles, and slender feet, and the +curiously sprung knees. The old poets Lucretius and Horace +give just the hint for the persons of the idyl. Lucretius +tells of the coming of Spring blown in by the West wind, of +Flora strewing flowers before, Figure <a href='#f_133'>133</a>, with Venus and her +son as witnesses. And Horace tells how the three graces with +ungirt robes dance before Mercury. But Botticelli has contributed +what gives the work its penetrating, sad charm. His is the +gloomy screen of orange trees and olives, the carpet of spring +flowers, the billowing lines that sweep across the panel. It +is conceived in two great rhythms of motion. The wave that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>is suave in playful Spring becomes crisp and sharp in the robe +of Flora, and is nearly arrested in the heavy drapery of Venus, +it passes with her raised hand to the shimmering veil of the dancing +Graces, and dies in the firmly set form of Mercury, whose +uplifted arm carries the movement into the steady background, +which stabilizes it all. Even to mention the particular finesses +and beauties of this fantastically lovely scene would require +an essay. I have made a fuller if very imperfect analysis in +my book, “Estimates in Art.” Now it is best to note merely +that the only joyous forms are Zephyrus, Spring and Cupid, +the rest are sad or enigmatically grave, as is Flora. Though +they celebrate the renewal of life through love in springtime, +those whose immortality has witnessed many springs carry in +their faces and bearing the old knowledge that life and love +are constantly reborn under death sentence, and that what +is renewed spring after spring has but</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“The frail duration of a flower.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>Again and again the poets have told this to unregarding man. +Nobody has made it visible save Botticelli.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I suppose only a score of people at the time knew how fine +the Primavera was, and a few hundred in the world today may +know it. The thing was hidden from the public, and Botticelli +was painting himself into the most obscure sort of glory. +In his remaining thirty-two years, there are a few reversions +to his realistic vein, but his most characteristic works merely +carry on the recondite charm, the acute and personal rhythms +of the Primavera.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1480 was painted the Faust-like figure of St. Augustine. +Figure <a href='#f_134'>134</a>. One feels in the gnarled features and hand clutching +the breast the burden of lifelong meditation on the terrible +mysteries of free will and God’s eternal decrees. It is the effigy +of one who has agonized in thought, and is still seeking by +that Calvary of the mind a tense and hazardous peace.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>The next year Botticelli went to Rome to take charge of +the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. We have already considered +his best fresco there, Moses in Midian. Figure <a href='#f_114'>114</a>. +Of the two others—the Temptation +of Christ, and the Destruction +of Korah—we need +only add that they are immensely +rich in details, effective +as narratives, and as decorative +arrangements surpassed on the +Sistine walls only by Signorelli +and Perugino.</p> + +<div id='f_134' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_134.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 134.</span> Botticelli. St. Augustine. Fresco.—<em>Ognissanti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_135' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_135.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 135.</span> Botticelli. Madonna with six Angels.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>There are rare moments of +something like serenity in Botticelli’s +troubled career. One was +when he painted the Pallas and +the Centaur, and another when +he designed the loveliest of his +round panels, the Madonna with +Six Angels, in the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_135'>135</a>. Unlike the more famous +and popular Magnificat, it is in +immaculate preservation. The +composition is subtler and less +obvious, the worn and burdened +look of the Madonna oppressed +by her tragic fate, more specific +and appealing. The late Herbert +P. Horne, Botticelli’s best biographer, +sets the picture about +1487. About the same time were +done those nuptial frescoes for +Lorenzo Tornabuoni and his +bride, Giovanna degli Albizzi. Torn from the villa walls at +Careggi, they are now among the treasures of the Louvre. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>Lorenzo is represented as received by the seven liberal arts, +Giovanna as presented to Venus by the Graces. We have +seen in the last chapter how these young people shared and +illustrated the doom impending over Medicean Florence. +Botticelli captures, if not their look, at least a fine symbol +for their as yet unchallenged beauty and discretion.</p> + +<div id='f_136' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_136.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 136.</span> Botticelli. Birth of Venus.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A little earlier perhaps he added to the Primavera at Castello +the Birth of Venus, Figure <a href='#f_136'>136</a>. It is conceived in the +same bold rhythms, which this time converge on the slight, +smooth form of Venus and are steadied by the horizon and the +trees. Compared with the Primavera, the whole thing is +less rich, varied and naturalistic. Everything is more schematic +and conventional; gold is freely used without realistic pretext. +The wistful mood is still that of the Primavera. Venus comes +to earth with no joyous expectation. She glimpses unfulfilled +desires, the eternally deferred goal of earthly love. She obeys +a destiny with resignation and a pensive humility—almost +asks pardon for the confusion she is fated to produce among +mortals. These involutions and refinements have nothing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>to do with the whole-souled sensuousness of classical antiquity, +they have everything to do with that scrupulous balancing +of divine and earthly love which was the standing problem +of the Neo-Platonists surrounding Lorenzo the Magnificent.</p> + +<div id='f_137' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_137.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 137.</span> Botticelli. Dante and Beatrice in Paradise.—<em>Print Room, Berlin.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>During the ’80s Botticelli was much occupied with the +illustration of a great manuscript of the “Divine Comedy.” +Figure <a href='#f_137'>137</a>. These outlines in silverpoint retouched with the +pen find their equals only in the best Far Eastern art. The +line whips and dances and swirls across the parchment, halting +and turning to define a detail, then speeding anew on its task +of suggesting motion. Figures that float, groups that march or +dance as one, trailing smoke of incense—these volatile features +<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>are rendered with the most energetic delicacy. And the +most incredible episodes of Dante’s poem gain credence with +the eye through the deftest use of the pure line. It hardens +to suggest bone and sinew, tightens to express joints that +bear weight and preserve balance, loosens and gallops to give +the flutter of drapery over twinkling limbs. And all this is +done with a thin pen line that hardly changes thickness or +blackness—done with a touch as light as a feather and yet as +firm as the swing of a draughtsman’s compass. The study of +such drawings is a liberal education in the æsthetics of pure +line.</p> + +<p class='c007'>These drawings freely distort the actual forms for the sake +of greater expressiveness. Such distortion is the characteristic +mark of Botticelli’s latest style. One may note it in the +furniture panels which tell the story of St. Zenobius and the +tragic lot of the Roman heroines, Lucretia and Virginia; in the +Annunciation of the Uffizi and the Last Communion of St. +Jerome, in the Metropolitan Museum. The new manner is +characterized by habitually vehement expression. Intensity +becomes morbid, effective withal. We have to do with tortured +but very fine nerves. What personal history is involved +we can merely surmise. We know, however, that Botticelli +followed eagerly the theocratic revolution of Savonarola and +suffered deep chagrin when the attempt to make Florence +a city of God collapsed amid sordid political jealousies. His +art becomes that of a <em>Piagnone</em>, a Savonarolist, a contemner +of the careless world. His method changes. The figures are +unmodelled and flat, they hurtle wildly and glisten metallically +before airless landscapes. Most of the hard-won Florentine +realisms drop out, and the linear rhythms recall the Gothic +poignancy of Simone Martini.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps the finest picture of this sort is the Calumny of +Apelles, Figure <a href='#f_138'>138</a>, painted about 1490, and now in the Uffizi. +It recreates after an anecdote of Lucian, made current by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>Leonbattista Alberti, a lost masterpiece by Apelles, which +was painted to convince Alexander the Great of the evil of +calumny. An innocent prisoner is haled before an ignorant +judge. Calumny bearing a torch drags him by the hair. +Treachery and Deceit act as her tiring maids. The sordid +figure of Envy is her guide to a judge into whose asses’ ears +Ignorance and Suspicion whisper their counsels. Naked Truth +pleads in vain for the victim as Remorse turns to her with +sullen helplessness. By a pictorial irony, the sinister whirling +group is set in a stately court adorned with statues of magnanimous +heroes of old, and one glimpses through the rich +arches a cloudless sky and an untroubled sea. Very rich in +imaginative content, ornate in its use of color and gold, sharp +and definite in its rhythms, discreet in its expressive distortions, +this is perhaps the masterpiece of Botticelli’s late +style.</p> + +<div id='f_138' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_138.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 138.</span> Botticelli. The Calumny of Apelles.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>But one regards with surely almost pleasure and with more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>lively sympathy the little Nativity in the National Gallery, +Figure <a href='#f_139'>139</a>, a celestial idyl in sentiment, and of greatest beauty +of muted coloring. Above the shed where the Virgin Mother +worships her Divine Child, a dancing ring of angels hovers. +They hold olive branches from which depend martyrs’ crowns. +Wreathed shepherds, figures from some Theocritan idyl, kneel +outside the shed. Below, angels eagerly embrace three youthful +crowned figures, while impish baffled fiends lurk in crevices +of the rocks. The three figures may well typify Savonarola +and his two fellow-martyrs. A Greek inscription gives the date +of 1500 and hints at the fall of Savonarola and the shame of +the French invasion. There is a tenderness about the picture +that recalls the Primavera, but it is more elusive and unearthly, +more implicit in every bit of the workmanship itself than +dependent on explicit symbolism.</p> + +<p class='c007'>What Botticelli could achieve in stark tragedy at this +time is shown in the Piet of the Munich gallery, a masterpiece +which many critics have quite unaccountably ascribed +to an inferior imitator. It is of tremendous effect. The compressing +rocks seem to confine a grief too great to be liberated +in space. A shudder concentrates itself upon the fair, youthful +body of the dead Christ. One assists at a cosmic mourning, +the intolerable tension of which is mercifully relieved in the +swooning form of the Mother of Sorrows. The colors are +sombre, the whole effect fairly sculptural, though mass is attained +more by linear accents than by systematic light and +shade. Balance and pose obey not a law of physics but one +of feeling.</p> + +<div id='f_139' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span> +<img src='images/f_139.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 139.</span> Botticelli. Mystical Nativity.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>The picture may be one of Botticelli’s latest. He lived on +till 1510, a lonely and indulged eccentric. He witnessed the +youthful triumphs of Raphael and Michelangelo at Florence, +and saw the superb maturity of his friend Leonardo da Vinci. +He saw the artistic world move away from himself towards +ideals of gravity and decorum and disciplined monumentality. +He could have followed that high road himself. Instead he +had sought a romantic self-expression leading to an <i><span lang="it">impasse</span></i>. +At least he had made the <i><span lang="it">impasse</span></i> singularly thrilling. Being +a wag as well as a poet, he had his compensations for neglect +and doubtless he never regretted his impolitic choice. Among +artists of febrile and romantic fibre he is one of the greatest. +To know him thoroughly is an incomparable exercise in exquisite +feeling.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Taken in its social aspect, Botticelli’s later style is a protest +against the current, superficial, narrative and decorative +modes. Against prevailing successful commonplace, he opposes +a highly refined idiosyncracy. While the more stolid +artists of the end of the century were content to rework Ghirlandaio’s +glittering vein, the more sensitive spirits sought distinction +in eccentricity. Eccentricity appears whenever an +old style has gone stale and a new one is imminent. It is the +natural expression of souls too independent to conform and +too weak to reconstruct. The grotesque was in the air. Luigi +Pulci in the “Morgante Maggiore” burlesques the ideal romances +of chivalry, and mixes the old clear categories of good +and evil. Lorenzo de’ Medici at once mimics and caricatures +the simplicity of the peasant pastorals. Cynicism runs riot +in the short-story writers and in the new comedy. There is a +confusion of standards, a new complexity of appreciation, +that at once bewilders and allures delicate spirits. Thus they +really express such a moment of hesitation better than stronger +or more ordinary artists. So a Post-Impressionist of today may +have a high symptomatic importance even though his art be +null, and a Filippino Lippi and Piero di Cosimo really tell us +more about the time-spirit than a Leonardo da Vinci.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Filippino<a id='r47'></a><a href='#f47' class='c012'><sup>[47]</sup></a> was born in 1457, at Prato, and presumably received +his first instruction from his father, Fra Filippo. At +fifteen we find him an orphan and studying with Botticelli, +whom he probably assisted at Rome in 1482. At twenty-seven, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>in 1484, he had the extraordinary honor of completing Masaccio’s +frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel. Doubtless he had his +great predecessor’s sketches to aid him. With a somewhat +lighter accent, he imitated as he might Masaccio’s simple and +massive construction in light and shade. Filippino’s Peter +before the Proconsul, Figure <a href='#f_140'>140</a>, and Crucifixion of St. Peter +are of a gravity and weight to have passed for Masaccio’s +with good critics. But the fine portraits are distinctive +for the later date, as are the portraits and the graceful +kneeling boy painted opposite in the fresco left unfinished by +Masaccio.</p> + +<div id='f_140' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_140.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 140.</span> Filippino Lippi. St. Peter before Nero. Detail of Fresco.—<em>Brancacci Chapel.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>As a work of pious assimilation, Filippino’s frescoes are +amazing; all his more original work is so much falling-off from +his beginnings. His characteristic sensitive prettiness may be +best observed in the altar-piece in the Badia representing St. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>Bernard’s Vision of the Virgin. Figure <a href='#f_141'>141</a>. As he writes her +praises, she approaches his desk escorted by eager angels. The +scenic picturesqueness of the +landscape, the accentuated prettiness +of the faces are characteristic. +Superficially like Botticelli, +Filippino is less selective and +always more sentimental. He +is rudely shaken out of a mode +in which he is attractive by the +advent of the new giants of +painting, Leonardo and Signorelli. +In his last work, painted +about 1502 for the Strozzi +Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, he spends himself in superfluous +and ineffective inventions,—trophies, archæological +ornaments. To lend impressiveness and tragedy to the +martyrdom of St. Philip and St. James, or to the miracle +of Drusiana, Figure <a href='#f_142'>142</a>, he has recourse to hideous contortions +of mouth and brows, to creaking joints and bursting +muscles, to clamor and sensationalism of all sorts. It is the +bankruptcy of the gentle spirit who only twenty years earlier +had shown himself almost a great artist in the Carmine, and +only ten years earlier had proved himself an accomplished +decorator, at the Minerva, Rome. And the pity of this plunge +into competitive and hopeless exhibitionism is that Filippino +was a man of taste and character, a collector of classical antiques, +an obliging and generous spirit. He died in 1504 at the +moment when Leonardo da Vinci was planning a real and successful +sensation for Florence, in The Fight for the Standard.</p> + +<div id='f_141' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_141.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 141.</span> Filippino Lippi. St. Bernard’s Vision.—<em>Badia.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_143' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span> +<img src='images/f_143.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 143.</span> Piero di Cosimo. Primitive Man. Spalliera panel.—<em>Metropolitan Museum, N. Y.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_142' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_142.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 142.</span> Filippino Lippi. Raising of Drusiana by St. John.—<em>S. M. Novella, Florence.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>If Filippino became an eccentric through pressure of circumstances, +Piero di Cosimo<a id='r48'></a><a href='#f48' class='c012'><sup>[48]</sup></a> was one by nature. Born in +1462, he soon came under the dullest of masters, Cosimo +Rosselli. To Cosimo’s four hopeless frescoes in the Sistine +Chapel he added certain vivacious features, and there he +learned to know some of the ablest artists of his day. Always +a bachelor and recluse, he pursued serious studies in imitation +of such stern realists as Antonio +Pollaiuolo and Luca Signorelli. +He lived sordidly in his <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i>, +literally from hand to mouth, on +the eggs which he boiled in his +glue pot, in weekly batches. +Alone he planned strange mythologies, +bestially pungent, and +there he thought out odd terrible +pageants which shocked and +enthralled his Florence. And as +he made these bizarre inventions, +he mocked them and himself. +His admirations were shifting—now +Signorelli, again the Flemish +realists and Leonardo: incompatible attractions.</p> + +<div id='f_144' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_144.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 144.</span> Piero di Cosimo. Cleopatra.—<em>Chantilly.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>You may sense his quality in two wall panels, now in the +Metropolitan Museum,<a id='r49'></a><a href='#f49' class='c012'><sup>[49]</sup></a> made for some palace. Piero had +read over the legend of primitive man as told by Ovid, and +quickly his mind bred phantoms. First he conceived a state +where dominion trembled between man and the brute creation. +Savage men with the unfair advantage of fire are +exterminating the beasts, among whom fight those half-men, +the centaurs, Figure <a href='#f_143'>143</a>. In the companion panel the +mood changes abruptly from strife and tumult to the +quaintly pastoral strains of a stone-age minuet. We assist +at a troglodyte water-party. Lovely woman dominates the +new scene. The now domesticated centaur proudly bears +her. In courtly fashion skin-clad warriors hand her into a +rude pleasure raft which may perhaps waft the picnickers to +the joys of a cannibal feast. These inventions have immense +<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>fantastic power, and their real originality by no means precludes +the suspicion that the artist is smiling at his own ingenuity +and at our complaisance.</p> + +<div id='f_145' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_145.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 145.</span> Piero di Cosimo. Death of Procris.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Take again his Cleopatra, Figure <a href='#f_144'>144</a>, at Chantilly. The +snub-nosed Florentine beauty airs her abundant charms in +a romantic landscape, while the asp does his by no means disagreeable +duty. What a travesty of the dignity of Plutarch, +and how fetching it is as distinguished burlesque!</p> + +<p class='c007'>Cautiously and perhaps grudgingly, in the early years of +the new century, Piero follows the improvements of Leonardo. +This influence is palpable in the Rescue of Andromeda, +in the Uffizi. The chained princess carelessly displays her +appetizing attractions, while the leering and hungry dragon +lurches on the beach and surveys his prey. High up in the +sky is hope, in the brisk, knightly figure of Perseus. A musical +party lolls deliciously on the strand, equally prepared to +enjoy a heroic rescue or a monster at feeding time. We are +in the superbly irresponsible world of the fairy tale, and the +thrilling <i><span lang="fr">raconteur</span></i> has his clever tongue in his cheek.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Exceptionally, as in that wistful poesy, The Death of +Procris, Figure <a href='#f_145'>145</a>, at London, Piero is serious enough. The +girlish body lies very quiet amid meadow flowers. A puzzled +faun and a more comprehending hound are very touching +mourners amid the unregarding beasts and birds of a tranquil +<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>lake-side afternoon. Such refinements of sentiment are often +the compensation for an unstable spirit. The vein is rare in +Piero, who, aside from his mythological ironies and quite conventional +religious pieces, is also a vivacious portraitist as the +galleries of New Haven, Conn., the Hague, and London +attest.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Piero lived on till 1521, surviving both Leonardo and +Raphael. The greatest artistic effort of modern times had +spent itself before his eyes, and he had mostly been content +to be witty. He represents at least a fine scorn of his flimsy +training, and remains a consummate type of the artist who +lives, like a bear in winter, on his own fat.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After a long detour, we are once more on the high road. +Perugino, with his simple and gracious symmetries, had shown +the painting of the end of the century what ailed it. But his +cure was too obvious to be acceptable until a youngster of +Raphael’s entirely modest intelligence should come along. +The reform, as often in other than artistic affairs, had to +be made from within, and was conducted by one who had much +sympathy with the random richness of the Early Renaissance +style, Leonardo da Vinci.<a id='r50'></a><a href='#f50' class='c012'><sup>[50]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>Leonardo’s discoveries, pursued with the most patient +and gradual care, shocked no one and were quickly taken up. +He was nearly thirty before he reached consciousness of his +mission, and having attained his artistic end, he dropped +painting, with a kind of scorn, for mathematical and scientific +investigation. In his admirable “Tractate on Painting” +he has left the fullest and most eloquent records of his ideals. +The first is that the painter must know clearly what he is +about. “Without good theory no good practice is possible.” +Next the artist should be in a filial relation to nature, admiring +and imitating her directly, and not through the eyes of +other artists. As to the main object of painting, Leonardo +wavers between two definitions. Repeatedly he insists that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>that painting is greatest which through the postures of the +body shows the emotions of the soul. As often, he uses a +more technical definition—the chief business of painting is +to create a sense of relief or projection where there is none. +This relief is effected by delicate and accurate distribution of +light and shade. Light and dark are conceived in a double +fashion, as factors in relief and as offering intrinsic beauties in +their gradations. We have a refinement on the method of +Masaccio, which is merely structural and dramatic and without +much intrinsic charm. But the new beauty of chiaroscuro +soon turns out to be incompatible with the old beauty of +frank color. Pictures become dusky and mysterious, tending +to black and white values. Ever since Leonardo, academic +painting has had the sore limitation of regarding shadow as +negation of color. It is the defect of his teaching and practice.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On broader matters, however, Leonardo is profoundly right. +Seeing is a mental process and should be selective. Represent +all the muscles emphatically, and your nude will look like a +sack full of nuts. Accuracy is necessary, but is of no value +without accompanying dignity and grace. Choose the most +gracious aspects of reality, the pervasive moderate light of +evening rather than the sharp glare of the overhead sun. Observe +deaf-mutes so that you may learn the possibilities of +expression through gestures. Seek equilibrium and an active +and vital balance whether in the pose of the single figure or +in the relations of the figures to each other. Get the action +right, and afterwards add the details. These are some of the +precepts which Leonardo scribbled off about the year 1500 +when he was nearing fifty and his work as a painter was almost +over. He is really describing the principles under which, +while accepting the richness and variety of the early Renaissance +style, he had once for all put it in order.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Of course this was a very gradual process. To the end Leonardo +retained something of a primitive quality, and he was by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>no means precocious. He was born in 1452, the lovechild of +a peasant girl of Vinci and a young Florentine notary, Piero +da Vinci. His earliest recollections must have been of the hills +and distant mountain prospects of his native hamlet of Vinci, +between Florence and Pisa. But he was soon taken into his +father’s home at Florence, and given an education which +hardly exceeded the proverbial “Three R’s”. Just when he was +put with the painter and sculptor, Andrea Verrocchio, is uncertain, +but it can hardly have been later than Leonardo’s +thirteenth year, 1465. As a painter, Verrocchio exists for us +chiefly in the work of his pupils. As a sculptor, however, +he is a definite enough figure. His aim was plainly to infuse +the new realism with an aristocratic elegance. What a young +patrician is his David composing himself for the ordeal with a +restrained well-bred smile! There is a splendid dandyism in +his valor. Or consider the Madonna in terra-cotta, with her +ornate head-dress, rich brooch, and carefully arranged robe, +her almost too sweet self-possession. She is a clue to the +fastidiousness of Verrocchio. Again consider the proud +hard face and the marvelously firm and delicate hands of the +unknown lady Verrocchio cut in marble. These things are +dominant for the early development of Leonardo, as the alert, +powerful and aggressive Colleoni monument is for his later +heroic creations. Something of Verrocchio’s scrupulous and +eminently dilatory character also passed over to his brilliant +pupil. Verrocchio remained a bachelor and wholly devoted to +his art, yet he took eighteen years to give to his famous bronze +group of Christ and St. Thomas its dignity and sensitive feeling. +Leonardo remained some ten years or more with Verrocchio, +painting many works that are lost to us, and a few, I believe, +that we may identify. In this most contested matter I follow +in the main the views of Dr. Sirén.</p> + +<div id='f_146' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span> +<img src='images/f_146.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 146.</span> Leonardo da Vinci, Head at Left; Verrocchio, Head at Right. Details from Verrocchio’s Baptism.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_146a' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span> +<img src='images/f_146a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 146</span><em>a.</em>> Verrocchio and Leonardo. Baptism of Christ.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_147' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_147.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 147.</span> Leonardo da Vinci under Verrocchio’s Direction. Annunciation.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>For many years Leonardo ventured little on his own account, +following with docility the directions of his master. The single +painting which we may with certainty ascribe to Verrocchio, +the Baptism of Christ, Figure <a href='#f_146a'>146a</a>, in the Uffizi, already bears +traces of Leonardo’s hand. The general composition is borrowed +from an insignificant panel of Baldovinetti’s. The +stalwart ugly forms derive from Pollaiuolo. Delightful features +added in oils by Leonardo are the exquisite angel at +the left, Figure <a href='#f_146'>146</a>, and the vaporous distance and mountain +skyline. We may surmise that these improvements were added +about 1470 to a picture started several years earlier. One +other picture was designed by Verrocchio and finished after +his death in 1488 by his assistant, Lorenzo di Credi. This +Madonna, in the cathedral of Pistoia, affords an excellent +contrast between the puffy forms of Lorenzo and the firm and +living contours of Leonardo. The famous Annunciation in the +Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_147'>147</a>, seems a kind of joint product, the actual +painting being by Leonardo, the badly balanced composition +and intrusive heavy lectern, as well as the rather cheap attitude +of surprise of the Virgin, representing a perfunctory +mood of Verrocchio. The vista of remote mountains hanging +pale in the blue sky is such as only +Leonardo could have created. +The delightful Gabriel also seems +wholly his invention. The composition +again rests on one of +Baldovinetti’s, at S. Miniato, +and the date of the picture may +be about 1475. Of about the +same date is a Madonna with an +Angel in the National Gallery, +which may well be a composition +of Verrocchio interpreted by +Leonardo. The note of sweetness +is a little forced, as in most +work of this kind. We meet Leonardo in his own right a little +earlier, in a pen sketch of a broad landscape dated in midsummer +summer of 1473, Figure <a href='#f_148'>148</a>. Its spaciousness and schematic +handling of horizontals ally it to the landscape backgrounds +we have been considering. The last work of this Verrocchian +<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>character is the Portrait of a Girl, in the Liechtenstein Gallery, +Vienna. Here we are in a field where Leonardo and his +master are almost indistinguishable, but the picturesquely +broken background, the bit of landscape, and the ease of +the contours, speak for the younger man. As late as 1476, his +twenty-fifth year, Leonardo was still with Verrocchio. He +probably set up his own <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> a year or so afterwards.</p> + +<div id='f_148' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_148.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 148.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. Landscape. Pen Drawing.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_149' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_149.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 149.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. Annunciation.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>There followed four or five years of eager experiment, +much being planned and rather little carried to completion. +Relieved from the pressure of a master, actual painting seems +to have become irksome. He loves to sketch, to turn his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>designs over until they reach perfection, leaving them in the +condition of the swiftest and most accurate notations. Lack +of system and paralysis of will are already apparent. For +about two years of this joyous and irresponsible creation he +remained a primitive. Such he is in the idyllic little Annunciation +of the Louvre,<a id='r51'></a><a href='#f51' class='c012'><sup>[51]</sup></a> Figure <a href='#f_149'>149</a>, which should be for its +fluent technic no earlier than 1476. He takes the motive which +he had previously done under restrictions, reduces it to a +symmetrical order, rejects distracting details, floods it with +warm light breaking through ragged apertures of the trees, and +invests it with a penetrating humility and grace. The little +picture, which many critics set too early, is really Leonardo’s +declaration of independence. It shows features which anticipate +his mature style—a combination of a severe geometrical +symmetry in figure composition with a romantically strange +setting and lighting.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Of less import is the unpretentious little Madonna of the +Flower, recently discovered, and in the Hermitage, at Petrograd. +It is authenticated by numerous composition sketches. +Its vivacity and youthful lightness of effect are entirely in +Verrocchio’s manner, nothing is new but heavier shadows +and more emphatic modelling.</p> + +<div id='f_150' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span> +<img src='images/f_150.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 150.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. Pen Sketches for the Madonna of the Cat.—<em>British Museum.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>On a sheet of drawings in the Uffizi, which characteristically +combines with sketches of men’s heads studies of machinery, +we read “This day I began the two Virgin Marys.” +The day is effaced, but it is a month in 1478, ending in <em>-bre</em>—September, +October or November. One of these Madonnas +is, no doubt, the Madonna of the Flower.<a id='r52'></a><a href='#f52' class='c012'><sup>[52]</sup></a> As to the other we +have no certainty, but the sketches of this time show at least +five madonnas in process of invention. A Madonna holding +a mischievous Child who hugs a writhing cat, a Madonna with +a Dish of Fruit, a Madonna kneeling before the Child, a +theme later developed into the Madonna of the Rocks; a +Madonna seated on the Ground, and a Madonna seated in the +open with the Christchild and St. John. Dr. Jens Thys thinks +the last composition may be the one actually begun as a +picture, since such early Raphaels as the Belle Jardinière +seem to imply such a picture as their model. We do well to +turn from such speculations to the marvelous sketches for +these Madonnas, Figure <a href='#f_150'>150</a>. Nothing firmer, lighter or +more charming can be imagined. Of the line, thinned to a +hair or widened to a blot, there is the completest control. +These little figures, a couple of inches high at the most and +often of thumb-nail minuteness, may be enlarged to life size +without losing in structure or character. Nothing shows better +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>the sheer fecund genius of Leonardo than these sheets, +crowded with figures, scribbled with his right-to-left handwriting, +and slantingly shaded from upper left downwards, +after the fashion of a lefthanded draughtsman. They show +how Leonardo worked in spurts of inspiration, creating a +dozen lovely compositions and contented with none. They +represent so many tensely joyous half-hours, with doubtless +long intervals of other activities and withal of sheer brooding +and unrecorded observation. They help one grasp the spasmodic +and discontinuous quality of Leonardo’s genius—why +the actual execution of pictures was ever a matter of +pain and drudgery to him. Up to his twenty-ninth year he +apparently made no prolonged effort of any sort, but spent +himself furiously in separate investigations. Then he pulled +himself together for a great picture, and though it too never +got beyond the underpainting, it broke the new path to the +Golden Age.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For several years Leonardo had turned over the theme +of an Adoration of the Child in his sketch books. These desultory +inventions were brought abruptly to a focus in March +1481, when he agreed to do an altar-piece for the monks of +S. Donato at Scopeto. We have the best circumstantial evidence +for identifying this piece with the unfinished Adoration +of the Kings, now in the Uffizi. When we live ourselves into +this dusky and mysterious sketch we step out of the early +Renaissance into a new, ardent, rich and ordered region of +invention such as the world had not witnessed since the glory +of Greece faded. The composition went through at least +three main stages. At first, as we see from a pen study in +the Bonnat Museum, at Bayonne, an Adoration of the +Shepherds was considered, the Madonna kneeling over the +Christ between flanking groups of worshippers. The +scheme was rejected as too thin and obvious. A picture of +Lorenzi di Credi’s shows us its limited possibilities. Then the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>picture became an Adoration of the Kings, with the thatched +shed, much action in the foreground group and a ruined amphitheatre +in the background. This sketch in the Louvre, Figure +<a href='#f_151'>151</a>, contains all the elements of the picture, but an extraordinary +work of clarification +and refinement remained to be +done. The figures were studied +and restudied till they reached +both highest expressiveness and +individuality,<a id='r53'></a><a href='#f53' class='c012'><sup>[53]</sup></a> and an exact relation +to the dense and intricate +articulation of the foreground +group. Often there are half a +dozen separate studies for each +motive. The central group was +more closely massed till it became +a rose of eager faces and +flickering hands and kneeling +forms pressing inward towards +the Child. To increase this concentration, a mound is erected +behind the group shutting it off from the wide background. +To steady the group, the Madonna is no longer swung athwart +the motion, but her nearly straight position becomes a sort +of axis carried up by the trees above. In the richness, variety +and animation of the compact group of adorers, Leonardo has +met the Early Renaissance on its own ground and outdone it. +In the wider setting he still observes the old precepts, but in +a profounder and more significant sense. He has swept the +traditional shed aside and opened up a world, a world furtive +and active and combatant in its own wilfulness—playing, +hiding, and fighting amid the crumbling ruins of old civilizations, +and before distant towering crags which were there before +civilization or man himself was; a world oblivious of the +sublime mystery accomplishing itself in the kings who pay +homage to a Babe. What an ironic substitute for the joyous +pastoralism with which contemporary artists invested their +pictures of the Epiphany!</p> + +<div id='f_151' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_151.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 151.</span> Leonardo. Sketch for Adoration.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_152' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span> +<img src='images/f_152.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 152.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. Adoration of the Magi. Underpainting.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The Adoration of the Kings, Figure <a href='#f_152'>152</a>, is the richest, most +complicated, most beautifully ordered picture of its century; +even Leonardo was not to surpass it simply as a composition. +Like all rich things it will bear many analyses. You may +consider it as a triangle, with the reciprocal forms enriched, +or, with Dr. Thys, as the combination of two radiating motives, +one centred on the Madonna’s face, the other on the +soft alert body of the Child. Such analyses are only important +as temporary aids to understanding of the main fact +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>that in the making of such a masterpiece a clear and subtile +geometry is involved. Later Leonardo was to declare that +there is no science which cannot undergo mathematical demonstration, +and he probably would have added—no art. Of +his own art at least the saying is true. It may have been not +so much his native indolence that arrested a work which had +claimed months of passionate preparation at the moment when +creation was at its height, as the conviction that it would +lose something if fully realized. One can see how he loved +the summary touches of dark and light, the swift, sufficient +evocation of body and soul which he had learned from Masaccio. +He may have hated to cover up such work, and a critic today +may well be in doubt whether the gain in finishing it would +have atoned for the loss. Or Leonardo da Vinci may already +have been called to Milan and a new artistic life. However +that be, the monks of Secopto, after a long wait, turned +to Filippino Lippi, who had already undertaken one lapsed +commission for Leonardo, and he promptly achieved an Adoration +of the Kings which only shows how inimitable Leonardo +was, and how little mere richness counts in any picture.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For two years between 1481 and 1483, there is silence. It +seems to me that in this time we may set the crowning of his +early work in the Madonna of the Rocks at the Louvre and +the Cartoon of St. Ann at London. The Madonna of the +Rocks, Figure <a href='#f_153'>153</a>, is the logical outcome of a half dozen +Adorations which we may trace through the drawings of 1478. +A sheet of sketches in the Metropolitan Museum shows him +turning the theme over, rejecting the established profile arrangement +of Fra Filippo, and hitting on the formal pyramidal pattern +which appears in the picture itself. There the pyramid is felt not +merely in plane, but also in depth. The forms and faces are +superbly tense without either rigidity or the fluency of Leonardo’s +later work. The setting is primitive, with minutely +studied textures of rock and crisp shapes of wall-flowers. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>Everything derives from Fra Filippo and Botticelli, but with +new meaning. The romantic strangeness of the setting, the +glimpses of sky and opening in the rock, the sifting in of light +from the heart of the picture itself, the broad contrast of the +formality of the figure arrangement +with the picturesque wildness +of the setting—all this is +purest Leonardo and represents +the culmination of many experiments. +One can trace this idea +of irregularly broken light and +an informal screen as foil for a +geometrical pattern, from the little +Annunciation of the Louvre, +through the unfinished St. Jerome +of the Vatican. The Early +Renaissance steps into the background, +where it belongs. Leonardo +never rejects it; he fulfils +it with an exquisite sense of proportion.</p> + +<div id='f_153' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_153.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 153.</span> Leonardo. Madonna of the Rocks.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>If the first Madonna of the +Rocks was painted before 1482, +in Florence, so probably was the cartoon of the Madonna with +St. Ann, Figure <a href='#f_127'>127</a>, perhaps the most precious single work +that Leonardo has left us. The inwardness of the relation between +the two women is in the mood of the Adoration of the +Kings, single motives suggest the drawings for the Madonna +of the Cat. Later Leonardo was to lend to the motive greater +complication and formal elegance, somewhat at the cost of +emotional insight. Pictures of intense and natural feeling Leonardo +does not produce after his thirtieth year. Instead we +have dramatic objectivity in one phase, and in another, exquisite +subtilities, a calculated graciousness sweet to morbidity.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>What drew Leonardo from Florence to Milan we do not +surely know. Probably he was called directly by the Duke +Lodovico Sforza to undertake the colossal equestrian statue +of his father Francesco. Moreover, Leonardo seems to have +achieved notoriety at Florence without gaining much confidence +or achieving much success. After all, he had rather little to +show for his genius—just his sketch books and his good intentions +in unfinished masterpieces. He seems, too, never to +have mastered the practice which ever brought the best commissions, +fresco painting. Thus he had every reason to seek +new fortunes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He heralded his coming to Milan with the most truthfully +boastful of letters in which he arrogated to himself all ability +as an inventor, civil and military engineer, painter, sculptor, +and architect; and he entered the presence of Lodovico bearing +a silver lute wrought in the form of a horse’s skull. This +dramatic entrance was the forecast of arduous duties as an entertainer. +He sang, told anecdotes and fables, arranged pageants +and masques, conducted debates on his art—in short, +accepted the thousand and one duties and distractions of a +courtier.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He painted the portraits of the Duke’s mistresses, and it +is possible that we have the girlish figure of Cecilia Gallierani +in the lady with an Ermine<a id='r54'></a><a href='#f54' class='c012'><sup>[54]</sup></a> at Cracow. The forms and +feeling are entirely like Leonardo’s work in the early +eighties. He agreed to do an altar-piece for the Church of San +Francesco, and delivered it only after a delay of twenty-three +years. This most postponed of pictures is the version +of the Madonna of the Rocks now at London. Meanwhile +Leonardo’s constant concern was “the horse,” as he calls it. +For seven years he worked at a rearing horse with a fallen foe +trodden beneath. It is shown in many drawings. It was too +sensational a theme to please him in the long run. So in 1490, +spurred by the risk of losing the job, he restudied the horse, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>using the walking motive, which had come down from classical +antiquity. Eventually the clay model was set up before the +Sforza castle, just in time for the invading French archers +to make a target of it. The rider was never even definitely +planned. The whole project remained a chagrin to Leonardo +even after the horse itself had disappeared. One day in Florence +he civilly accosted Michelangelo who turned on him with +the taunt—“Thou who did’st model a horse and could’st not +cast it in bronze.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Amidst the distractions of the court, the irksomeness of +the rashly undertaken Sforza monument, and the increasing +passion for scientific research, Leonardo managed to carry +through his single monumental work, the Last Supper, in the +refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For three years Leonardo worked spasmodically on the +Last Supper, and it was finished in 1498. The design had been +most carefully elaborated. He started with the customary +arrangement of the apostles in pairs, John in Jesus’ bosom—a +refractory motive, and Judas in sinister isolation on the +near side of the table. Almost by accident he fell upon the +effective grouping of the apostles by threes. Then he set +himself to giving in expression and gesture the maximum emotion +that could be contained within a monumental design. +He eliminated the old casual accessories and made all the lines +of perspective converge on the face of Christ. He gave to all +the figures a classical gravity, though admitting many varieties +of age and character.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Thus even in its ruined estate The Last Supper, Figure <a href='#f_154'>154</a>, +is perhaps the most impressive picture in the world. The +moment is that when Christ says “One of you shall betray me.” +The arrangement is in five great balancing waves. From the +Christ there is an outgoing gesture of resignation and love, +from the apostles converging, incoming waves of horror, amazement, +curiosity and indignation. Each undulation is double. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>Extended arms or pointed hands check the motion where it +is excessive or connect the separate groups. Only Judas is +out of the converging rhythm. He swings back defiantly pondering +his part. Highly agitated in details, the whole is held +within a noble and pathetic decorum. It is the very ideal of +a Renaissance composition—dense, rich, energetic, varied, +yet unified by a severe and calculated pattern which subordinates +to its purpose the most diverse components. Raphael +can only imitate it in the lower part of the Disputa, and monumental +design ever since has gone to school with it.</p> + +<div id='f_154' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_154.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 154.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. Last supper.—<em>S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It was unhappily painted in tempera, not in oils as older accounts +say,<a id='r55'></a><a href='#f55' class='c012'><sup>[55]</sup></a> on the dry wall, and it soon began to deteriorate. +What we see today is merely the wraith of it, yet a wraith that +imposes itself and moves us as few better preserved masterpieces +do.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the year 1500 the French overran Lombardy, and, Leonardo, +after wandering in Northern Italy and a martial episode +as engineer for conquering Cæsar Borgia, returned, in 1503, +to his native Florence. He is fifty and already in spirit an old +man. His always limited will power has given out, he broods +<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>incessantly over mathematical and physical lore, wastes himself +over fantastic inventions. His exhibit is only a cartoon, +now lost, for a St. Ann. He makes portraits by proxy, but +paints, himself, only under peculiar incentives. Such he found +in the commission for a great battle-piece for the Priors’ Palace +and in the personality of Mona Lisa.</p> + +<div id='f_155' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_155.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 155.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. Sketches for the Battle of Anghiari.—<em>Windsor Castle.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Early in the year 1504 he began to work on the cartoon for +the Battle of Anghiari. He chose the incident of a cavalry +fight for the standard. He composed a whirl of horses and infuriated +riders, hacking and slashing about a flag—a literal +picture of bloodlust at its height. The ability he expended +on this atrocious theme may be sensed in a dozen preparatory +sketches, Figure <a href='#f_155'>155</a>. The portion which he actually painted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>on the wall is represented only by inferior copies. The +original soon faded from deficient technical methods. The old +copies tell us that this great piece, while the marvel of its +day, was sensational and highly +exhibitionistic. We need not too +much mourn its loss. The admiration +it evoked was that of +an age eager for novelty and +responsive to display.</p> + +<div id='f_156' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_156.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 156.</span> Leonardo. Mona Lisa.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>While working on the battle-piece, +Leonardo met the young +Neapolitan wife of Francesco del +Giocondo and began her portrait, +Figure <a href='#f_156'>156</a>. She had lost children +and was habitually sad. He employed +musicians to charm the +inscrutable fascinating smile to +her face. He set her demure and +watchful before a romantic expanse +of river plain rimmed by +blue alps. Against this wild charm of nature, he made Mona +Lisa a symbol for all that is cultured, self-contained, sophisticated, +civilized. Simple people instinctively dislike her, +and are right. Subtle people adore her, and are also right. +Such as wish poetic commentary on her mysterious beauty +may find it for themselves in Walter Pater’s admirable essay. +They will do well to temper his eloquence with Kenyon Cox’s<a id='r56'></a><a href='#f56' class='c012'><sup>[56]</sup></a> +just if prosaic observation that this portrait is simply the finest, +most accurate, and subtle bit of modelling in the world. Its +mystery is perhaps merely one of amazing vision and impeccable +workmanship. The truth may well lie between two interpretations, +each of which is valid in its own field. Had +there not been some extraordinary spell in the woman +herself, Leonardo, now well weary of painting, would hardly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>have studied either her soul or her modelling with such +tenacity.</p> + +<p class='c007'>During his brief sojourn in Florence, Leonardo did cartoons +for two designs of Leda and the +Swan, his only mythological picture. +One represents her standing, +the other crouching. If we +may trust the inferior imitations, +in which alone we know these +subjects, their calculated sensuousness +was almost cloying. +Their mood is that of his least +agreeable imitator, Sodoma.</p> + +<div id='f_157' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_157.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 157.</span> Leonardo. Madonna with St. Ann.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In May 1506 Florence lent +Leonardo to Charles d’Amboise, +the French viceroy at Milan, +and there he spent the most of +the next five years. The Franciscans +had been biding their +time, and under legal duress made him finish the Madonna +which he had promised twenty-three years earlier. Thus the +second Madonna of the Rocks, at London, was painted somewhat +against the grain. It has more simplicity and breadth +than the earlier version and shows improvements in the position +of the angel. It also lacks the minute and painstaking +delicacy of its original, reveals a tired hand and mind. Otherwise +Leonardo achieved in painting only the third version of +the Madonna and St. Ann, Figure <a href='#f_157'>157</a>, now in the Louvre. +The interweaving of the figures is compact and masterly, +the solution of the difficult problems of the two heads consummately +clever. It has passages of the utmost loveliness, +like the foot of the Madonna, but there is some suspicion of +oversophistication, and Leonardo never summoned the energy +to finish it. Painting little himself,—for he was busy with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>canals, architecture, and the never finished equestrian monument +of Trivulzio,—Leonardo gave his stamp to the entire +Milanese school. Such pupils as Boltraffio, Cesare da Sesto, +Andrea Solario, his old partner, Ambrogio de Predis, and his +intimate, Francesco Melzi, readily grasped his mannerisms, +and filled Italy with Leonardesque pictures of inferior inspiration. +More robust and independent spirits, like Bernardino +Luini, adapted his manner intelligently to the needs of mural +painting. Lombardy under his influence for a moment seemed +to vie with Florence and Rome.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1513 Leonardo was called to Rome by the new Pope +Leo X, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son, Giovanni. It was the moment +for artistic ambition to flame in one who felt himself a +great painter. Michelangelo had recently unveiled the Sistine +ceiling, and Raphael had completed the Camera della Segnatura. +Leonardo was sixty-one, when a painter should be at +his best. Yet he plunged himself into scientific experiments, +perpetrated strange practical jokes on his patrons, produced +nothing but disorderly notes, and after two wasted years left +the repute of one rather an amateur magician than an artist.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Having lived a wanderer, it was appropriate that Leonardo +should die an exile. Francis I, an enthusiastic patron of +Italian art, called him to France and settled him honorably +in the Château of Cloux, near Amboise. We hear of him as +immensely learned and venerable, but palsied, and dependent +on the affectionate care of his pupil Melzi. He died on the +morrow of Mayday 1519 at peace with the church, leaving +money to sixty poor persons who should follow his body with +candles to the tomb. Doubtless you could have marked in that +pitiful procession many of those gnarled, toothless and haggard +faces which Leonardo formerly loved to sketch in the intervals +of his endless quest of beauty. As we study the marvelous +drawing of himself in old age, Figure <a href='#f_158'>158</a>, we may surmise that +he was glad to go. It is hard to see in it the courtier who bore +<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>the fantastic silver lute to Lodovico, the artist who charmed +a smile from the weary and cautious face of Mona Lisa. One +sees a man immensely old, though at an age generally robust +and cheery—one who has tried +to crowd many lives into one and +has paid the inevitable penalty.</p> + +<div id='f_158' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_158.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 158.</span> Leonardo da Vinci. His own portrait.—<em>Turin.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Broken and intermittent as it +had been, Leonardo’s painting +had sufficed to show the way. He +had substituted mystery of light +and shade for allurement of frank +color, study of the subtler and +finer shades of emotion for obvious +characterization, had founded +modern portraiture. He had +shown how to express power and +passion with delicacy, had combined +the richest animation and +variety with monumental severity +of design. After him the art +of painting was never to be the same again. Its standards +became ampler and more classic. Stolid men like Fra Bartolommeo +immediately accepted his principles of composition +and so did miraculously alert intelligences like Raphael’s. +His mere passing contact and tradition inspired that admirable +language of light and dark that became poetry in Giorgione +and Correggio. The good and the harm he did is active today +in thousands of academies and art schools. His is assuredly +the finest intelligence that ever applied itself to the painter’s +art, and if he failed in will and in fecundity, he has impressed +himself upon posterity as no other Italian painter save Titian. +His art had its limitations, but its capacity for influence, to +which he added the thoughtful eloquence of his written word, +seems limitless; and his glory is imperishable.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>Nowhere does the superiority of Florence show more clearly +than in the attitude of her artists to Leonardo. Where his +Milanese followers aped his superficial mannerisms, his Florentine +admirers studied and assimilated his construction in light +and shade and his principles of geometrical composition. Unhappily +the early years of the sixteenth century were a slack +time in Florence. Such transitional painters as Piero di Cosimo, +Granacci, Franciabigio, Il Bacchiacca, and Ridolfo Ghirlandaio +were not men to carry forward Leonardo’s discoveries, +but they and others, at least paid him an intelligent homage +and sensibly clarified their practice under his influence. +Greater intelligences like Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del +Sarto not merely adopted Leonardo’s canons, but even at +certain points criticized them. Both saw the drawback of +Leonardo’s passionate concern with chiaroscuro—that it +flooded the canvas with colorless shadow, tending to reduce +the palette to black and white. Both men then therefore +kept their rich shadows colorful. Both worked for a more compact +and intricate composition as well as for graceful, abstract +poses. In these latter endeavors they simplified and +sharpened principles which Leonardo himself only rarely carried +to their logical extreme.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Leonardo retained certain primitive qualities. He seldom +reduced his compositions to dense arrangements of the figures, +loving to allow elbow room and delighting to open up landscape +backgrounds. And while in the “Treatise on Painting” +he advocated elaborately balanced and counterpoised poses, +in practice he usually sought an excuse for them in action. A +consummate stylist, he achieved style on a basis of function. +The pose, in his own words, must express “the emotions of +the soul.” Right here his ablest followers took issue with him. +Posture with them no longer expressed specific or individual +emotion, but abstract beauties of grace, dignity or grandeur. +The figures no longer do or feel anything, they are arranged +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>as the general composition and mood of the picture require. +Such gradual advance towards pure style heralds the advent +of the High Renaissance.</p> + +<div id='f_159' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_159.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 159.</span> Fra Bartolommeo. God appearing to two Saints.—<em>Lucca.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of the somewhat stolid and occasionally sentimental sublimity +of Fra Bartolommeo<a id='r57'></a><a href='#f57' class='c012'><sup>[57]</sup></a> +nothing much need be said except +that it was a formative influence +on young Raphael. The Dominican +monk is an impressive and +amiable figure personally. Working +solely for the glory of God +and the profit of the Convent +of San Marco, perturbed by the +tragic fate of his cloister mate, +Savonarola, he strove incessantly +for a fuller color and a greater +dignity. In his numerous Holy +Families he is stately in a conventional +way, nowhere more so +than in the unfinished design for +a Madonna with St. Ann, in the +Uffizi. Occasionally, in such pictures +as the Deposition of the Uffizi, and the Madonna of +Pity at Lucca he achieves poignant, one is tempted to say +operatic effects, forecasting the mood of the Baroque. Lucca +also affords in the great picture God Adored by Two Saints, +Figure <a href='#f_159'>159</a>, a fine example of this painter’s simple and massive +compositions. In the fresco of The Last Judgment, which, +being ruined, is better represented by Copies, Figure <a href='#f_160'>160</a>, we +find an elaboration, in Leonardo’s sense, of the simple symmetries +of Perugino. It is the precedent for Raphael’s monumental +frescoes at Rome. His short career, from about 1495 +to 1517, fell on evil times for Florence. In happier days he +might have harmonized more perfectly the stylist and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>lyrical dramatist that, as it was, never quite came to terms in +his grave and noble personality. Yet to have mediated between +Leonardo and Raphael would seem glory enough for +any painter, and it was also no +slight service to borrow for Florentine +painting, rapidly becoming +starved of color, something +of the colorful richness of Giovanni +Bellini and Giorgione.</p> + +<div id='f_160' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_160.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 160.</span> Fra Bartolommeo. Copy of Lost Fresco of Last Judgment.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>“The Perfect Painter” was +what the Florentines called +Andrea del Sarto,<a id='r58'></a><a href='#f58' class='c012'><sup>[58]</sup></a> and he merited +the title. He produced no +masterpiece of the first order, +but his Work is singularly uniform +on a high level. Its chief qualities are dignity and grace +with a great richness of color. The deep shadows are warm +and full of dusky light, the stylistic +poses of the figures always +easy, and the weaving of the +complicated groupings ever tasteful +and harmonious. To the refractory +art of fresco painting +Andrea brought a richness, depth +and variety of color that others +hardly attained in oil painting. +Only Luini in the north came +near him in this regard. In short +he is a consummate technician, +carrying his art as far as skill +and taste unillumined by sheer +genius will reach.</p> + +<div id='f_161' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_161.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 161.</span> Andrea del Sarto. Birth.—<em>Annunziata.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Little of his excellence can be laid to his early training. +Before 1500 he was working with Piero di Cosimo, and Andrea’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>youthful frescoes of the miracles of S. Filippo Benizzi, in the +fore-court of the Annunziata, show the loose and animated +arrangements and the exaggeration of picturesque landscape +features characteristic of his master. But Andrea learned +rather of the time-spirit than of any other master. By 1514 +his art is complete and one may see its flowering in the frescoes +of the Birth of the Virgin, Figure <a href='#f_161'>161</a>, and the Madonna of +the Sack, Figure <a href='#f_162'>162</a>, respectively in the fore-court and in the +cloister of the Annunziata. It is a sumptuous and grave kind +of design redeemed from heaviness by its exquisite balance of +color masses, and from conventionality by the hint of portraiture +in the artfully disposed figures.</p> + +<div id='f_162' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_162.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 162.</span> Andrea del Sarto. Madonna of the Sack.—<em>Annunziata.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Scores of times Andrea repeats these perfections in the +great altar-backs required for the new Renaissance chapels. +The Four Saints in the Pitti, the Madonna of the Harpies in +the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_162a'>162a</a>, the Enthroned Madonna at Berlin may +serve among many to illustrate his accomplishment in this new +vein. Somewhat reminiscent of the heavier monumentality +of Fra Bartolommeo, these great pictures add a personal and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>disquieting note from the presence of the moody, handsome +wife, Lucrezia whose caprices and infidelities are the tragic +element in an otherwise even life.</p> + +<div id='f_162a' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_162a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 162</span><em>a.</em> Andrea del Sarto. Madonna of the Harpies.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Andrea in his later years won new glories but added no new +note to his art. The monochrome frescoes in the Cloister of +the Scalzo representing the Life of St. John Baptist merely +show the old gravity somewhat exaggerated. The series which +extended over many years (1515–1526) is uneven, and many +of these perhaps overestimated compositions are plainly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>of student execution. Without his color, Andrea seems somewhat +coldly academic. It was precisely this quality of stylistic +grandeur, however, that appealed paradoxically to the romantic +monarch, Francis I. He called Andrea to France in 1518 +and kept him there in honor for a year. Had Andrea possessed +any of the capacities of a teacher and theorist, he might have +inaugurated the Renaissance in France. As it was he remained +merely a harbinger of such inferior but more influential spirits +as Il Rosso and Primaticcio who a few years later were to +found the School of Fontainebleau.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Often the portfolios of a great technician are more thrilling +than his major works. This is the case with Andrea del +Sarto. His numerous sketches in red chalk, have an athletic +charm which his painting lacks. Others have drawn differently +in this medium, but no one has drawn better.</p> + +<p class='c007'>When Andrea died in 1531, “full of glory and domestic +trials,” as Vasari recounts, the normal development of Florentine +painting ended, and Florence had already seen her artistic +star dimmed by the rising splendors of Venice and Rome. +Artistically she became a city of wit and ingenuity, chronicling +and criticizing art rather than producing it. Moreover the +obsession of Michelangelo’s sublimity worked havoc with his +dilettante imitators. Some of these have the grace of lucidity, +like Agnolo Bronzino, who (1502–1572)<a id='r59'></a><a href='#f59' class='c012'><sup>[59]</sup></a> practiced a reactionary +sort of portraiture based on the old tradition of tempera painting. +In sheer beauty of surface, enamel one is tempted to call it, +he is little inferior to his great German contemporary, Hans +Holbein, and his sense of character is only less keen because less +individual. In the haughty patricians surrounding the person +of Cosimo, the first grandduke, he found congenial sitters, +Figure <a href='#f_163'>163</a>. In the narrow field of portraiture he is nearly in +the first rank, while in his rare mythologies and religious +pictures his limitations appear painfully. He was a vicious +person, a cold æsthete, with few of the generous virtues that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>nourish the soul. Yet in his flinty way he was quite perfect, +and as one of the first professionally unmoral artists he cannot +be neglected by the psychological critic.</p> + +<div id='f_164' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_164.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 164.</span> Pontormo. The Deposition.—<em>S. Felice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A more appealing figure is his +master, Jacopo Carrucci, called +from his birthplace Il Pontormo.<a id='r60'></a><a href='#f60' class='c012'><sup>[60]</sup></a> +His was a tender and deeply +religious spirit with the poet’s +capacity for elation and melancholy. +In his altar-pieces, such +as the Deposition, Figure <a href='#f_164'>164</a>, at +San Felice he seeks and achieves +a positive pathos. Influenced by +Michelangelo’s sublimity, he converts +it to more specific and +psychological ends. Often he is +restless and over-emphatic as in +the frescoes of the Passion in the +cloister of the Florentine Certosa, +or in the strangely complicated +and contorted little picture of +the Martyrdom of St. Mauritius and his Legionaries, in the +Uffizi. In such work he moves towards the absolute expressionism +of an El Greco, preluding also the more conventional +emotionalism of the Baroque. As a portraitist he had no +equal at Florence except his pupil Bronzino. Often the sensitiveness +and moodiness of his characterizations recall his +Venetic contemporary, Lorenzo Lotto. Even when he is robust +he is sensitively psychological, as in the superb portrait of a +Halberdier, Figure <a href='#f_165'>165</a>. Above all he was a powerful and +subtle draughtsman whether with pen or chalk. His line writhes +in a fashion at times sinister, at times singularly blithe, and +his figure sketches have something of the imaginative thrill +of the figure studies of Blake. For the grandducal palace of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>Poggio a Cajano, Figure <a href='#f_166'>166</a>, he did in a huge lunette pierced +by a great round window a most original decoration for the +odd triangles at the base. The unconventional fields are +filled each by a rather small figure energetically posed and +surrounded by greenery. The thing is at once monumental and +pastoral and its freedom and tonality almost as modern as a +Besnard. I would willingly dwell longer on so sympathetic an +artist, but can only refer the interested reader to Dr. F. M. +Clapp’s two authoritative volumes.</p> + +<div id='f_163' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_163.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 163.</span> Bronzino. Eleonora of Toledo and her son.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_165' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_165.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 165.</span> Pontormo. The Halberdier.—<em>C. C. Stillman, N. Y.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>For a century and more after Pontormo’s death in 1556 +there are still occasional artists of talent at Florence, but there +is no longer a Florentine school. The masterpieces of Michelangelo +were at Rome, those of Raphael widely scattered. +Conscious of her decline, Florence begins to import artists—the +Flemish portraitist, Sustermans; the Venetian decorator, +Luca Giordano. One of her own abler painters, Francesco +Salviati, attaches himself to the Venetian manner. Being an +academic city, Florence eschews the rugged naturalism of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>Caravaggio, but has no longer vitality enough to find a substitute +of her own. In the late sixteenth century her fresco +painting sinks to the pompous emptiness represented by Giorgio +Vasari, or by the hardly better mythologies of the brothers +Federigo and Taddeo Zuccaro. In the seventeenth century +she still can produce an idyllist of great romantic and sensuous +charm in a Francesco Furini and a genial illustrator in a Giovanni +di San Giovanni. But such names only suggest the +incoherence of the times. Florence is no longer a main current +but an eddy, and what small flood-tide still runs courses in the +more resolute academism of Bologna, which is to be capable +of inspiring a Poussin; and in the raw naturalism of Naples, +which is about to give lessons to a Velasquez.</p> + +<div id='f_166' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_166.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 166.</span> Pontormo. Frescoed Lunette.—<em>Poggio a Cajano.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span> + <h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER V</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Poetry and Painting in the Renaissance</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Reversing the maxim <i><span lang="la">ut pictura poesis</span></i>, the Renaissance believed +that painting should be poetical. Indeed the term <i><span lang="it">poesia</span></i> is commonly +applied to all painting of a mythological or idyllic sort. Angelo Poliziano’s +unfinished but very popular poem on the joust of 1468 is lavish +in descriptions, of which the painters made use. Botticelli surely got +more than a hint for the Birth of Venus from stanzas xcix-ci of <cite>La +Giostra</cite>, though the mood of the picture is wholly Sandro’s own and +unlike the pagan joyousness of Poliziano.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in28'>“One saw</div> + <div class='line'>Born in the sea, free and joyous in her acts,</div> + <div class='line'>A damsel with divine visage</div> + <div class='line'>Driven ashore by the ardent zephyrs</div> + <div class='line'>Balancing on a shell; and it seemed the heavens rejoiced thereat.”</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“True the foam and true the sea you would have said</div> + <div class='line'>True the shell, and the blowing of the winds true.</div> + <div class='line'>You would have seen the gleam of the Goddess’ eye</div> + <div class='line'>And the heavens laugh about her, and the elements.</div> + <div class='line'>And the Hours in white garments on the strand,</div> + <div class='line'>And the winds toss their spreading soft locks.”</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'> · · · · ·</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“You could swear that you could see the goddess coming from the waves</div> + <div class='line'>Wringing out her hair with her right hand</div> + <div class='line'>And with the left covering the sweet mount of desire,</div> + <div class='line'>And the sand, once trodden by her feet,</div> + <div class='line'>Clothing itself with grass and flowers.</div> + <div class='line'>Then with joyous and expectant glance</div> + <div class='line'>You would have seen her clasped by the three nymphs</div> + <div class='line'>And wrapped in a starry robe.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'>Botticelli’s charming and even slyly humorous picture of Venus +with sleeping Mars, at London, follows afar and discreetly <cite>La Giostra</cite>, I. +stanzas cxxii-iii, but Botticelli has taken the motive out of doors and +otherwise considerably subtilized it. Venus is</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>“Seated in bed outside the covers</div> + <div class='line'>Just released from the arms of Mars</div> + <div class='line'>Who, lies backward on her lap</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'> · · · · ·</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Above them and around the tiny loves</div> + <div class='line'>Played naked, flying now here now there</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'> · · · · ·</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“One fills the quiver with fresh flowers</div> + <div class='line'>Then comes and empties it on the bed.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'>Poliziano also supplied to Raphael the theme of the Galatea, in the +Farnesina, <cite>Giostra</cite>, I. cxviii (Fig. <a href='#f_192a'>192a</a>)</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Two shapely dolphins draw a car;</div> + <div class='line'>On it is Galatea who holds the reins,</div> + <div class='line'>And they swimming breathe with equal breath.</div> + <div class='line'>Around circle the more amorous throng.</div> + <div class='line'>One spits out the salt wave, the others circle round;</div> + <div class='line'>One seems to play at love and dallies.</div> + <div class='line'>The fair nymph with her trusted sisters</div> + <div class='line'>Laughs charmingly at their hoarse singing.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c019'>Titian, too, may have had in mind the <cite>Giostra</cite>, I. cxi, when he composed +his Bacchus and Ariadne. (Fig. <a href='#f_260'>260</a>)</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Comes upon a car covered with ivy and rushes</div> + <div class='line'>Drawn by two tigers—Bacchus</div> + <div class='line'>And with him it seems that fauns and mænads</div> + <div class='line'>Tread the deep sand and shout with raised voices.</div> + <div class='line'>One we see staggering; others seem to stumble,</div> + <div class='line'>One clashes the cymbal; others seem to laugh.</div> + <div class='line'>One drinks from a horn, one from his hand.</div> + <div class='line'>One has grabbed a nymph, and one turns handsprings.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Leonardo and the Academic Idea of Painting</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>The extraordinary mixture of liberality and dogmatism, of naturalism +and taste in Leonardo is best illustrated from his own <cite>Trattato +della Pittura</cite>. I quote from the standard edition of H. Ludwig, Vienna, +1882, using his paragraph numbers:</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Modelling in Chiaroscuro as the Painter’s First Object</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 412. “The first object of the painter is to make a flat plane appear +as a body in relief and projecting from that plane, and he who in such +art excels the others, deserves the greater praise, and such research, or +rather crown of such science, is born from light and shade, or I mean +chiaroscuro. Then he who flees from shadows, flees also from the glory +of our art among noble spirits and gains it with the ignorant herd, which +desires nothing in painting but beauty of colors, forgetting entirely the +beauty and wonder of showing a flat thing as if it were in relief.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On Judging a Painter’s Work</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 483. “The first thing is that you consider the figures, if they have +the relief which the place and light demand....</p> + +<p class='c019'>“The second is that the scattering, or rather distribution of the +figures be made according to the way in which you wish the story to +be.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“The third is that the figures be alert and intent on their particular +purpose.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On the Movements that Mark the Emotions</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 122. “The most important thing which can be found in the theory +of painting are the movements appropriate to the mental state of each +being,—as desire, scorn, wrath, pity and the like.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>The Steps in a Painter’s Education</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 82. “Draw first designs of a good master made in the fashion of +nature and not mannered; then from a relief, in the presence of a drawing +made from that relief; then from a good natural object.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Judgment versus Dexterity</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 62. “That painter who does not doubt learns little. When the +work surpasses the judgment of the worker, that worker acquires little, +and when the judgment surpasses the work, that work never ceases to +grow better, unless avarice prevents it.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On Use of Memory in the Night Watches</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 67. “Also I have proved it to be of no little use to me, when you +find yourself in bed in the dark, to repeat in the imagination the things +studied earlier, or other things of notable sort comprised in subtle +thought, and this is truly a laudable act and useful in fixing things in +memory.”</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On Selective Imitation</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 58a. “The painter should be solitary and think over what he sees +and discuss with himself, selecting the most excellent parts of the +species of whatever he sees, acting after the fashion of a mirror which +transmutes into as many colors as there are things what is set before +it. And so doing he will seem to be himself a second nature.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>¶ 98. “Winter evenings should be used by young painters in the +study of things prepared in summer, that is bring together all the +nudes which you have made in the summer, and make a choice of the +better limbs and bodies and practice from them and fix them in +mind.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On High Standards</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 59. “If you painter will seek to please the first painters, you will +make your pictures well, because they alone can guide you truthfully, +but if you wish to please those who are not masters, your pictures will +have few foreshortenings and little relief or alert movement, and thereby +you will fail in that part in which painting is held to be an excellent +art, that is in giving an effect of relief where there is nothing in relief.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On Avoiding Harsh Shadows and Sunlight Effects</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 87. “The light cut off from the shade too clearly is greatly blamed +by painters. Hence to avoid such a fault, if you paint bodies in the +open country, you will not make the figures as lighted by the sun, but +imagine some sort of mist or transparent clouds to be interposed between +the object and the sun, whence, since the figure is not emphasized +by the sunlight, the demarcations of light and shade will not +be emphasized.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On the Most Pleasing Light</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 138. “If you have a court yard that can be covered as you wish +with a linen awning, that will be a good light; or when you wish to draw +anyone, draw him in bad weather, towards nightfall, and make the sitter +stand with his back to one of the walls of this court. In the streets +set your mind towards nightfall on the faces of the men and women, +in bad weather, how much grace and sweetness appears in them.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On Counterpoise of the Figure</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 88. “Do not have the head turned the way the breast is, nor the +arm the way the leg is; and if the head is turned over the right shoulder +make the parts lower on the left than on the right” [and vice versa].</p> + +<p class='c019'><span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>At first blush this stylistic counsel flatly contradicts Leonardo’s +principle that poses and emotions should express state of mind, but +as a matter of fact many expressive movements obey this law of counterpoise +or active equilibrium. Leonardo himself generally finds motives +for such poses. Such successors as Raphael and Andrea del Sarto +habitually used such poses without other excuse than that of their own +inherent gracefulness.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On Freedom in Making a Composition</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 189. “Have you never considered the poets composing their verses? +They take no trouble to make fine letters, nor do they mind cancelling +some of the verses and making them better. Do you, then, painter, +make the limbs of your figures roughly and attend first to the movements +appropriate to the mental state of the beings composing your +story, rather than to the beauty and rightness of their members, because +you must understand that if such a composition in the rough +will meet the needs of the invention, it will please all the more after it +has been adorned with the perfection appropriate to all its parts. I +have seen in the clouds and spots on the wall what has aroused me +to fine inventions of various things, since these spots though entirely +without perfection in any part, did not lack perfection in their movements +and other actions.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Painting the Grandchild of Nature</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 12. “If you shall despise painting, which is the only imitator of +all the apparent works of nature, assuredly you will despise also that +careful investigation which with philosophical and careful speculation +considers all the qualities of forms: the sea, place, plants, animals, +herbage, flowers, which are enveloped in light and shade. And truly +this speculation is science and the legitimate child of Nature, since +painting is born of this nature. But, to speak more correctly, we will +say grandchild of nature, since all apparent things are born of Nature, +of which things painting is born. Hence rightly we shall call it the +grandchild of this nature and the kinsman of God.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>That the Painter Should be Solitary</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>¶ 50. “The painter, or rather designer, should be solitary, and +especially when he is intent on speculations and considerations which +continually appearing before the eyes give matter to be well kept in +memory. And if you are alone, you will be entirely yours. And +<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>if you shall be accompanied by a single companion you will +be half yours, and so much the less as the indiscretion of your companionship +shall be the greater ... And if you would say ‘I will do +in my fashion, I will hold myself apart’ ... one cannot serve two +masters. You will fulfil badly the duty of a companion, and worse +the aim of reasoning on the art ... And if you say ‘I will withdraw +myself entirely,’ ... I tell you you will be held a madman, but, lo, +thus doing you will at least be alone.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>Here Leonardo takes sharpest issue with the easy-going sociable +methods which for generations had held in the painter’s bottega, and +shows himself an individualist of modern type.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Rubens’ Praise of Leonardo</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Peter Paul Rubens, who had copied Leonardo’s battle-piece, has left +the following perceptive tribute to the genius of his predecessor:</p> + +<p class='c019'>“Nothing escaped him that related to the expression of his subject: +and by the heat of his fancy, as well as by the solidity of his judgment, +he raised divine things by human, and understood how to give men +those different degrees, that elevate them to the character of heroes.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“The best of the examples which he has left us is our Lord’s Supper, +which he painted at Milan, wherein he has represented the apostles in +places that suit with them, and our Saviour in the most honourable, +the midst of all, having nobody near enough to press or incommode him. +His attitude is grand, his arms are in a loose and free posture, to show +the greater grandeur, while the apostles appear agitated one side to the +other by the vehemence of their inquietude, and in which there is, +however, no meanness, nor any indecent action to be seen. In short +by his profound speculations he arrived to such a degree of perfection, +that it seems to me impossible to speak so well of him as he deserves, +and much more to imitate him.”</p> + +<p class='c019'><cite>The Art of Painting ... Translated from the French of Monsieur +De Piles</cite>, London about 1725. p. 107 f.</p> + +<div id='f_167' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span> +<img src='images/f_167.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 167.</span> Raphael. Count Baldassare Castiglione, author of “the Courtier.”—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter VI</span></span><br> THE GOLDEN AGE<br> <span class='large'>RAPHAEL AND MICHELANGELO</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c011'>On pride and humility in Art—The new Grand Style defined—Umbrian +humility in the Early Painters—Gentile da Fabriano—The Fifteenth +Century—Luca Signorelli—Perugino—Raphael; Early development—Roman +triumph—Michelangelesque aberrations—Michelangelo.</p> + +<p class='c006'>Whether the greatest art is grounded in pride or in humility +has divided the critics. To most it will seem evident that +the artist’s assertion of his own powers is an act of pride—a +pride of person which is often reinforced by that of nation +and race. As fine a critic as John Ruskin, on the contrary, +has insisted that the greatest art springs from humility—reverence +for God, admiration of His works in nature, homage +also to one’s earthly master in art and withal to the great tradition +of one’s craft. The difference is world-wide. According +to one interpretation or the other, the work of art becomes +an act of display or of worship. Such opposites in the realm +of analysis often meet comfortably enough in the realm of +practice. A haughty individualist like Leonardo da Vinci +insists that his investigations of appearance and reality lead +to that knowledge of God without which love is impossible. +And the Golden Age of painting itself, though mostly based +on corporate and individual pride, has also its infusion of +humility. If Michelangelo represents the flowering of three +generations of research, of that pride of intellect which ever +ruled Florence, so equally does Raphael represent many generations +of humility and teachableness in his native Umbria. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>For about ten years pride and humility worked side by side, +and that was the Golden Age. Pride prevailed over humility, +and the classical style of Central Italy sunk to a pretentious +exhibitionism.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Our theme is that brief moment of accomplishment which +witnessed the rise of Rome as centre of art, and the greatest +painting of Raphael and Michelangelo. We need not hesitate +to apply to it the oldfashioned term, the Golden Age. +But we shall not use it with quite the oldfashioned unction, +knowing as we do the heavy sacrifice involved in attaining +the so-called Grand Style, and the still heavier penalty it imposed +upon the art that succeeded it.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Florentines believed that painting had reached its +height in the years 1504 and 1505, when Leonardo da Vinci +and Michelangelo were designing the great competitive battle-pieces +for the Priors’ Palace at Florence, and Raphael was +painting his loveliest Madonnas. Modern critics might rather +be inclined to date the grand climacteric from a pathetic incident +of a few years later. In 1508, when Pope Julius II +wished to decorate the new ante-rooms of the Vatican, the +famous <i><span lang="de">Stanze</span></i> he called the best of the older painters—Sodoma, +Perugino, Signorelli, among others. No sooner had +they begun to decorate the vaults than their work seemed +inadequate. They were turned off incontinently and the young +man Raphael called down from Florence to take their place. +The incident shows how suddenly the new beauty dawned +upon the world of art patronage. Vividly conscious of its +advent, the Italians were less conscious of the equally sudden +waning of the great style. With the wisdom of hindsight +we can now see that the whole development was a marvelous +spurt, lasting a bare dozen years, from the battle cartoons +of 1505 to Raphael’s tapestry cartoons of 1516. Raphael +and Michelangelo, who created the lasting glory of the Renaissance, +also dug its grave. Before considering the creative +<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>and destructive energies of these two giants, we may profitably +note the characteristics of what whether for praise or +mockery has ever since been called the Grand Style. And +here I have little to do beyond condensing Professor Wölfflin’s +excellent book.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the Grand Style the accent was on maturity, decorum, +and measured power. Vivacious and picturesque incidents +are eschewed. The new art demands simplicity and centrality. +The human figure dominates the compositions. The frame is +filled densely with a complicated group. The figures themselves +are ample and mature. The Madonna is no longer a +girl, but a gracious woman of thirty years. The Christ Child +is no longer an infant, but a well-grown lad, whose supple +curves harmonize with those of grown folks. As to pose, the +figures no longer are casually arranged or in some posture required +by a specific action. They are cast in conventional +poses which bring out the active beauty of the body. Heads +swing across shoulders, the upper body turns against the +thrust of the lower, the arms counter the action of the legs. +Such counterpoise is always active, implying motion. Straight +lines give way to weavings of S curves—so many springs +whose tension is kept equal. Violent motion or torsion of the +body is frequent, but one motion or torsion must be immediately +taken up and balanced by some equivalent. Following +the general principle of centrality, colors are fewer and more +studied. In portraiture, for example, we no longer have landscape +or elaborate interiors, but plain dark backgrounds. At +all points we have left spontaneity and happy accident behind +and have entered a world of exquisite calculation. Society +had moved with art towards ideals of simplicity and decorum. +You no longer find the braided, beribboned and jewelled coiffures +of Botticelli’s women, but serene brows with the hair +drawn back evenly from its part and disposed as a mass in a +net. Young gallants wear their abundant locks much the same +<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>way and sport seignorial spade beards. Old men are even +more magnificently provided with beards of monumental +scale. Such men are clothed no longer in parti-colored raiment, +but in richly sober black. The ideal is dignity, composure, +and magnanimity. You may trace it through all its intricacies +of casuistry in what is still one of the best pictures of what a +gentleman and lady should be, the <cite>Cortegiano</cite> of Baldassare +Castiglione. It was finished in 1516 while his friend Raphael +was designing the tapestry cartoons. And you may read much +of this high teaching in Count Castiglione’s own sensitive and +comprehending face, Figure <a href='#f_167'>167</a>, as Raphael then painted it. +It breathes that fine interplay of pride and humility which +was the mainspring of the Renaissance, and it brings us back +to the double origin of the Grand Style in the pride of Florence +and the humility of Umbria.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Umbria in the narrow sense includes only the lovely stretches +of the upper Tiber, and the rolling banks of Lakes Trasimene +and Bolsena. But all the way over the mountains to the +Adriatic the civilization was of a similar type, and so the art. +Thus we may reckon the Adriatic Marches from Ancona to +Ravenna as Umbrian from the point of view of the historian +of painting. There were no great cities and little commerce. +It is a region of small hill-top communes within the walls of +which the peasants huddled for protection at night, going +down to the fields in the day. It was a country of hot passions +and violent feuds, and equally of religious enthusiasm and +mystical piety. Great heresies had swept the land and so had +the joyous and practical Christianity of St. Francis, greatest of +Umbria’s sons. We have much of the volatility that we noted +in Siena, without, however, a capital city to centralize it, and +we also have what Siena lacked—an abiding and beautiful +humility. Umbria knew her provincial estate and accepted its +limitations.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Nowhere is this more plainly shown than in her art. For +<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>two centuries she was in the position of inducing foreign +artists to come in, ever in an attitude of admiration and docility. +Thus Giunta of Pisa, Cimabue and his Roman contemporaries; +Giotto and his Florentine pupils; Simone Martini +and other Sienese painters decorated the chief monument of +Umbria, the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi. Their work +extended over a century to say 1330. Later still Sienese artists +were employed at Perugia, among others, Taddeo Bartoli, and +the region promised to become an artistic dependency of +Siena. But with the dawning of the Renaissance and the +extension of Florentine power beyond Arezzo, Florentine artists +are preferred. We find Domenico Veneziano at Perugia, +in 1438, in the pay of the ruling Baglioni. A little earlier Fra +Angelico had painted for several years at Cortona. In the +early fifties Benozzo Gozzoli painted his Franciscan frescoes at +Montefalco, and was otherwise active in the Tiber valley. In +1468 Fra Filippo Lippi was called to Spoleto. Soon after, +Umbria learned to depend on her own artists. In the Adriatic +Marches there had been a limited penetration of Giotto’s +style, chiefly by way of Padua and Rimini. By the end of the +century the Lorenzettian manner dominated. It was succeeded +by the influence of the Venetian Renaissance as exemplified +by such rather backward artists as the Vivarini and Carlo +Crivelli. Still later the diffused influence of Giovanni Bellini +meets harmoniously that of Perugino.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Thus in humility and teachableness Umbria very slowly, +and through most various stages of discipleship, worked out +her own originality. And when it came one felt deeply in it +the teaching of her spacious intervals and blue mountains.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is so with the first notable painter that Umbria produced, +Gentile da Fabriano.<a id='r61'></a><a href='#f61' class='c012'><sup>[61]</sup></a> He felt landscape as no artist before +him. Born about 1360, he was trained by his fellow townsman, +Alegretto Nuzi. Alegretto had made sound studies at Florence +<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>and had also observed with admiration the pictures of the +Lorenzetti. His own altar-pieces have the Sienese splendor +with a touch of sweetness that is wholly Umbrian. His pupil +Gentile prefers more ornate and florid compositions such as we +see in his early Coronation of the Virgin at Milan. Soon +Gentile gave himself to the panoramic narrative style, outdoing +the Lorenzetti in elaboration, vivacity, and gracefulness. +Superficially he resembles such Florentine contemporaries as +Lorenzo Monaco and Masolino, but his mood is broader and +more genial, and his decorative accent more splendid. Before +1410 he was called to Venice to paint in the new Ducal Palace. +His animated historical frescoes were soon destroyed by fire, +but his sojourn was long enough to impress his manner, through +his pupil Jacopo, Bellini, and numerous imitators, on the Venetian +narrative school.</p> + +<div id='f_168' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_168.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 168.</span> Gentile da Fabriano. Adoration of the Magi.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_169' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span> +<img src='images/f_169.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 169.</span> Gentile da Fabriano. The Nativity. Predella piece from Adoration of Magi.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Passing to Florence, he left there the fullest expression of +his gracious talent in the resplendent Adoration of the Kings, +Figure <a href='#f_168'>168</a>, now in the Uffizi, which was painted for Palla +Strozzi’s chapel in the Trinità. It was signed in May 1423, +and perhaps because it was the season of flowers, Gentile +painted in the rich pilasters growing sprays of morning glory, +iris, anemone, and cornflower. Within its fantastic Gothic +frame we witness a pageant such as Italy often saw on holy +days—the procession of the Wise man moving through her +streets. Around the Mother and her Child devotion reigns, +but soon the scene passes off into the tumult of waiting men-at-arms, +of chafing steeds, and snarling animals of the chase. +The color is a radiance of scarlet, crimson, azure and gold, +after the Gothic fashion. But the picture is more than Gothic +in the tender and almost atmospheric shading of the rolling +hills in the background. Skilfully blending Sienese idealism +with narrative breadth and vivacity, the picture is the last +and most magnificent memorial to a chivalry now merely an +afterglow, but dying with all the iridescence of the sunset hour.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As is usually the case, the modern contribution of the picture +is modestly made in the <i><span lang="it">predella</span></i> panels. The Nativity, +Figure <a href='#f_169'>169</a>, with the light radiating tenderly from the Christ +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>Child and golden stars glimmering above the hill-top pastures +is perhaps the first nocturne in art, and still one of the +loveliest. The Flight into Egypt, shows a joyous sunrise +creeping over the glad hills. The means are conventional, +the highlights are touched in +with gold, but the mood and +effect are there. Young Masaccio +surely considered these little +panels before he undertook his +more naturalistic adventure in +structural light and shade.</p> + +<div id='f_170' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_170.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 170.</span> Andrea da Bologna. Madonna of Humility.—<em>Cleveland.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Soon Pope Martin V, returning +from exile at Avignon and planning +to restore the splendors of +Christian Rome, called Gentile +and set him to decorating the +nave of St. John Lateran. Again +fire has deprived us of the monumental +works which constituted +Gentile’s contemporary fame. We +know that they won the praise of +the greatest Flemish painter who +visited Renaissance Italy, Rogier +de la Pasture of Tournai. And +two generations later crabbed +Michelangelo declared almost sentimentally that Gentile was +gentle both by name and by nature. For us it is important to +note that Gentile forecast precisely the future triumphs of +Raphael, carrying the glory of Umbrian painting widely +through Italy before asserting it at Rome.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Of course such work as Gentile’s was highly exceptional in +the Umbrian Marches. The average state of things is represented +by the shy and humble Madonnas which Francescuccio +Ghisi repeated indefinitely. This type of Madonna of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>Humility is nowhere more delightfully represented than in the +lovely panel at the Cleveland Museum, Figure <a href='#f_170'>170</a>, for which +I have elsewhere suggested the attribution of Andrea da +Bologna.<a id='r62'></a><a href='#f62' class='c012'><sup>[62]</sup></a> She is most unlike the majestic Madonnas of Florence +and Siena. To assure us that this gentle Mother is after +all Queen of Heaven and the Second Eve come for our salvation, +the artist has given her a resplendent aureole with tiny +miniatures of her champions, the apostles, and has stretched +at her feet that First Eve in whom we all sinned. The picture +will have been painted before 1380, and, with its Byzantine +reminiscences, it well exemplifies the mediævalism that held +its own in the Adriatic Marches long after Tuscany had set +her face towards the Renaissance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It would add little to our survey of Umbria to dwell on +Ottaviano Nelli at Urbino, a gently vivacious story-teller; +nor yet on those early painters at Camerino and San Severino +who tinged the softer native style with the splendid severity +of the early Venetian manner. I pass their works with regret, +for they are often lovely in their frank dependence on greater +spirits. In a general survey the middle years of the fifteenth +century in Umbria show rather little to attract us until the +rise of Pietro Perugino. He emerges in an artistic world dominated +in the Tiber Valley by the Florentine, Gozzoli, and beyond +the mountains by Carlo Crivelli and the Vivarini. Such +predecessor of Perugino as Benedetto Bonfigli of Perugia need +not detain us. He had learned a little, a very little, from the +Florentine, Domenico Veneziano, paints Madonnas with a +modest ideality; and narratives, the life of St. Ercolano in +the Communal Palace of Perugia, with abundant and muddled +detail, after the fashion of Gozzoli and Domenico di Bartolo. +His <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> was a factory of those quaint and often terrible +religious banners, Figure <a href='#f_171'>171</a>, which the devout Umbrians +carried processionally to avert the recurrent plague. We need +not dwell upon Perugino’s alleged master, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>whose ugly and emphatic draughtsmanship derives from Verrocchio +and the Pollaiuoli. We may best appreciate Perugino’s +extraordinary originality by considering contemporaries who +came up with equal advantages. Lorenzo di San Severino exemplifies +the usual Umbrian blend of Gozzoli and Venetian +influences. And in such a picture as the Enthroned Madonna, +Figure <a href='#f_172'>172</a>, in the Holden Collection, at Cleveland, he attains +an ideality of feeling and a beauty of workmanship of the most +refreshing sort. This picture must have been painted about +1490. It may represent the high mark reached in the Marches +towards the end of the century—may thus dispense us from considering +such inherently charming painters as Girolamo da +Camerino and his fellow townsman Giovanni Boccatis.</p> + +<div id='f_171' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_171.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 171.</span> Bontigli Plague Banner. The Virgin protecting her Devotees from plague Shafts hurled by Christ.—<em>Chiesa del Gonfalone, Perugia.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_172' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_172.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 172.</span> Lorenzo di San Severino. Madonna and Saints.—<em>Cleveland, O.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>A very similar training produces more ambitious but hardly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>more pleasing results in Niccolò Liberatore of Foligno, (1430 to +1502). Early influenced by Gozzoli, he later aped the intensity +of the Venetian, Carlo Crivelli. Niccolò thus chafes within +the modest bounds proper to art in Umbria. He essays tragedy +and too often achieves burlesque. +He paints, like most of the Umbrians, +processional banners, and +also the most complicated altar-pieces, +in which cusps, carving +and pinnacles almost efface the +Madonna and saints, who show +a peasantlike uneasiness amid so +much splendor. Such is the character +of the triptych in the Vatican, +which is dated 1466. It represents +rather favorably Niccolò’s +at once slender and ambitious +talent.</p> + +<div id='f_173' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_173.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 173.</span> Melozzo da Forlì. Pope Sixtus IV and his Court. Fresco.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Such obscure artists as we +have been considering<a id='r63'></a><a href='#f63' class='c012'><sup>[63]</sup></a> could +maintain the idealism out of +which a Perugino should grow, +could provide his spiritual background. They could do little +to nurture him on the positive side. That task fell to men of +greater power, who had saturated themselves with Florentine +realism—Melozzo da Forlì<a id='r64'></a><a href='#f64' class='c012'><sup>[64]</sup></a> and Luca Signorelli. Both were +pupils of that giant among Umbro-Florentines, Piero della +Francesca. Melozzo was born in 1438 and early employed by +the Dukes of Urbino. He practices an energetic draughtsmanship +both in decoration and portraiture, indulges the boldest +foreshortening, adds a positive athleticism to that pride of +life which we have noted in more static form in his master. +Thus his frescoes for the domes of the sacristy of the Santa +Casa at Loreto, and the justly famous fragments of playing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>angels from the demolished sacristy of old St. Peter’s at +Rome reveal a strength and measured audacity which at once +rival the contemporary effort of Mantegna at Mantua and +forecast the more pagan exuberance of Mantegna’s greatest +pupil, Correggio. This robust and masculine manner appears +in a more restrained and traditional form in the superb fresco +portraits of Pope Sixtus IV and his Court, Figure <a href='#f_173'>173</a>, in the +Vatican. Such work transcends Umbrian standards.</p> + +<div id='f_174' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_174.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 174.</span> Luca Signorelli. Pan, God of Music.—<em>Berlin.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Even more does the intense and rugged art of Melozzo’s +fellow disciple, Luca Signorelli.<a id='r65'></a><a href='#f65' class='c012'><sup>[65]</sup></a> Born at Cortona in 1441, we +know little of his early career except that he studied with Piero +della Francesca, passed to Florence and was permanently +swayed by the anatomical and passionate realism of Antonio +Pollaiuolo. Signorelli’s early work is obscure to us. We may +well study him first in the pastoral mythology, Pan, God of +Harmony, Figure <a href='#f_174'>174</a>, now at Berlin. It was painted about +1490 for the Medici, for the villa for which Botticelli designed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>the Primavera and Birth of Venus. It is inferior to its companion +pieces in imagination and delicacy, and particularly in +color, but in its own measured way it echoes delightfully the +poetic wistfulness of early Florentine humanism. Similar qualities +of imagination are in the great fresco The Last Days of +Moses, in the Sistine Chapel, painted in 1482 after his design. +But the vein is exceptional in Signorelli. Soon he gave himself +to a rugged realism, unpleasing +in his religious themes. Meeting +little favor in the great cities, he +painted many altar-pieces for the +Umbrian towns. These pictures +are stern in spirit and leaden in +color. There is no attempt to +please. Relentlessly Signorelli +pursued his personal quest of +expressive anatomy. Legend tells +us that, dry-eyed, he sketched +the fair body of his own murdered +son for the picture of the +Entombment at Cortona. We +see him introducing nude figures +into the background of the round +Madonna at the Uffizi, Figure +<a href='#f_175'>175</a>. The experimentalist dominates the artist.</p> + +<div id='f_175' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_175.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 175.</span> Signorelli. Madonna.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the year 1500, being nearly sixty, he found the real use +for his truculent art. He was called to paint in the Chapel of +S. Brixio, in the Cathedral of Orvieto. The subject was the +Last Judgment. More than fifty years earlier Fra Angelico +had begun the work with angel choirs in the vaults. With a +far different temper Signorelli continued the task. At the entrance +and back of the Chapel he showed mankind scourged by +the final plagues. In the four arched spaces at the sides he set +The Preaching of Antichrist, a sinister scene detailed with all +<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>the circumstantiality of the Early Renaissance. For the three +remaining scenes, the Resurrection of the Dead, Figure <a href='#f_176'>176</a>, +the Condemnation of the Sinful, Figure <a href='#f_177'>177</a>, and the Reward +of the Just, he invented new modes both of interpretation and +of composition. How far we are from the solemn assizes of +Giotto or the garden and labyrinth motives of Fra Angelico! +In every case we have in the lunette celestial figures, or at +least supernal, while below we have swarming masses of nude +folk, bewildered at the forgotten light, aspiring heavenwards +or shrinking from the clutches of the fiends.</p> + +<p class='c007'>What distinguishes these frescoes is a magnificently just +matter-of-factness. Only one question is raised by the artist. +Given the literal truth of the Book of Revelations, how would +the last judgment look, and how would one feel if he were indeed +there? So he reasons it out—the struggle of the skeletons +to push up to the light, their reinvestiture successively +with sinews, muscles and skin, the embarrassment as a half +assembled body vainly seeks recognition. And all this he contrasts +with the confident, strong bearing of the archangels +above. Again in the Ascent of the Just to Heaven, the +aspiration is chiefly physical, magnificently so. These clean +strong bodies chiefly wish to escape the corruption from +which the last trump has summoned them. And even the +guardian angels are less tender than jubilant at the thought +of fit recruits to replenish St. Michael’s celestial militia. +Equally the damned wince, not from conscience, but from physical +dread of the chains and claws and the imminence of the +eternal fires.</p> + +<div id='f_176' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span> +<img src='images/f_176.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 176.</span> Luca Signorelli. The General Resurrection.—<em>Cathedral, Orvieto.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_177' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_177.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 177.</span> Luca Signorelli. The Souls of the Damned.—<em>Cathedral, Orvieto.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>This sturdy, upright art seems hardly Italian. The spirit of it +is ruthless and Northern. It mitigates nothing, tells pretty +much everything, presents the body in its ugliness, disregards +obvious considerations of style. Yet as a successful blend of a +vast technical experiment in anatomy with an honest and +powerful effort of imagination, this is one of the most remarkable achievements of the Italian Renaissance. It has little +of the Italian nobility, but it powerfully influenced those who +had. Perugino and Raphael imitated Signorelli’s orderly arrangement +of his scenes in a double, vertical order, and Michelangelo +fed his dream of a heroic world of splendid nudity from +the drastic visions of Signorelli. Over-rich and over-emphatic +as Signorelli is, he is also an elemental, tonic power. No one is +quite the same after a visit to the Chapel of S. Brixio.</p> + +<p class='c007'>If Signorelli was the greatest character in Umbria before +Raphael, Pietro Perugino was the finest intelligence and taste. +He was born in 1446 at Città della Pieve and at nine years old +was put with a poor Perugian painter. His early activity is +matter only of ingenious conjecture.<a id='r66'></a><a href='#f66' class='c012'><sup>[66]</sup></a> There is an ambiguous +range of pictures variously ascribed to him and to Fiorenzo di +Lorenzo, a difficult and rather unimportant problem which I +willingly let alone. What is certain is that in his early twenties +Perugino was studying with Verrocchio at Florence alongside +of Leonardo da Vinci. By 1481 and 1482 Perugino emerges +artistically full-grown in the Sistine Chapel.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His superiority, as shown in the fresco of the Giving of the +Keys to Peter, Figure <a href='#f_118'>118</a>, and in numerous works of his forty-two +remaining years, is so uniform and almost monotonous that +its greatness has until recently passed unnoticed. Only such +critics as Mr. Berenson and Professor Wölfflin have done him +full justice. He worked upon perfectly clear and conscious +ideals of simplicity, symmetry, and spaciousness; in all of +which he took issue with his times. Rejecting the picturesque +richness and confusion of the Early Renaissance, he took +counsel of the Byzantine painters and of Fra Angelico at San +Marco. They taught him the worth of simple geometrical +forms of figure composition, and how to sacrifice details to +broad effects. That his groups disposed in simple pyramids, +oblongs, or ovals should not seem too bare, he cunningly varied +the positions of the figures, thus relieving the severity of the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>underlying symmetry. Every tilted head, pointed foot and +swaying thigh has its precise compositional value. As for the +figures, there is no strenuousness of draughtsmanship, they are +simply good enough. A principle of artistic economy, alien to +the spirit of the moment, rules here as elsewhere.</p> + +<div id='f_178' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_178.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 178.</span> Perugino. Mystical Crucifixion. Fresco.—<em>Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi. Florence.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>So far he appears as a critic and amender of the Early Renaissance +style. His positive contribution was a particularly +spacious and lovely sort of landscape, an immensity of light and +air to set behind the restricted patterns of his figures. This +landscape is a beautiful generalization of the scenery of the +upper Tiber valley. The forms are few. Feathery trees mark +the middle distance; a river valley opens gently with interlocking +banks toward distant blue mountains. Above a silvery +horizon, the heavens gradually deepen to an intense blue, +accentuated by sparse floating clouds. There are few colors, a +warm brown, a fresh green, a paler and a deeper blue, a variety +of grays. With these simple means is attained a sense of +infinite space and of encompassing peace.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All these perfections are in the great frescoed Crucifixion +Figure <a href='#f_178'>178</a>, in the convent of Santa Maria Maddelena dei +<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>Pazzi, at Florence. The date is 1495, Perugino’s fifty-second +year. The lyrical quietism of the effect rests on delicate evasions +of the very formal symmetry. Such features as the +tilted head of the Saint John and +the three trees at the left balancing +the Magdalen at the right +of the cross are essential. Indeed +any slight change either in the +position of the figures or the lines +of the landscape would produce +a discord.</p> + +<div id='f_179' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_179.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 179.</span> Perugina. Enthroned Madonna.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We have a very similar effect +with the addition of a stately and +simple architecture in the enthroned +Madonna of the Vatican. +Figure <a href='#f_179'>179</a>. Again the formality +of the pyramidal pattern is relieved +by varied dispositions of the figures which individually +considered may seem affected, but which are essential to the +composition. More overtly emotional but still restrained is +the Deposition, Figure <a href='#f_180a'>180a</a>, of the Uffizi Gallery. It is arranged +as an oval with catenary internal curves, anticipating much +more complicated patterns of Raphael. At this moment, 1494, +no living artist but Leonardo could have woven this group together +with such certainty of taste, and he could have hardly +equalled its broad and serene landscape.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the first years of the new century Perugino decorated the +merchants’ exchange of Perugia, the Cambio, with frescoes +partly religious, partly moral and symbolical. The most +famous represent the Virtues, Figure <a href='#f_180'>180</a>, in pairs, hovering +in the heavens with their representatives below. For example, +Prudence and Justice with the great law-givers. So Fortitude +and Temperance are represented respectively by the venerable +forms of brave Horatius, and Leonidas; of Cato and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Cincinnatus. It seems that Perugino executed most of this +latter decoration through assistants, and it has been suggested +that Raphael is responsible both for the design and painting +of the beautiful Sibyls.<a id='r67'></a><a href='#f67' class='c012'><sup>[67]</sup></a></p> + +<div id='f_180' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_180.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 180.</span> Perugino. Prudence and Justice with their Representatives. Fresco.—<em>Cambio, Perugia.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Like most of his contemporaries Perugino outlived his +fame. He was insulted by Michelangelo, criticized for repeating +his figures, thrust out of the Vatican in 1508 and superseded +by his former helper, Raphael. And his exquisite art in his +later years shows a certain relaxation. He died of the plague +in 1524 and was denied Christian burial, although in his day +he had painted plague banners to protect the faithful.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The known atheism of Perugino affords a curious problem. +How reconcile it with the mild and gentle religiosity of his +art? Were he a modern artist, one might hold that he entered +by æsthetic sympathy into experiences of religion which his +rational self denied. For an atheist of the Renaissance the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>explanation seems too subtle. They were of tough fibre and +kept their sympathy logically in hand. Mr. Berenson has +offered the ingenious explanation that in his noble composition +in space Perugino appealed to +emotions which are so nearly +akin to religion as to be readily +substituted therefor. In the great +spaces of Perugino the spirit finds +liberation and a sense of the +infinite. Such intuition of infinity +one finds also in personal +religion, and the two experiences +are in a degree interchangeable. +Æsthetically satisfactory, this +explanation may fail to convince +a devout person. He will want +to know how the art of an avowed +atheist enthralled the pious folk inhabiting the valley sanctified +by the memory of St. Francis. Whatever be the explanation, +the space composition of Perugino later sufficed to express +Raphael’s vision of the central mystery of Christianity, of the +nobility of pagan intellect and of the serene splendor of the +Grecian Olympians.</p> + +<div id='f_180a' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_180a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 180</span><em>a.</em>> Perugino. The Deposition.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Raphael Sanzio<a id='r68'></a><a href='#f68' class='c012'><sup>[68]</sup></a> is the finest example of the Umbrian virtue +of teachableness. His course is a series of exquisitely felt +admirations. His readiness to assimilate any sort of excellence +was his strength, and at times his weakness, for he was +not always self-critical enough to reject merits alien to his own +personality. His admitted primacy rests on perfection of composition, +and that perfection represented a beautiful synthesis +of the methods of Perugino, Fra Bartolommeo, and Leonardo +da Vinci. In dramatic power, force of draughtsmanship, and +charm of color many of his contemporaries surpassed him. +His, indeed, is a triumph of tact and judgment, and not of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>any single achievement. He seems one of the young men of +the Platonic dialogues come back to earth—graciously prudent, +gently effective, superior yet companionable. He approached +art as his fellow Umbrian, St. Francis, approached +life, with friendly confidence. He was equally at home with +noble and artisan, with austere prelate and libertine humanist. +Men readily gave him their loyalty and women their love.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Raphael Sanzio was born at Urbino in 1483. His father, +Giovanni, a mediocre poet and painter, left him an orphan +at eleven. Raphael’s first steps in painting were probably +guided by Timoteo Viti, who practiced, partly under Perugino’s +influence, the timidly idyllic style of the Northern Marches—Bologna +and Ferrara. Such boyish efforts of Raphael as the +Orleans Madonna, the Three Graces, and the Dream of a +Knight, in the National Gallery show Raphael’s complete +assimilation of this idyllic manner. The little picture at +London in which a stripling Hercules slumbers between an +attractive girlish Wisdom and a most innocent effigy of Vice—holding +the flower that signifies the primrose path—shows us +Raphael at seventeen and by no means precocious.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the year 1500 he was called from Urbino to work in +Perugino’s home shop at Perugia, soon rising to the position +of foreman. In four years he made the most devout and complete +assimilation of his master’s style. Such pictures as the +Coronation of Mary, in the Vatican, and the Marriage of the +Virgin, Figure <a href='#f_181'>181</a>, at Milan, would surely be reckoned as +consummate Perugino’s were it not for signatures and old +tradition. The Marriage of the Virgin in particular is merely +a rearrangement of Perugino’s composition for the Giving of +the Keys to Peter. But Raphael has eliminated unnecessary +incidents and has outdone Perugino himself in sweetness and +calm. The picture was finished in 1504, and that year Raphael +took letters of recommendation from his first patroness, the +Duchess of Urbino, to the Magistracy of Florence.</p> + +<div id='f_181' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span> +<img src='images/f_181.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 181.</span> Raphael. Marriage of the Virgin.—<em>Milan.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_182' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_182.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 182.</span> Raphael. Maddalena Doni.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Imagine a youngster of twenty-one who has diligently +mastered a pictorial style only to learn that it is already obsolete. +That is Raphael taking the manner of Perugino to a Florence +agog over the battle cartoons of Leonardo and Michelangelo. +The coolness with which young Raphael faced this +emergency is characteristic. In four years he made himself +over into a realistic draughtsman. Abandoning the readymade +faces and figures of Perugino, he wisely held to Perugino’s +sweetness and spacious compositional patterns. Young Raphael +achieves an extraordinary act of criticism. He takes from the +reformers just what he needs and no more—from Leonardo +his incisiveness and psychology as a draughtsman and his dense +and rich compositional patterns, from Fra Bartolommeo his +dignity and monumentality, from Michelangelo very little +as yet; and, withal, he retains whatever still seemed valuable +from his Umbrian experience. Thus with resolute and unperturbed +intelligence within four years he completely reconstructed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>his style, and put himself on a parity with older +contemporaries who had been experimenting for a score of +years.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The steps of this re-education are most interesting. In +1505 he did the portraits of Agnolo Doni and his wife Maddalena, +Figure <a href='#f_182'>182</a>. The posture of the woman is that of +Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. The draughtsmanship and characterization +are severe, the hint of Umbrian landscape is a +survival. In later portraits we shall see the elimination of +accessories, the line yielding to the most refined modelling in +light and dark, the effect concentrated without insistency. A +comparison of the Doni portraits with those of ten years +later, the Julius II and the Fornarina, will tell better than +words of the tendency of Raphael’s portraiture towards its +ultimate mastery.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1505 Raphael returned for a time to Perugino to paint +the fresco of the Trinity at the Convent of San Severo. +In the splendid geometrical pattern he has already improved +on the flat groupings of Perugino. The consistory of Saints +bends back in depth after the fashion of a semi-dome. +Raphael borrows the new motive from Fra Bartolommeo’s +fresco of the Last Judgment painted in 1499 for the Florentine +Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. Sixteen years later Perugino +added the languid saints at the base of the Trinity, a touching +reversal of the natural relations of master and pupil. As for +Raphael, in a single experiment he has mastered the sort of +symmetrical composition in depth which should suffice within +five years for his masterpiece, the Disputa.</p> + +<div id='f_183' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span> +<img src='images/f_183.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 183.</span> Raphael. Madonna del Granduca.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_184' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_184.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 184.</span> Raphael. La Belle Jardinière.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The matronly sweetness of Raphael’s early madonnas has +won them affection from the first. With increasing dignity, +they retain a hint of the girlish refinement of their predecessors +of the Early Renaissance. But they are less assertively +fastidious, more normal and natural. All these obvious +reasons for liking them are sound, and these pictures +afford as well an insight into Raphael’s consciously directed +studies. The effect is ever towards richer and more complicated +composition, and towards more interesting and stylistic +dispositions of the figures. The naturalness is that of taste +and calculation. Near the beginning of the series we have the +lovely Madonna of the Grand Duke, 1505, Figure <a href='#f_183'>183</a>. The +upright, frontal position and form and serene oval of the face +recall Perugino. But reality has supervened,—Perugino never +painted such a Bambino,—and for the sake of concentration +the background is kept plain. We see in the Madonna of the +Tempi Family, at Munich, the Madonna turned in three-quarters +position, the pose energized, the body swaying in a +slight counterpoise. Then he tries seated poses which offer the +triangular pattern of Leonardo. Perhaps the earliest of this +series is the lovely Cowper Madonna, now in the Widener Collection. +Soon he adds figures, constructs the pyramids more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>ornately and restores the background of landscape. At the +head of this line is the Madonna of the Finch in the Pitti. +It illustrates that gracious formality which Leonardo established +in the Madonna of the Rocks. Finding the balance of +the two standing nude children +a little too obvious, Raphael carries +the motive to its perfection +in the Belle Jardinière of the +Louvre. Figure <a href='#f_184'>184</a>. Here, to +break the rigid symmetry, the St. +John kneels, and superfluous +trees have been cleared away +from the background. He seeks +further to enrich the pyramid, +and in the Madonna of the +Canigiani family, at Munich, Figure +<a href='#f_185'>185</a>, finished in 1507, we +have at once the densest of symmetries +and the stylistic handling +of all the figures in active and counterpoised attitudes. In +two years the process is complete. Later, in the Madonna of +the Fish and of the Pearl, executed by students, Raphael will +adopt diagonal arrangements, he will take up the old Circular +form in the Madonna of the Chair, and will amplify the +simple patterns of Perugino in the Sistine Madonna and the +Madonna of Foligno. The forms and faces will become graver, +nobler, more mature, but the whole course is fully anticipated +in the joyous and lucid years of experiment from 1505 to 1507.</p> + +<div id='f_185' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_185.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 185.</span> Raphael. Canigiani Holy Family.—<em>Munich.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In that year Raphael pulled himself together to produce a +masterpiece and signally failed. So far he must have seemed +only a charming painter, a more gracious Fra Bartolommeo or +a more learned Albertinelli, he will now surpass Leonardo and +equal Michelangelo—a perilous competition for a man of +twenty-five. In 1507 Atalanta Baglioni of Perugia ordered a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Deposition to be set over the tomb of her murdered son, the +tyrant Astorre. Raphael, in a theme properly lyrical and pathetic, +tries to add tumult and drama—tries too hard. At +first he adopted a scheme very similar to that of Perugino’s +masterpiece, with the +dead Christ on the +ground, a quietly +mourning group and a +spacious landscape. +The design is shown +in a pen sketch at Oxford. +He rejects this +motive as too quiet +and familiar. By successive +efforts and exaggerations +he arrives +at the picture which +we now see in the Borghese +Gallery. Figure +<a href='#f_186'>186</a>. It has become a +disagreeable tangle of legs, a display of over-muscular arms +which support nothing—a welter of histrionic gestures. The +clew to the trouble is in the effective but meaningless pose of +the woman at the right, which is borrowed directly from +Michelangelo’s Madonna of the Doni Family. Figure <a href='#f_195'>195</a>. The +landscape no longer liberates the spirit, but almost crowds +the figures out of the frame. Doubtless so self-critical an +artist as Raphael learned much from this failure. It must have +shown him that the rich density and measured dramatic effect +of Leonardo were not as accessible as he had thought, and +he accordingly restudied the whole problem of energetic monumental +design. Moreover it showed him, at least for some +years, that Michelangelo was the worst of models for him and +threw him back upon his proper exemplars, Perugino and Fra +Bartolommeo—in short, upon that native humility which was +at once his charm as a man and his strength as an artist.</p> + +<div id='f_186' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_186.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 186.</span> Raphael. The Entombment.—<em>Borghese, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>In 1508 Raphael was called to Rome through the influence of +a former Urbino friend, Bramante, now the architect of new St. +Peter’s. The task set by Pope Julius II was the decoration of +the four new antechambers called the <i><span lang="de">Stanze</span></i>. About the same +time Michelangelo began on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. +Thus the two artists worked within two hundred feet of each +other, but held apart partly by a natural rivalry, and even more +by the irascible and suspicious nature of Michelangelo. And +two masterpieces were produced as from two different worlds—Michelangelo’s +all tragic and perturbed, Raphael’s all hopeful +and serene. Between 1509 and 1511 Raphael frescoes the +Camera della Segnatura, mostly with his own hand. The +scheme comprised the finest leading ideals of contemporary +humanism, and the little room is the most important of documents +for the student of the Renaissance. Religious authority, +legal justice, secular philosophy and science, the arts—such +are the four great themes impersonated on the side walls, and +echoed in symbol and human illustration on the beautiful +ceiling; these are the props of a perfect society.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Religious authority and theology are represented by the +famous fresco called erroneously the Dispute concerning the +Sacrament, Figure <a href='#f_187'>187</a>. Christ, as the fully revealed member +of the Trinity, sits in a heaven rayed and studded with gold; +beside him sit the prophets and apostles—the actual witnesses +of his passion. The seated group sweeps grandly back describing +a sort of semi-dome in space. Below and precisely in +the centre, on an altar, glitters the wafer which in the recurrent +miracle of the Mass becomes Christ’s body. To right and left +of the altar are closely compacted and agitated groups insisting +on the truth of the miracle of transubstantiation. These +are the martyrs and church doctors, those who after the apostolic +age either in experience or divine intuition certified to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>the central mystery of the Church. The upper group is composed +after the fashion of Fra Bartolommeo and Perugino, +is a mere expansion of Raphael’s fresco at San Severo; the +lower group is held together after the fashion of Leonardo da +Vinci’s Last Supper, the vehemence of the particular gestures +being assimilated in a running balance of thrust against thrust, +so that the whole effect is of a rich and energetic harmony. The +figures themselves are established adequately, but in draughtsmanship +are inferior either to Leonardo’s or Michelangelo’s. +With the thriftiness of a born decorator, Raphael makes the +figure count in its place and beyond that takes no unnecessary +pains. It might indeed be argued that the decoration would be +worse as a whole if the parts were more perfect. Finally, note +how essentially classical, Roman, juridical the motive is; how +concrete and material. Raphael seeks to express nothing more +mystical than the obvious equation of Christ and the host, and +he merely cites a multitude of witnesses to prove that the equation +is true. This very simplicity of motive has thoroughly +humanized what might have been a tenuous theme. The picture +is a magnificent conclave out of many ages, a symbol of +the cumulative splendor of the Catholic tradition.</p> + +<div id='f_187' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_187.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 187.</span> Raphael. La Disputa—The Truth of the Eucharist. Fresco.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_188' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span> +<img src='images/f_188.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 188.</span> Raphael. The School of Athens. Fresco.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>On the opposite wall, in the School of Athens, Figure <a href='#f_188'>188</a>, +Raphael pictures a similar continuity of human thought on +the secular plane. The arched space opens into a vast basilica +whose gods, represented as colossal statues at the sides, are +Apollo and Minerva. Raphael has studied the Basilica of +Constantine and has modestly scanned Bramante’s plans for +new St. Peter’s. He invents a vaulted interior more impressive +than any that man has ever built. Within finite bounds he +suggests the infinity of Umbrian space. Without the figures, +or with quite other figures, we should still have a great picture. +But the group is as nobly disposed as the architecture. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>You may imagine a foreshortened ring of which the reverend +forms of Plato and Aristotle are the twin jewels. Aristotle +at the right is in the vigor of middle age as a scientist should be. +His disciples crowd towards him or gather in secondary groups +about some leader. Science is social and co-operative. Raphael +puts himself in this group. Plato at the left is immensely old +and feeble. Speculative philosophy requires only strength +of spirit. His disciples are generally isolated in personal +meditation. Philosophical truth is arrived at not in society +but in solitude. Certain ardent young faces recall Leonardo da +Vinci, and the construction of the group is his. We have linking +motives, like that of sprawling Diogenes on the steps, +curves that repeat or counter the vault above, turns and thrusts +of bodies in active balance, an energetic variety within a serene +harmony. The mood is less agitated than that of the Disputa, +while the composition is freer. Human science and philosophy +are at once less bound than is theology, and move more equably +because they strive for more readily attainable ends. Like its +companion piece, the School of Athens is both a citation of +witnesses and a profession of faith, of faith in the capacity of +the human mind.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fresco of Parnassus repeats approximately the grouping +of the School of Athens, but changes the mood to one of +lyrism, and shifts the scene to a hill top. About Apollo and +the Muses wander the forms of the elder and recent poets. +Often the faces are a bit insipid, but no one thinks of that, so +easy are the postures, so gracious the whole effect, so instinct +with the quiet good breeding of an academic pastoral. All +the Umbrian reticence and discretion and humility of Raphael +are in this beautifully calculated work. It betrays, too, +certain ominous symptoms of display, in the way, for example, +in which the figures at the window protrude beyond the wall. +Primarily this is only a way of softening two ugly angles of the +window opening, but it is also a concession to Michelangelo’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>dangerous habit of painting away the architecture. All the forms +have an amplitude and dignity akin to that of classical sculpture. +Hellas is for Raphael no longer a far-away, inaccessible +world, as it was, for example, to Botticelli. Raphael has effectively +reconstructed it, in part by a gracious act of intuition, +in part by study of the wall paintings and statues of old Rome.</p> + +<div id='f_189' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_189.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 189.</span> Raphael. Prudence, Temperance, Force—generally called Jurisprudence. Fresco.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The decoration of the Camera della Segnatura was completed +triumphantly with the fresco symbolizing Jurisprudence, Figure +<a href='#f_189'>189</a>, in which Raphael invents a new and beautiful compositional +formula. Having to deal with a lunette awkwardly +shortened by the window, he used three seated figures signifying +the judging, restraining and rewarding aspects of justice. +There is no strict centrality and no exact symmetry. The +large curves of the figures play off from each other in a continuous +rhythm melting into the bounding curve. One may conceive +it in terms of the growth of plants, as so many sprays +meeting, diverging, opposing each other, and all managing to +conform to the line of an arch. It is a type of composition that +Raphael will develop with still greater subtlety in the Sibyls +of the Madonna della Pace.</p> + +<p class='c007'>When Raphael finished the Camera della Segnatura he was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>about twenty-eight years old. His remaining nine years added +certain remarkable portraits, the Castiglione, the Leo X, Figure +<a href='#f_190'>190</a>, the Fornarina and the young Cardinal at Madrid, one +sublime altar-piece, in the Sistine +Madonna; a dramatic masterpiece +in the Transfiguration, and +a few frescoes. But in the main +these are years of retrogression. +His popularity had got beyond +his power to utilize it. Michelangelo +in 1512 had unveiled the +ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. +Raphael, with all Rome, felt +qualities of energy and grandeur +which he himself lacked, and, +with less than his usual intelligence, +began a fruitless emulation. +The last three <i><span lang="de">Stanze</span></i> show +in their very look that Raphael is no longer his unperturbed +self. The figures no longer hold up their place on the wall, they +crowd out toward the spectator appallingly. The compositions +no longer show restful patterns which conform to the flatness +of the wall. There are disturbing flashes of light and obscure +gaps. The figures themselves are contorted and vehement; +straining sinews and knotted muscles are advertised for their +own sake. Emulating the sublimity of Michelangelo, Raphael +only achieves sensationalism. Then he is no longer a painter +but a director of painting. Nothing but the designs are now +his own. The working sketches and cartoons are by his pupils, +who work under the sway of a young Mantuan of facile and +brutal talent, Giulio Romano. One passes through the last +three Stanze with mixed feelings. The high pleasures of art +are left behind; remains the spell of great power and intelligence +now almost untouched by taste.</p> + +<div id='f_190' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_190.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 190.</span> Raphael. Pope Leo X.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_191' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span> +<img src='images/f_191.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 191.</span> Raphael. Heliodorus driven from the Temple by a Celestial Horseman. Fresco.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The Stanza of Heliodorus finished in 1514 contains a superbly +dramatic fresco of Heliodorus, Figure <a href='#f_191'>191</a>, thrust by a +celestial horseman from the temple he would profane. The execution +is mostly by Giulio Romano. Raphael himself appears +in one of his most massive designs, the Mass of Bolsena. +The theme is a sceptical priest persuaded of the truth of +the sacramental miracle through the bleeding of the wafer. +The miracle takes place in the presence of Pope Julius II. +There is a weight of character in the picture which is unique in +Raphael’s mural painting. The adjustment of masses is in an +impeccable symmetry all the more difficult that the space is +irregular and refractory. The fine figures that carry the theme +down into the narrow rectangles alongside the window are in +part repainted by a young rival of Raphael, Michelangelo’s +protegé, Sebastiano del Piombo.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Chamber of the <em>Incendio</em>, finished in 1517, shows even +more plainly the devastating influence of Michelangelo. The +subject is a fire arrested miraculously by Pope Leo IV, Figure +<a href='#f_192'>192</a>. It is a magnificent display of poses and anatomy, an +<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>artistic show window rather than a decoration. The eye +wanders in bewilderment to find the picture and finds +nothing but isolated, splendid forms posing superbly or simulating +unfelt emotions. From the point of view of decoration, +the space has been systematically violated. Again the remorseless +hand of Giulio Romano is everywhere felt. This is +the last anteroom of the Vatican which Raphael saw finished, +though he left to his helpers many sketches for the two remaining +<i><span lang="de">Stanze</span></i>.</p> + +<div id='f_192' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_192.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 192.</span> Raphael’s Design executed by Giulio Romano. Il Borgo. The Fire at Rome.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In 1516 and 1517 Raphael is superintending half a dozen +great tasks at once. From the early months of 1515 he had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>been Bramante’s successor as architect of new St. Peter’s, +the same year he became superintendent of all archæological +excavations at Rome. To these heavy administrative charges +he adds the decoration of the Farnesina, the continuation of +the <i><span lang="de">Stanze</span></i>, designs for mosaics in Santa Maria del Popolo, +plans for two private palaces, sixteen cartoons for the Vatican +tapestries, and the preliminary studies for the Loggia of the +Vatican. He designs half a dozen great altar-pieces and paints +with his own hand the Portrait of Leo X, the marvelous St. +Cecilia at Bologna, the Sibyls of the Pace, and the Sistine +Madonna. He was rich and beloved, great nobles pressed +him with social attentions, and a cardinal vainly sought to +ally him with his family by marriage.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We can consider these multiform activities of the later +years only in general terms. The tapestry cartoons at South +Kensington representing the miracles of St. Peter and St. Paul +complete that magnificent line of narrative painting that begins +with Giotto. Raphael works for simplicity and concentration +and dignity in an eminently classic spirit. One +feels the influence of Masaccio. Though rudely executed to +guide the Flemish weavers and executed by the assistant, +Penni, the mind of Raphael controls the form throughout. +Such designs as the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, Paul +Preaching at Athens, the Death of Ananias, the Blinding of +the Sorcerer Elymas are among the marvels of our art. Yet +many of these designs are over-studied, and few I feel fully +bear the comparison with the best of Giotto and Masaccio. +A little over-emphasis of style recalls the bitter word of +Michelangelo concerning Raphael—that he succeeded not by +grace of nature but by study.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The frescoes of the Life of Psyche, in the Farnesina, are +beautiful in arrangement and full of a robust paganism. But +the wall is overcharged with the weight of figures which too +often show Giulio Romano’s heavy and insolent hand. All +<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>the same, the whole effect is gracious and the garlanded +borders of the coves and spandrels by Giovanni da Udine are +delightful. To realize how much these frescoes lost from +student execution one has only to consider the Galatea, Figure +<a href='#f_192a'>192a</a>, in the same Palace, which Raphael painted himself in +1514. It is on the verge of over-ripeness, but keeps its saving +element of restraint. In answer to an inquiry from that great +diplomat and gentleman, Count Baldassare Castiglione, Raphael +wrote that though beautiful models were not rare, for the +Galatea as for other figures, he had followed only an idea; +and indeed the mind’s eye is what ever counts with Raphael.</p> + +<div id='f_192a' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_192a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 192</span><em>a.</em>> Raphael. Galatea. Fresco.—<em>Farnesina, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_193' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_193.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 193.</span> Raphael. The Sistine Madonna.—<em>Dresden.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Raphael’s final work for the Vatican was the decoration of +an open, vaulted Loggia. He invented fifty-two little Bible +stories, leaving most of the painting to his assistant, Penni, +and he drew about the arches, pilasters and window frames the +most delicious arabesques. From study of similar decoration +in the Baths of Titus he worked out a style, crisp, formal and +sophisticated, and as various as Gothic ornament itself. Geometrical, +animal, and plant forms meet and blend audaciously. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>There is interplay of spiral and angular motives, the whole +effect is highly playful and ingenious. The style has had vogue +to our own day and still speaks to us charmingly of the +unserious side of Raphael.</p> + +<div id='f_194' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_194.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 194.</span> Raphael. The Transfiguration.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps in the harassed, competitive +years we have been +describing, Raphael turned occasionally +upon his own ingenuity, +and refreshed himself by renewing +these simple and gracious +modes in which he had been +bred. Such a theory would account +for the Sistine Madonna, +Figure <a href='#f_193'>193</a>, and in part for his +last picture, the Transfiguration. +The most memorable of Raphael’s +Madonnas is based on the +lucid symmetry of Perugino. +Although, for greater concentration, +the background is merely +a sky, the hovering figures are +easily spaced in the usual triangle. The effect is ineffably +grand and gentle. A quiet silvery cloudland is created and +filled by the devotion of the attendant saints and the inspired +glance of the Virgin and her Son. With all the resources of +the Renaissance, Raphael has expressed an emotion as intense +and reverent as that of Fra Angelico. It is an amazing act of +the sympathetic intelligence, for there is no reason to suppose +that the painter was ever a deeply religious spirit.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Almost as traditional was the unfinished picture before +which in springtime of 1520 Raphael’s body lay in state. The +Transfiguration, Figure <a href='#f_194'>194</a>, repeats the method of the Disputa. +The celestial group of Christ and Moses and Elijah is disposed +as Perugino would have counselled, in a swaying triangular +<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>group set before the gulf of the firmament. Raphael painted +this part with his own hand. The lower part, which was left +to Giulio Romano to finish, rests on the maxims and practice of +Leonardo. An energetic variety compelled into a close balance +is the ideal, a formal order which contains and softens otherwise +extravagant expressions and gestures. There is perhaps +intended not merely an illustration of the Gospel text, but also +the contrast between that life of contemplation towards which +the soul aspires, and that world of suffering of mind and body +which presses closely upon our rare moments of spiritual +escape.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Even that world of facts had been very kind to Raphael. +It was fitting then that in his last days he should forget the +haunting spectre of Michelangelo’s sublimity, and should use +his last forces in an imitation which was a sort of gratitude +to those two great masters who had set him on the right way. +One would like to believe that the Sistine Madonna and the +Transfiguration are the sign that Raphael when overtaken by +an untimely death was purging himself of an unfruitful rivalry, +and becoming once more master of his own soul. Yet since +even Michelangelo shipwrecked on the Michelangelesque, it +is an open question whether Raphael could ever have permanently +recovered his natural equipoise. However that be, +Raphael in the glorious years from 1500 to 1512 resumes and +perfects every gentle, orderly, and reasonable strain in +Italian painting. Whether in portraiture or narrative, in +mythology or symbolism, in pictures of the Madonna or in +pure decoration, he gave to Italian painting its final stamp. +He achieved a grandeur of space composition akin to the movement +of a symphony, a hidden structure more appealing than +any separate hue or form. His best work rests on a great +humility, and his later pride went far towards undoing him as +an artist. Such pride was the breath of life and the source of +strength to his rival Michelangelo, the fulfiller and perfector +<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>of everything that had been insurgent, unbounded and not +quite reasonable in the art of Florence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>By a peculiar irony all that was valuable in such truculent +and self-sufficing predecessors as Donatello and Bertoldo, +Andrea del Castagno, Antonio Pollaiuolo and Luca Signorelli +was finally concentrated in the small and ill-favored body of +a neurasthenic. There is the tragedy of Michelangelo<a id='r69'></a><a href='#f69' class='c012'><sup>[69]</sup></a> in its +simplest terms. A Titan in capacity to feel and work, he +lived in an atmosphere of suspicion and fear. Thrice he ran +away from physical danger, once was virtually a military deserter. +To unworthy dependent relatives he gave lavishly, +scolding and fretting as he gave. He deliberately affronted +two of the most courteous and accomplished colleagues, Leonardo +da Vinci and Perugino. He suspected the worst of his +gracious and generous rival, Raphael. From a Roman studio +as unkempt and filthy as its owner, he snarled at the world +and himself like a dog from a kennel.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Yet, note the paradox, this snarling is embodied in fine +poetry, and this haggard and more than untidy artist is the +friend of such elect spirits as Tommaso Cavalieri and Vittoria +Colonna. Transient solaces. Near the end of his long life he +writes:—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Alas! Alas! again and once again</div> + <div class='line'>I see my past and there I find not one—</div> + <div class='line'>In all, not one whole day that has been mine.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>These were the words of a man who was admired like a god +and had achieved a lifework of unexampled copiousness and +athleticism.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The great enigma, how Michelangelo converted what are +usually weaknesses into sources of artistic strength, may best +be faced in his life and works. He was born at Caprese in 1475, +soon taken back to Florence and put to nurse with a stonecutter’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>wife, with whose milk he later used to say he sucked +in the mallets and chisels he wielded so powerfully. At thirteen +he was articled to Ghirlandaio as a paid assistant and doubtless +did some minor work on those prettiest of frescoes in the +choir of Santa Maria Novella. +Extricating himself from an uncongenial +task, he became one of +the protegés of Lorenzo de’ Medici, +studying the antique marbles +of the Medici Gardens under +the kindly guidance of old Bertoldo. +There he mingled freely +for three years in the most +learned and gentle society of the +time. He mastered anatomy and +modelling, searched the compositional +secrets of Masaccio. +Soon Savonarola’s revolution dismantled that artistic paradise +which had been the Medici Gardens, and Michelangelo became +what he frequently was afterwards, a fugitive and a solitary +man, without either fixed friendships or abiding place.</p> + +<div id='f_195' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_195.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 195.</span> Michelangelo. Holy Family of the Doni.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>How he made himself great in sculpture is not our theme. +He was thirty and already the master of the David and the +Pietà before he began to be a painter. His first commission, +in 1505, was for a Holy Family, Figure <a href='#f_195'>195</a>, in medallion form +for Agnolo Doni, who at the same time was having his portrait +painted by Raphael. The picture as we see it in the Uffizi +shows a master who thinks in fresco. The brown flesh, the dull +yellows and blues of the draperies could have come from the +Brancacci chapel. Remarkable is the complete waiver of charm +and sweetness. The superb figures are skilfully contorted into +interesting poses, the circle is densely filled and the few interstices +left by the main figures are filled with athletic nudes. +The aim, which is successfully attained, is an austere grandeur. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>There is to be no ordinary human appeal in our youthful +Lord and his parents.</p> + +<div id='f_196' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_196.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 196.</span> Michelangelo. Detail from Cartoon of the Bathers, by the contemporary engraver, Marcantonio.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>At this moment Leonardo was already well advanced on the +cartoon for the Battle of the Standard, treating it in terms of +literal narrative. In 1505 Michelangelo +received a signal honor in +the commission for the companion +fresco, the Battle of Pisa. Both +were for the Hall of the Great +Council. We can imagine Michelangelo +casting about for a reason +to abandon a narrative treatment +and to find one that could be expressed +by the nude. He found +it in an incident in Leonardo +Aretino’s Chronicle. It seemed +that the trumpet found the Florentine +men-at-arms bathing in the +Arno. Here was the theme of +what was properly called The Bathers. Great muscular forms +are drawing themselves up the bank, and are hurrying into +clothes and armor. We have not a fight, but its alarm and imminence, +a fine imaginative substitute for the obvious event. +The picture was never executed, and the cartoon, which was +the marvel of its day, was soon destroyed, but Michelangelo’s +sketches tells us something of the composition, and the contemporary +engraver, Marcantonio, Figure <a href='#f_196'>196</a>, has left us a +masterly print of the central group. It is plain that Michelangelo +made a display of minute anatomy that put his contemporaries +to shame, plain also that he subordinated this +feature to monumental effect. The failure to execute the fresco +and the destruction of the cartoon must count among the +capital losses in the history of art.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Burdened already with the impossible task of the tomb of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>Julius II, Michelangelo was called to Rome to fresco the vault +of the Sistine Chapel. Contemporary gossip believed that he +was proposed by the jealous and shifty Bramante, architect of +St. Peter’s, in the hope of discrediting him. If so, Bramante +reckoned ill. At first Michelangelo planned a very modest +scheme of colossal figures of Apostles in the twelve spandrels. +Soon, dismissing his incompetent helpers, he attacked single-handed +the present great scheme. He worked at it four bitter +years, and came out of it temporarily crippled and with eyes +distorted from the constant strain of looking upwards. The +ceiling was unveiled on All Saint’s Day of 1512 and has been a +portent ever since.</p> + +<div id='f_197' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_197.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 197.</span> Michelangelo. The two Western Compartments of the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: God parting Light from Darkness; God creating the Sea and Plants. Example of the Decorative Scheme.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Enter the Sistine Chapel, turn your back to the overwhelming +apparition of the Last Judgment, and your eye will naturally +seek the lightest part of the rich decoration. In a long +<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>strip, down the centre of the ceiling, made up of nine oblongs +alternately large and small, colossal figures stand out against +the sky. We see the drama of the Creation and Fall of man. +Nude titans play the minor parts in so many simultaneous +scenes. The gigantic, draped form of the Eternal dominates +the first five. We see him an aged athlete, an expression of utmost +physical force, rending chaos asunder into light and darkness; +by his touch illumining the sun and moon; Figure <a href='#f_197'>197</a>, +drawing out the plants from the earth. I know no more sublime +conception in painting than the figure of God assigning +the oceans their place, Figure <a href='#f_198'>198</a>. Here is a form that would +weigh tons hovering with the lightness of an eagle in space, +with extended beneficent arms as solid as reality but coaxed +out of the wet plaster with touch and hues as delicate as those +of a Whistler symphony. A miracle of conception and of workmanship.</p> + +<div id='f_198' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_198.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 198.</span> Michelangelo. God hovering over the Waters. Shows the decorative use of the so-called “Slaves.”—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_199' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span> +<img src='images/f_199.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 199.</span> Michelangelo. Creation of Adam.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The eye will dwell longest on the great fresco of the Creation +of Adam, Figure <a href='#f_199'>199</a>. It is all noble energy in the figure of +God giving life by His touch, all noble languor in the relaxed +form of Adam only dimly conscious of himself and wistful. +There could be no truer or more striking illustration of the +pessimistic view that life was imposed upon the earth and +brought sadness with it. The titan form of Adam has a singular +and enigmatic relaxation. He undergoes a gift he has never +besought and faces it with something between confusion, mistrust +and resignation. Perhaps the splendid body would have +been more at ease, had the soul not been added. So in a spirit +of Christian pessimism Michelangelo represents Deity sharing +its divine powers with the first man.</p> + +<p class='c007'>At the centre of the ceiling is the creation of Eve, again +an extraordinary study in lassitude, but with a significant +difference in the figure of Eve. The woman, the chosen receptacle +and transmitter of life, accepts the gift eagerly. She +presses up to God in thankful adoration. No doubts or ambiguities +here. And what a figure—fit to be the mother of a +race, exulting already in a fecundity that is to be most grievous. +Compare her action with the languid and almost disdainful +gesture of Adam in the last fresco, and learn that if +<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>the world is still peopled it is due to the unreflective and unshaken +fealty to life of all Eve’s true daughters.</p> + +<div id='f_200' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_200.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 200.</span> Michelangelo. The Temptation and Expulsion from Eden.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps the most decorative subject, if one may use the +word of themes so morally impressive, is that which represents +the sin of the forbidden fruit and the expulsion from Eden, +Figure <a href='#f_200'>200</a>. The elements of pathos which are strong in the +story of Genesis are absent. Michelangelo has not deigned to +show us a habitable or desirable Eden. We see instead the +swiftly changing episodes of a great doom, which culminates in +this scene. Marvelous are the paired groups, superb the contrast +between careless appetite under the tree of knowledge +and utter shame in the exiled pair. One feels that Eve, who +shrinks most, will soonest recover. Her mission is still valid in +the world of sin and shame. The composition is the first one +made up entirely of nudes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We may pass quickly over the three compartments devoted +to the story of Noah. The scale of the figures, especially in the +Deluge, is too small to count at the distance from the eye. +These three frescoes were the beginning of the work, the +proper scale being arrived at through trial and error. Inherently +the two small oblongs are among the most beautiful +<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>in the ceiling, having a stylistic grace that is less marked in +the earlier more august themes. With the charm of Greek +intaglios these stories of Noah combine monumentality.</p> + +<div id='f_201' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_201.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 201.</span> Michelangelo. The Prophet Jeremiah.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>I have tried to put myself in the position of a visitor to the +Sistine Chapel following the instincts of his eye. At this point, +having glanced over the ceiling, his mind might well come in +and ask the meaning of a whole of which he is becoming dimly +aware. The nine scenes above are simply the historic axioms +upon which the Christian scheme of redemption is based. The +abstract sparseness of the nine episodes from Genesis is justified +by the fact that they are less human events than terms in a +great argument, which runs as follows: We were created innocent, +sinned in our first parents, were spared in the world-flood +and promised eventual redemption.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This prolonged drama of redemption is witnessed by a +solemn chorus of draped male and female figures enthroned +<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>impressively in the spandrels. Here, representing respectively +the pagan and Hebrew world, are seven sibyls and five +prophets who had the dim but certain vision of a coming Redeemer. +These figures as Hawthorne has well said are “necessarily +so gigantic because the weight of thought within them is +so massive.” They brood quietly or sway with the burden of +yearning. They are magnificently draped and contrast most +decoratively with the many nudes of the ceiling. They vary +in age and disposition. Contrast the actively inspired and +youthful Daniel, or the fiery Ezechiel with the ponderous +gravity of Jeremiah, Figure <a href='#f_201'>201</a>. What shades of delicate +characterization are in the athletic loveliness of the Delphic +Sibyl, Figure <a href='#f_202'>202</a>, the powerfully concentrated senility of +The Cumean Sibyl, she who predicted to Virgil the new era +of salvation, and the aristocratic aloofness of the Libyan +seeress, Figure <a href='#f_203'>203</a>, most daintily preparing her day’s work in +divination.</p> + +<div id='f_202' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_202.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 202.</span> Michelangelo. The Delphic Sibyl.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_203' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_203.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 203.</span> Michelangelo. The Libyan Sibyl.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Magnificent is the indignant sprawling form of the unwilling +prophet Jonah, remanded by the sea to an ungrateful mission. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>He is the active counterpart of the passive Adam on the ceiling. +He obeys under protest. The form itself, foreshortened against +the curve of the spandrel, is a masterpiece of draughtsmanship. +Decoratively it is the link between the nudes of the +ceiling and the draped prophets and sibyls.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Below the prophetic figures, in the older frescoes of the side +walls, are set the foreshadowing of the work of salvation in +the life of Moses and its accomplishment in the life of Christ, +and the drama closes with Michelangelo’s Last Judgment on +the altar wall. There Christ separates eternally the saved +from the damned, echoing the definitive gesture with which +God in the adjoining ceiling separates light from darkness. +So the scheme closes with the inexorable logic with which it +began.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The decorative task of Michelangelo was to mediate between +the prophets and sibyls and the ceiling frescoes above, +and likewise to link the great figures with the side walls below. +Above, he set a multitude of nude forms. On the massive +sides of the twelve thrones are four caryatids in two pairs. +At the top of these piers are seated the lithe forms of nude +youths, Figure <a href='#f_198'>198</a>, forty in all, supporting medallions and +bent into every conceivable attitude that might set off the +flexibility and power of these superb young bodies. But however +extravagant any single pose may be, it is immediately +balanced by an opposing thrust from some other body, so that +the whole composition is locked together into an active and +thrilling equilibrium. Even the triangles over the coves are +filled with huddled nudes most adroitly disposed in the narrow +and refractory spaces.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Below the prophets and sibyls, the linking motives are made +up of draped figures. Weakest are the caryatid geniuses below +each throne. The triangular splays at the corners contain those +four bloody and sensational acts which assured the perpetuity +of God’s Chosen People—the Raising of the Brazen Serpent, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>the Slaying of Goliath and of Holophernes, the Hanging of +Haaman.</p> + +<div id='f_204' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_204.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 204.</span> Michelangelo. Decoration of Cove over Window.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the triangles roofing the coves and in the lunettes about +the arched window heads are family groups of the ancestors +and precursors of Christ. Figure <a href='#f_204'>204</a>. The mood of anticipation +which has been calm and official in the prophets becomes +agitated, passionate, personal in these half hidden groups. +So many pilgrims of eternity yearn for the fulfillment that +shall give meaning to their wanderings—a promised goal +and rest. Very subtle and beautiful is the contrast between +the groups sundered by the window heads, individually +meditative, and those which blend their longing in the +close relations forced by the triangular coves. What has +begun as noble abstraction finishes in terms of almost inexpressible +tenderness. In color the whole gigantic composition +is unified by a sonorous chord of yellow and violet which is +moderately asserted in the ceiling and pushed to the utmost in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>the spandrels. Of the color John La Farge has written: “The +unity is so great, the balance of effects so harmonious, +that it is only by study that we see expressed in the methods +of the painting the ancient rules, handed down by practice, +which unite with the latest teaching +of modern scientific coloring.” +What a mind it took to +hold the tumultuous and pathetic +details of this great work within +an enveloping order and calm!</p> + +<div id='f_205' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_205.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 205.</span> Michelangelo. The Last Judgment.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In framing his great work out +of nudes relieved by draped +figures, Michelangelo renewed the +Grecian practice. Precisely the +difference between the Sistine +ceiling and the metopes of the +Parthenon, or the frieze of Pergamon, +raises the question—What +does the nude of Michelangelo express? I do not find in +it, at least in the Sistine ceiling, much of that terribleness, +<i><span lang="it">terribiltà</span></i>, which has been remarked by critics from Vasari to +Henri Beyle. It seems to me rather an art of lassitude and +relaxation, the reluctantly awaking Adam being the clue to +the mood. Except for the gestures of God and Eve, the gestures +and poses are unspecific. The lithe bodies of the +slaves are twisted only that they may attain consciousness of +powers which have no use. The relaxation which marks nearly +all the nudes, whether in the stories or in the incidental ornament, +is not that of fatigue after action, nor yet that of preparation +for an ordeal. In barren lassitude we have expressed +powers which do not imply action or use, but breathe a great +melancholy. We are far from the splendors of passion and +achievement, we see humanity confused at a fate that calls +itself God, a passive factor in an arbitrary process that makes +<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>the glory of the flesh a vain thing. As a humanist, Michelangelo +asserts that failing glory, as a Christian he accepts the +nothingness of mankind and the rightness of God’s inscrutable +and apparently cruel designs. Perhaps the spell of Michelangelo, +his æsthetic, to put it pedantically, is simply the noble +resignation with which the humanist accepts the Christian +pessimism as regards this world. And here I may note that +Rodin has significantly shown that even the forms of Michelangelo +are not uprising and resilient like the antique, but compressed +and yielding like those of the Christian Gothic sculptors.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Twenty-one years after the Sistine ceiling was unveiled, +Michelangelo began reluctantly the great fresco of the Last +Judgment, Figure <a href='#f_205'>205</a>. He worked on it for seven years, +and it was unveiled on Christmas Day of 1541. How the choristers +had the heart to chant the angelic message of peace and +good will before it, I cannot imagine. Michelangelo was sixty-six +years old, a disillusioned and embittered man, an alien in +the corrupt and pleasure loving Rome of Paul III. He has +put into the Christ all his contempt for mankind. The Christ +who earlier wrathfully hurled the darts in the Umbrian plague +banners has become a far darting Apollo, Figure <a href='#f_206'>206</a>, rejoicing +in his dire task. Behind him the murky air is full of +hurtling contorted angels, in aspect quite indistinguishable +from fiends, who bear the implements of the Passion. Below, +the just and unjust rise or fall in knots and festoons of writhing +nude bodies all equally sinister. The conception is violently +corporeal, and never elsewhere in painting has the human body +been used with such ingenuity and power. But it is a power +that defeats itself. I believe the spectator is not so much +appalled as confused before the Last Judgment. Its vehemence +seems so unrelieved and insensate. If this be indeed the goal +of mankind, no wonder moody Adam in the ceiling above +faces his Creator with doubt and a hint of distrust.</p> + +<div id='f_206' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span> +<img src='images/f_206.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 206.</span> Michelangelo. Christ with the Virgin and the Apostles. From the Last Judgment.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Its sheer display of force won all contemporaries, and the +French critic and superman, Stendhal, has highly praised the +work for its burning energy. While not sharing his enthusiasm, +I gladly refer the reader to his admirable pages. In my +own opinion the creative ardor of Michelangelo had waned by +this time. He offers, instead, his spleen, which is more valuable +than most men’s genius, and his amazing technical skill. +Michelangelo has become Michelangelesque. That is deplorably +true in the frescoes for the Pauline Chapel which were +finished in 1547, his seventy-second year. Nothing is left but +sensationalism, and the Pope does well not to exhibit these +works. As regards humanity, Michelangelo’s vein is completely +exhausted. He still is capable of exquisite calculation, +as in the design for the dome of St. Peter’s, still retains a dæmonic +capacity for work and emotion, but the sculptor in him +is nearly dead and the painter completely so. The poet of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>the rugged sonnets has superseded them both. When he died +at 89, in 1564, the little ill-favored body was honored like that +of a king. His sheer power had swept the whole rising generation +of artists under his sway. To their own hurt and to the +bankruptcy of the Golden Age.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Such forms as Michelangelo’s are tolerable only when possessed +by that melancholy poetry of his which gives them +meaning. If the serene intelligence of a Raphael had not +found emotions to fill such forms, if Michelangelo himself +in his later years falls back on a monotonous formula of terribleness, +what hope was there for such uninspired imitators as +the Venustis, Volterras, and Vasaris? One and all, they entertained +monstrous delusions of effortless attainment—cleverly +contorted their nudes, shrewdly calculated their terrors. +And the Roman art of the Golden Age, forgetting both the wise +humility of Umbria and the reasonable pride of Florence, +suddenly collapsed in the ugliest and most irrational ostentation. +Michelangelo had passed—to fulfill and to destroy.</p> + +<h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>A Contemporary List of Great Artists, before 1510</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>In an offhand mention in <cite>The Courtier</cite> Baldasarre Castiglione tells +us who seemed to be great artists to a cultured and well-informed +gentleman about the year 1508. Titian had not yet emerged and of the +older men only Leonardo da Vinci and Mantegna are remembered. +As seniors, they are the first mentioned.</p> + +<p class='c020'>“Again various things give equal pleasure to the eyes, so that we can +with difficulty decide what are more pleasing to them. You know that +in painting Leonardo da Vinci, Mantegna, Raphael, Michelangelo, +Giorgio da Castelfranco are very excellent, yet they are all unlike in +their work; so that no one of them seems to lack anything in his own +manner, since each is known as the most perfect in his style.”</p> + +<p class='c020'><cite>The Book of the Courtier by Count Baldesar Castiglione</cite>, translated by +Leonard Ekstein Opdycke, New York, 1903, p. 50.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Michelangelo on Renaissance Counterpoise</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>It is said then that Michelangelo once gave his advice to Marcoda +Siena, his pupil, that “one should make the figure pyramidal, spiral, +(<i><span lang="it">serpentinata</span></i>) and multiplied by one, two, and three.” Lomazzo +<cite>Trattato</cite>, Milan, 1484, p. 23. The pose, that is, should be contained geometrically, +should display opposing thrusts, and should be mathematically +proportioned within the inclosing geometrical form.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Vasari on the “Modern Style”</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>Vasari’s account of the Grand Style or “Third Manner,” in the +Preface to Part III (De Vere’s translation, Vol. IV, pp. 79–85) is still +authoritative. He praises the artists before Leonardo, but finds in them +a certain hardness, lack of finish and uncertainty of proportions. The +change to the perfect manner was caused by the discovery of ancient +marbles.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“After them [the predecessors of Leonardo], their successors were +able to attain to it through seeing excavated out of the earth certain +antiquities cited by Pliny as amongst the most famous, such as the +Laocoon, the Hercules, the Great Torso of the Belvedere, and likewise +the Venus, the Cleopatra, the Apollo, and an endless number of others, +which, both with their sweetness and their severity, with their fleshy +roundness copied from the greatest beauties of nature, and with certain +attitudes which involve no distortion of the whole figure but only a +movement of certain parts, which are revealed with a most perfect +grace, brought about the disappearance of a certain dryness, hardness, +and sharpness of manner....</p> + +<p class='c019'>[He mentions the contemporary admiration of such precursors as +Francia and Perugino.]</p> + +<p class='c019'>“But their error was afterwards clearly proved by the works of Leonardo +da Vinci, who, giving a beginning to that third manner which we +propose to call the modern—besides the force and boldness of his drawing, +and the extreme subtlety wherewith he counterfeited all the minutenesses +of nature exactly as they are—with good rule, better order, right +proportion, perfect drawing, and divine grace, abounding in resources +and having a most profound knowledge of art, may be truly said to have +endowed his figures with motion and breath.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“There followed after him, although at some distance, Giorgione da +Castelfranco, who obtained a beautiful gradation of colour in his pictures ...; +and not inferior to him in giving force, relief, sweetness, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>grace to his pictures, with his colouring, was Fra Bartolommeo di San +Marco. But more than all did the most gracious Rafaello da Urbino, +who, studying the labours of the old masters and those of the Moderns, +took the best from them, and, having gathered it together, enriched the +art of painting with that complete perfection which was shown in ancient +times by the figures of Apelles and Zeuxis, nay, even more, if we +may make bold to say it, as might be proved if we could compare their +works with his. Wherefore nature was left vanquished by his +colours....</p> + +<p class='c019'>“In the same manner, but sweeter in colouring and not so bold, there +followed Andrea del Sarto, who may be called a rare painter, for his +works are free from errors.</p> + +<hr class='c022'> + +<p class='c019'>“But he who bears the palm from both the living and the dead, transcending +and eclipsing all others, is the divine Michelangelo Buonarotti, +who holds the sovereignty not merely of one of these arts, but of all +three together. This master surpasses and excels not only all those +moderns who have almost vanquished nature, but even those most +famous ancients who without a doubt did so gloriously surpass +her; and in his own self he triumphs over moderns, ancients, +and nature, who could scarcely conceive anything so strange +and so difficult that he would not be able, by the force of his most divine +intellect and by means of his industry, draughtsmanship, art, judgment +and grace, to excel it by a great measure; and that not only in +painting and in the use of colours under which title are comprised all +forms, and all bodies upright or not upright, palpable or impalpable, +visible or invisible, but also in the highest perfection of bodies in the +round, with the point of his chisel.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Unity of Design in the Renaissance</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>The humanist Benedetto Varchi, renewing the debate which Leonardo +da Vinci had started concerning the relative rank of sculpture and +painting, sent the text of his lecture to Michelangelo and asked for his +opinion. The sculptor writes in 1549:</p> + +<p class='c020'>“In my opinion painting should be considered excellent in proportion +as it approaches the effect of relief, while relief should be considered +bad as it approaches the effect of painting. I used to consider that +sculpture was the lantern of painting and that between the two things +there was the same difference as that between the sun and the moon. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>But now that I have read your book, in which, speaking as a philosopher, +you say that things which have the same end are themselves the same, +I have changed my opinion; and I now consider that painting and sculpture +are one and the same thing, unless greater nobility be imparted +by the necessity for a keener judgment, greater difficulties of execution, +stricter limitations and harder work. And if this be the case, no painter +ought to think less of sculpture than of painting and no sculptor less of +painting than of sculpture. By sculpture I mean the sort that is executed +by cutting away from the block: the sort that is executed by +building up resembles painting. That is enough, for as one and the other, +that is to say, both painting and sculpture proceed from the same faculty, +it would be an easy matter to establish harmony between them and to +let such disputes alone, for they occupy more time than the execution +of the figures themselves. As to that man [Leonardo da Vinci] who +wrote saying that painting was more noble than sculpture, as though he +knew as much about it as he did of the other subjects on which he has +written, why my serving-maid would have written better!”</p> + +<p class='c020'>From Robert W. Carden, <cite>Michelangelo, a Record of his Life</cite>, Boston +and New York, 1913, a book which from Michelangelo’s letters gives +a very intimate view of the sculptor’s character.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Sir Joshua Reynolds on the Grand Style</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>No critic of art has better expressed the ideal of the Grand Style than +Sir Joshua Reynolds. I quote from the third of his <cite>Discourses</cite>, in the +admirable edition of Roger E. Fry, New York, 1906. pp. 51 ff.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“Every language has adopted terms expressive of this excellence. +The <i><span lang="it">gusto grande</span></i> of the Italians, the <i><span lang="fr">beau idéal</span></i> of the French and the +<em>great style</em>, <em>genius</em> and <em>taste</em> among the English, are but different appellations +of the same thing. It is this intellectual dignity, they say, that +ennobles the Painter’s Art; that lays the line between him and the +mere mechanic: and produces those great effects in an instant, which +eloquence and poetry, by slow and repeated efforts, are scarcely able +to retain....” [The grand style is seen to rest upon a sort of generalizing +tendency.] “The whole beauty and grandeur of the Art consists, +in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, +particularities and details of every kind.” [The artist] “being +enabled to distinguish the accidental deficiencies, excrescences, and +deformities of things, from their general figures, he makes out an abstract +idea of their forms more perfect than any one original; and, what +<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>may seem a paradox, he learns to design naturally by drawing his figures +unlike to any one object.” [Sir Joshua advocates the study of the antique, +not to imitate any single work, but to master the principle that +underlies them all.] “Beauty and simplicity have so great a share in +the composition of the great style, that he who has acquired them has +little else to learn. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that there is a +nobleness of conception, which goes beyond any thing in the mere exhibition +of perfect form; there is an art of animating and dignifying the +figures with intellectual grandeur, of impressing the appearance of +philosophic wisdom, or heroic virtue. This can only be acquired by +him that enlarges the sphere of his understanding by a variety of knowledge, +and warms his imagination with the best productions of ancient +and modern poetry.”</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Kenyon Cox on the Classic Spirit</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>The ideals of the High Renaissance are eloquently, if incidentally, +defined by the late Kenyon Cox in <cite>The Classic Point of View</cite>, New York, +1911. pp. 3–5.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“The Classic spirit is the disinterested search for perfection; it is +the love of clearness and reasonableness and self-control; it is, above +all, the love of permanence and of continuity. It asks of a work of art, +not that it shall be novel or effective, but that it shall be fine and noble. +It seeks not merely to express individuality or emotion, but to express +disciplined emotion and individuality restrained by law. It strives for +the essential rather than the accidental, the eternal rather than the momentary—loves +impersonality more than personality, and feels more +power in the orderly succession of the hours and the seasons than in the +violence of earthquake or of storm. And it loves to steep itself in tradition. +It would have each new work connect itself in the mind of him +who sees it with all the noble and lively works of the past, bringing +them to his memory and making their beauty and charm a part of the +beauty and charm of the work before him. It does not deny originality +and individuality—they are as welcome as inevitable. It does not +consider tradition as immutable or set rigid bounds to invention. But +it desires that each new presentation of truth and beauty shall show us +the old truth and the old beauty, seen only from a different angle and +colored by a different medium. It wishes to add link by link to the chain +of tradition, but it does not wish to break the chain.”</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>The End of the Renaissance and the Coming of Fear</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>An artistic collapse whether in an artist or a nation is usually due to +a prior collapse in morale. Florence suffered such loss of face when the +Imperialists stormed the city and crushed the Republic. We may study +the disaster in Michelangelo’s personal case and in its effect on the citizenry +at large. Michelangelo was military engineer. Writing from Venice, +Sept. 25, 1529, he describes his desertion with singular objectivity:</p> + +<p class='c019'>“I had intended to remain in Florence to the end of the war, having +no fears for my own safety. But on Tuesday morning, the 21st of September, +a certain person came out by the Porta a San Nicolò while I +was engaged in inspecting the bastions, and whispered in my ear that I +must remain there no longer if I valued my life. He accompanied me to +my house, dined there, brought me horses, and never left my side until +he had carried me out of Florence, declaring that it was for my good that +he so acted. Whether it were God or the devil I cannot say.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>From Robert W. Carden, <cite>Michelangelo, a Record of his Life</cite>, Boston +and New York, 1913, p. 168.</p> + +<p class='c019'>Florence suffered not from hallucinations, as this seems to have been, +but from the humiliation and confusion incident upon defeat and foreign +occupation. I translate from Benedetto Varchi’s <cite>Storia</cite>, the extract in +Ancona and Bacci’s <cite>Manuele della Letteratura Italiana</cite>, Vol. II, p. 506.</p> + +<p class='c020'>“The city of Florence when her liberty was lost was full of such +sorrow, of such terror, of such confusion, that it can hardly be described +or even imagined.... The nobles were indignant among themselves +and inwardly resented being scorned and vilified by the lowest classes; +the plebeians in extreme need, would not refrain at least from relieving +their minds about the nobility; the rich, how they could manage not to +lose their property; the poor, day and night, what they should do not +to die utterly and of famine; the citizens were dismayed and desperate, +because they had spent and lost a lot: the peasants, much more, because +there remained for them nothing at all; the priests were ashamed of +having deceived the laity; the laity grieved at having believed the +priests; men had become extraordinarily suspicious and covetous; +women immeasurably incredulous and distrustful: finally, every one +with lowered face and staring eyes, seemed beside himself, and all without +exception pallid and bewildered feared at all times every sort of ill.”</p> + +<p class='c020'>From such a shell-shocked community as this, no serene or noble +art was to be expected. It was much that Florence in bondage still +could nurture the exquisitely morbid art of a Pontormo and the aristocratic +detachment and <i><span lang="fr">finesse</span></i> of a Bronzino.</p> + +<div id='f_207' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span> +<img src='images/f_207.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 207.</span> Giovanni Bellini. St. Francis receiving the Stigmata.—<em>H. C. Frick Coll., New York.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter VII</span></span><br> VENETIAN PAINTING BEFORE TITIAN</h2> +</div> +<p class='c011'>On the splendor of Venice—Italo-Byzantine painters of the 14th Century—Paduan, +Veronese, and Umbrian Painters at Venice—Jacopo Bellini—Squarcione’s +school at Padua, Carlo Crivelli—Andrea Mantegna, mentor +for Northern Italy—Antonello da Messina’s Realism—The flowering +of the old Narrative School in Gentile Bellino—Giovanni Bellini—The +backward Vivarini—Carpaccio and the end of the old Narrative Style—Literary +background of Giorgione’s Art—Giorgione of Castelfranco.</p> + +<p class='c006'>When, about the middle of the fifth century, a pitiful throng +of refugees sought safety from Attila and his Huns in the fens +at the head of the Adriatic, they took with them what was +left of the constructive genius of the Roman Empire. They +raised amid the lagoons a healthful and convenient city, which +in the course of centuries became the most beautiful in Europe. +They developed a strong and wise oligarchy, under forms sufficiently +democratic to satisfy the people. They attained an +extraordinary capacity for diplomacy and overseas trade—a +brilliant commercialized civilization. Secure in their isolation +and wealth, the Venetians mediated the long strife between +the popes and the Teutonic emperors, making favorable +terms with both. Venice enjoyed a wholly exceptional political +stability. No other commune of Europe could have fittingly +assumed the title, Serenissima. Her galleys and sailing craft +plied to Candia, Rhodes, Smyrna, Alexandretta, Constantinople. +Down the Adriatic to Malta, her trading stations shone +white under the yellow cliffs. Her incoming ships brought back +the splendid rugs and silks and embroideries from the Levant, +the beautiful potteries of Asia Minor, Persia and distant China, +the veined marbles and porphyries of Egypt and of Istria to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>build into her churches and palaces. She was astute and powerful +enough to divert a crusade into a plundering expedition +against her rival, Constantinople. And thus she got the four +antique bronze horses still chafing above the portico of St. +Mark’s and many a relic of the later Byzantine splendor. +Her doors ever opened to the Orient. Her quays swarmed with +turbaned traders. The Greeks had their churches and confraternities +at Venice, and so had the Slavonians. For articles +of luxury the northern caravans came to Venice over the +Brenner to load from the German warehouses on the Grand +Canal.</p> + +<p class='c007'>So stable, rich and proud a city was singularly slow in producing +its own art. Venice was never primarily a manufacturing +community, and from the first she expected to import +most articles of luxury and display. Thus when the manydomed +Basilica rose over the body of her patron, St. Mark, +Venice called masters from Constantinople to enrich the surfaces +with mosaics, and when, towards the end of the fourteenth +century, she wished to picture the new Palace of the Doges, she +called not her own artists to the task, but those of Padua, +Verona and distant Fabriano. Her originality and greatness +in painting do not clearly assert themselves until about 1475 +in the work of the brothers Bellini, and by 1577, the year +of Titian’s death, the period of her artistic supremacy has +passed. The whole development is comprised within a century; +its acceleration is even more remarkable than the tardiness +of its appearance. In three generations Venetian painting made +the progress that had required six in Tuscany, and the whole +preparatory period, which in Florence stretched over a century +and three-quarters, is included in the single life of such a master +as Giovanni Bellini.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This means that Venetian painting followed simpler and more +unperturbed ideals than that of Florence. The composure, +complacency, and self-centered quality of the Venetians was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>a source of strength to their artists and as well a limitation. +The city stuck closely to its chief business of gaining greatly +in order to live magnificently. And unlike Florence, Venice +interprets magnificence in the most material terms, in terms +of velvet and veined marbles, fair skins and lustrous hair, in +feasting and measured revelry, grave and gentle manners, +colorful pageantry in honor of God, his saints and the Serenissima +Republica. You will not find poets, scholars, scientists +a-plenty at Venice. Her painters have no tendency to be also +architects, sculptors, mathematicians, theorists in æsthetics; +they stick placidly to the main business of painting. And perhaps +just because the Venetian painter refused to be diverted +from the problems proper to his craft, his progress was so rapid +and assured, and the Venetian school, simply as painting, the +most beautiful school of painting the world has ever seen.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was written in the lagoon itself that Venetian painting +should be a school of color. Long before the marble and +porphyry palaces and the shining bridges of Renaissance Venice +spanned the canals, the brown water gave its satiny reflections +of rude hut, coppered galley, tawny sail, and, in days of complete +calm, of the serrated ivory of the Julian Alps or the velvety +azure of the Euganean Hills. As the city grew palatially, +the marble and gold of the palace fronts, and spires and domes, +with the buff and red of soaring bell towers, further enriched +the shimmering of the lagoon. Its waters were ruffled not +merely by winds blending and effacing the weaving of borrowed +colors, but also by the passing of gilded processional +barges with rhythmical oars celebrating the Assumption of +the Virgin or the marriage of Venice to the Adriatic.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Ashore the splendor was hardly less. Along the balustrades +of innumerable little bridges, the rose or yellow marble got +an ineffable finish from the touch of countless hands. Dusky +archways gave upon courts encrusted with variegated marbles, +porphyry and mosaics. In the gloomy streets, gay pictorial +<span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>frescoes enlivened the fronts of the less pretentious houses. +In the great Piazza of St. Mark and other open spaces, often +passed in solemn procession the religious confraternities called +Schools, the members garbed with a splendor rare even in the +Renaissance. There were clubs +of young fops, not yet broken to +the paternal commerce, who +gave themselves to the invention +and display of the finest tailoring +and haberdashery. And the +unorganized kindred activities of +the women of all ages were as +effective from the point of view +of social display. Such was the +spectacle that Venice offered the +painter for record and even more +for inspiration. And the greatness +of the Venetian painters lay +in their capacity to lend to this +chiefly material splendor their +own kind of ideality.</p> + +<div id='f_208' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_208.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 208.</span> Presentation; Flight to Egypt; Miracle at Cana; Temptation. From an Italo-Byzantine Altar-front of about 1350.—<em>Trieste.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>When Venetian painting about the year 1350 made its first +timid assertions of originality, the leading influence was that +of the late Byzantine artists of the Slavonian coast and the +Ionian Islands. We see their narrative painting assuming a +very slightly Italian guise in the composite altar-front preserved +in the museum of Trieste. Figure <a href='#f_208'>208</a>. Its date cannot be +very late in the fourteenth century, and the stereotyped +religious compositions represent models vividly before the +Venetian painter up to the Renaissance. Such Venetian masters +as Paolo, active from 1332 to 1358, and Lorenzo, whose +work falls a generation later, make slight and external improvements +on the Byzantine manner.<a id='r70'></a><a href='#f70' class='c012'><sup>[70]</sup></a> They reject its more +rigid formulas—the gold web over drapery, the multiplied +<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>small folds, the painfully schematized muscles. They add on +their own account radiant blond coloring, splendid brocades, +more gorgeous fashions of gilding, and a new type of architectural +arrangement. The elaborate altar-backs with perforated +pilasters, and flamboyant arches and cresting; with full-length +figures below and half-length of like scale above, become +the standard form of Venetic <i><span lang="it">ancona</span></i> about 1350 and +remains so for nearly a century and a half. We may see the +form, with the upper central panel modernized, in Lorenzo’s +Annunciation of 1357, in the Venetian Academy. The effect +depends largely on the frame-maker. Such altar-pieces are +made more thoughtfully by Caterino and Donato and indeed +persist in all Northern Italy until after 1450. Figure <a href='#f_211'>211</a>. +We may study a similar type of <i><span lang="it">ancona</span></i> with narratives +instead of single figures in the very accomplished and colorful +work doubtfully ascribed to Nicolo Semitecolo, towards +the beginning of the new century. Though the narratives +follow pretty closely the old Byzantine requirements, the +whole surface shows the flower-bed variety and harmony of +color which is proper to Venice. Such work, as a blend of Byzantine +and Gothic features, repeats what Siena had effected +with far greater originality and <i><span lang="fr">finesse</span></i> about seventy years +earlier under Duccio and Simone Martini. Modena and Bologna +and Padua through the latter half of the fourteenth century +share this development, but again on a basis of rather +marked inferiority to Siena.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Venetian authorities were fully conscious of the backwardness +of their own artists. When the Ducal Palace was +finished in 1365, they called to fresco its great hall not any of +the various local followers of Paolo and Lorenzo, but Guariento +from neighboring Padua. He executed the great Coronation of +the Virgin which was later damaged by fire and covered by +Tintoretto’s Paradise. The temporary removal of Tintoretto’s +canvas showed for a time the crumbling remains of Guariento’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>fresco. It is in an elaborate Gothic-Byzantine style and abounds +in incidental architectural ornament. Below the ceremony of +the Coronation there is a screen of pierced marble niches occupied +by graceful angels. It is a motive that will often recur in +the new century. On the whole Guariento brings little new +to Venice, but he does demonstrate the decorative possibilities +of the local style. His influence was restricted because the +Venetians soon ceased to work in fresco.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The impetus necessary to lift Venetian painting out of its +routine condition was supplied in the fifteenth century by +Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello. Gentile, who worked in +the Ducal Palace about 1410, commanded both the exquisiteness +of the Sienese style and its narrative breadth. Unhappily +his Venetian frescoes which are lauded in contemporary accounts +have perished. His sweetness and ideality are attested by +various Madonnas. We may infer his raciness and vivacity +as a narrative painter from the predella of his master work, +the Adoration of the Kings (1423). The little panel of the Presentation +in the Temple is admirable for its architectural inscenation +and for the actuality of its incidental figures. We +have a man whose eye takes in the look of things. This is +even more the case with Pisanello (1397–1455), who worked +a little later in the same hall. He has severe notions of +draughtsmanship, as befitted the greatest of all medallists. +He brought from Verona, where his artistic ideas were formed, +the ideal of elaborate and credible setting, especially as regards +the relations of figures to architecture. In his ruined fresco +of St. George of Verona, Figure <a href='#f_209'>209</a>, we may catch his quality. +But the Veronese style is really better represented by such immediate +predecessors as Avanzo and Altichiero. Jointly about +1385 they frescoed the great Oratorio of St. George at Padua. +Especially remarkable are the legends of the titular saint, +Figure <a href='#f_210'>210</a>. Through repainting one may still discern the +dignity and discretion of the arrangement, and in particular +the just and tasteful elaboration of contemporary architectural +features. Florentine and Sienese frescoes of the time are hardly +as accomplished. The festal value of the architecture persists +as a leading ideal of the school of Verona down to her greatest +master, Paolo Veronese, and the ideal was taken up with +conviction at Venice—became indeed the distinctive feature +of her narrative school.</p> + +<div id='f_210' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span> +<img src='images/f_210.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 210.</span> Altichiero of Verona. St. George baptizes the Family of the Princess. Fresco.—<em>Oratory of St. George, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_209' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_209.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 209.</span> Pisanello. St. George meets the Princess. Fresco.—<em>Sant’ Anastasia. Verona.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>Jacopo Bellini,<a id='r71'></a><a href='#f71' class='c012'><sup>[71]</sup></a> the first great painter whom Venice herself +developed, was the pupil of Gentile da Fabriano and also profoundly +influenced by the Veronese. Thus he combines in +himself the two main strains of early Venetian painting—its +desire for sweetness and its desire for vivacity and elaborate +truthfulness in narrative. Alongside of Jacopo Bellini +worked the faithful imitators of Paolo, Lorenzo, and Guariento. +Such artists as Jacobello del Fiore and Michele Giambono, while +often inherently attractive, are of small importance. Their +contemporary, Antonio Vivarini, though in most ways less +sensitively the artist, prepared the way for the conservative +school of Murano. Antonio’s quality is somewhat obscured +by his habit of working with a German partner, Giovanni. +Yet the part of Antonio, as represented by his altar-piece in +the Vatican, dated 1464, Figure <a href='#f_211'>211</a>, seems to have been merely +to build cautiously on the work of Guariento and Lorenzo. +His nephew, Alvise, and his younger brother, Bartolommeo, +become influential figures towards the end of the century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The hope of the future rested with that far more searching +spirit, Jacopo Bellini. He gave to art not merely his own +indefatigable curiosity but two sons of genius, Gentile and Giovanni. +All the leading tendencies of the Early Renaissance +in Venice originate with this remarkable family. We first meet +Jacopo Bellini in 1424 as an assistant of Gentile da Fabriano +and he worked on till 1470. The great decorative canvases +which he made for the Ducal Palace, and for the Schools of +St. Mark and St. John the Evangelist have perished, while +<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>the few pictures remaining from his brush are mostly of late +date and inadequately express his ambitions. His Madonnas +at the Uffizi, Venice, Paris, and Milan retain the exquisite +sweetness of his master’s vein. Their modest grace may be +felt in the little Madonna, Figure <a href='#f_212'>212</a>, at Venice. Of admirable +gentleness and spirit is the ornate Annunciation painted +in 1444, in Sant’ Alessandro at Brescia. Its predella panels, +although probably of student execution, show how definitely +his narrative compositions derive from Altichiero and the +Veronese.</p> + +<div id='f_211' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_211.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 211.</span> Antonio Vivarini. St. Antony (polychromed wood statue) and Saints. 1464.—<em>Vatican Gallery, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_212' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span> +<img src='images/f_212.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 212.</span> Jacopo Bellini. Madonna.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>But we get the full stature of +the man, not from the minor +paintings which chance has +spared, but from the two extraordinary +sketch books respectively +in the Louvre and the +National Gallery. Here we trace +his day by day exercises. Perspective +is his constant concern. +He piles up elaborate architecture +with an extravagance which +even his Veronese exemplars +never ventured. The subject +matter gets lost in the setting. +The Annunciation becomes a +mere episode in an architectural extravaganza. So does the +Feast of Herod, Figure <a href='#f_213'>213</a>. The buildings generally are of +ornate Early Renaissance type. He loves to adorn them with +swags and statues and low reliefs. Sometimes he sketches +actual Roman sculptures and coins, medallions, and inscriptions. +He makes strange, stern backgrounds for his outdoor +scenes, with twisted stratified mountains and stately distant +cities. He loves wild beasts; draws capital horses for St. +George or for Perseus. He is a bit of a humanist, doing bacchanals, +with mischievous satyrs. There are a few fine portraits +and designs for Madonnas. Thus these sketches with +the silver point and quill pen anticipate every mode of the +next generation—the narrative style, the altar-piece, the +pastoral mythology. One feels in the sketch books a nature +rather alert and curious than thorough—a certain lack of +concentration and real seriousness. But the sketches evince +<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>an inexhaustible fancy, and if they are ever published cheaply, +they should rival in popularity the most loved picture-books +of fairyland. Jacopo was not only a versatile but a travelled +artist. Active for a time at the brilliant court of Lionello +d’Este at Ferrara, he had also visited Florence and probably +Rome. But his most important move as regards the history +of art, was to Padua, about 1453. There the whole course of +Venetian painting was shaped by the apparently casual fact +that an austere young painter named Andrea Mantegna fell in +love with Jacopo’s daughter, Niccolosia, and married her. +Through that alliance, the most formidable of brothers-in-law +became the artistic mentor of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini.</p> + +<div id='f_213' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_213.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 213.</span> Jacopo Bellini. The Feast of Herod (in upper right loggia).—<em>From the Paris Sketch Book.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>For a moment, indeed, Padua and Mantegna quite efface +Venice in interest. For ten years before this lucky marriage, +Padua had been the scene of intense artistic activity. Donatello, +the most powerful realist sculptor of Florence, was at +work on the bronze reliefs for the altar of Sant’ Antonio, and +on the Gattamelata statue. He gave young Mantegna a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>strong impulse in the direction of constructive realism. Such +Florentine realists as Paolo Uccello and Fra Filippo Lippi +were also transient visitors at this time. And Padua, ever an +academic city, saw the first systematic art school started by +a shrewd and able master, Francesco Squarcione. Squarcione +collected Roman marbles and bronzes, concerned himself with +the new mysteries of perspective, foreshortening and precise +anatomy. He made his students acquire a line with the resiliency +of bronze. He made them copy minutely veined +marbles and sculptured reliefs. He insisted that every picture +should have garlands of laurel mixed with vegetables and fruits. +The whole surface had to be brought to the lustrous surface of +an enamel. Severe teaching usually attracts good pupils. +So it was in Squarcione’s case; he had scores of pupils from all +of the Venetic region and even from Dalmatia beyond the +Adriatic. He was too sensible to paint much himself; it +didn’t pay so successful a teacher. So the few pictures ascribed +to him are either of small importance or of dubious authenticity. +But his stamp is on all his pupils. What his teaching +meant may be grasped in early Mantegna and even better in a +painter who never emancipated himself—Carlo Crivelli, of +Venice, “Eques Aureatus.”</p> + +<div id='f_214' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span> +<img src='images/f_214.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 214.</span> Carlo Crivelli. Madonna. Angels bearing Symbols of the Passion.—<em>Verona.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_215' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_215.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 215.</span> Carlo Crivelli. Pietà.—<em>Boston.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Crivelli’s<a id='r72'></a><a href='#f72' class='c012'><sup>[72]</sup></a> fame was great but provincial. Originally most +of his altar-pieces adorned churches of the Adriatic Marches. +Dozens have passed thence to the museums of Europe and +America. One and all they seem less painted things than the +most splendid of mineral productions. It is incredible that +mere brush and paint can achieve so tense a line and such +jewel-like surfaces. Entirely typical is an early Madonna, at +Verona, Figure <a href='#f_214'>214</a>. The great ancona of 1476 in the +National Gallery shows him faithful to the arrangements of +the early Venetians. The Annunciation, in the same gallery, +painted ten years later, reveals him affected by the narrative +tradition of Jacopo Bellini. In America fine Pietàs at Boston, +Figure <a href='#f_215'>215</a>, New York, and in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia, +exemplify his rectitude and energy. While Mrs. +Gardner’s St. George and the Dragon, as the most fastidious +of fairy tales, consoles us for the absence of this subject among +the few pictures of Jacopo Bellini. From his beginnings about +1460 to his death in 1493, Carlo Crivelli remained true to his +early teaching. Whoever understands his works has little +need to consult further the entirely similar achievement of +such great Ferrarese painters as Marco Zoppo (1440 ca.–1498) +and Cosimo Tura (1430 ca.–1495). The influence of Squarcione +passed to the conservative painters at Venice, and influenced the +entire Murano school. We have a resplendent masterpiece of +this sort in the single known work of Antonio da Negroponte, +Figure <a href='#f_216'>216</a>, in San Francesco della Vigna, at Venice. It combines +with its evident Squarcionesque features, the magnificence of the old Gothic-Byzantine style, and much of +the sweetness of Jacopo Bellini. Its date is about 1450, and the +picture is an excellent point of departure for our understanding +of the radical reform that came +into Venice and all Lombardy +with the activity of Andrea +Mantegna.</p> + +<div id='f_216' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span> +<img src='images/f_216.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 216.</span> Fra Antonio da Negroponte. Madonna.—<em>S. Francesco della Vigna.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>Born in 1431 at Vicenza, we +find Mantegna<a id='r73'></a><a href='#f73' class='c012'><sup>[73]</sup></a> enrolled at the +tender age of thirteen in the +painters’ guild at Padua. He is +described as an adoptive son +of Squarcione. Mantegna was +scarcely twenty-four when he +engaged with other fellow pupils +to decorate a chapel in the +Church of the Eremitani, the +subject being the legends of St. +James and St. Christopher. In the six panels assigned to +Mantegna, his quality and superiority are already manifest. +His style is severely archæological and Roman. He endeavors +honestly to reconstruct the times of the apostles. But his +method is more severe than that of the Romans themselves. +The line moves with the slow authority of an engraved contour. +The relief is dry and harsh. There is little sense of +difference between living forms and sculptured figures. The +landscape is built in spiral strata as if worked out of metal. +Here transpires clearly the influence of Jacopo Bellini, which +is as evident also in the ornate architectural settings. The +colors are at once dull and garish, the textures scrupulously +studied after Squarcione’s precepts. A most strenuous art +this, and with all its pedantry full of power and dignity.</p> + +<div id='f_217' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_217.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 217.</span> Mantegna. St. James led to Execution. Fresco.—<em>Eremitani, Padua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Certain innovations in perspective should be noted. In the +fresco, St. James led to Execution, Figure <a href='#f_217'>217</a>, Mantegna +<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>avoids the usual conventional perspective, which tilts the picture +towards the spectator; and treats the group as if it were +on an actual stage set at the height of the fresco. Thus no +ground is seen; the projecting floor cuts off the feet of the figures; +and all vanishing points are precisely set at the level of +the spectator’s eye below. The aim is to create illusion.</p> + +<div id='f_218' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_218.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 218.</span> Andrea Mantegna. Madonna with Saints.—<em>San Zeno, Verona.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Before the completion of the Eremitani frescoes, Mantegna +had married Niccolosia Bellini, had profited largely by her +father’s advice, and had influenced strongly her two brothers, +Gentile and Giovanni. They seem to have been the first +eager pupils of the man who was soon to be the artistic schoolmaster +for all Northern Italy. Two years after his marriage, +in 1455, Mantegna liberated himself from legal bondage to +Squarcione, and soon after began the masterpiece of his developed +Renaissance style, the altar-back for San Zeno Maggiore +at Verona, Figure <a href='#f_218'>218</a>. It was finished in 1459, the +artist being twenty-eight years old. It is a little over-rich, +finished throughout like a miniature, and very stately. In +arrangement it obeys the artist’s new law of illusion. The +base of the picture is precisely at the level of the eye, so no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>floor is seen. The carved classical frame is regarded as the +front of an actual pavillion which is continued in paint. Without +the frame, the architectural perspective of the picture +would not explain itself, and if the picture were set higher +or lower all the perspective relations would be wrong. At +Siena, a century and more earlier, the Lorenzetti had devised +this motive of an open box of which the frame is the plastic front. +Mantegna made this sort of illusionism standard for Venice +and all Northern Italy. Its value is open to question, but +I believe that the monumental altar-pieces of Mantegna and +Giovanni Bellini gain something in gravity and stability from +this careful adjustment of the perspective to the actual position +of the spectator. At any rate it was the rigid logic and +probity of Mantegna that gave to Venetian art precisely +the tonic stimulus it needed.</p> + +<p class='c007'>By thirty he was famous, and yielding to repeated persuasion, +he left Padua for Mantua and the court of the most +generous art patrons of the moment, the Gonzagas. His +most notable work for them was the decoration of the Camera +degli Sposi, 1474, in their great palace, and the canvases of +the triumphs of Cæsar, 1481 to 1494, which, sadly damaged and +repainted, are now seen at Hampton Court. The two series +represent strikingly the dual and never completely harmonized +strains in Mantegna’s genius—realism and archaism. He +was never more the realist than in the room decorated in honor +of the marriage of Lodovico Gonzaga and Barbara of Brandenburg, +the Camera degli Sposi. The motives are wholly novel—no +religious subjects, nothing mythological, just the Gonzaga +family and their courtiers, sitting in conversation, meeting +ceremoniously, or preparing for the hunt. Nowhere before had +such a consistent use of the principle of illusionism been made, +not even in Roman mural painting of the Antonine age. Mantegna +has completely painted away the real walls of the room, +and has replaced the real architecture by a simulated classical +<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>pavillion, with arcades looking out to the country side and +a round opening above. All the figures are out of doors. To +see the scheme properly you must stand precisely in the centre +of the room and turn on your heel. The arrangement in short +is periscopic. As you look up you will see a balcony with +cupids, Figure <a href='#f_219'>219</a>, standing on the outside ledge and maids +of honor and peacocks looking down over the balustrade. +You see everything feet foremost as if it were actually there. +Then you look out through the arcades where the view of outside +doings is sometimes interrupted by a curtain. Generally +it is drawn aside that you may see these great folk at ease outside +their pleasure house, Figure <a href='#f_220'>220</a>. The portraits are of +utmost dignity and authority. In dealing with real people +Mantegna’s style is less pinched than in his classical decorations. +If I have insisted on the point of illusionism, it is only +because the audacious logic of Correggio and a host of baroque +followers for a century and more really grows out of this scheme +at Mantua. You will see the open well with figures outside +the parapet in Correggio’s dome at Parma, and the figures +outside the painted roof in the Convent of St. Paolo. Indeed, +you have only to let the clouds come down through +such open roofs and seat decorative figures on the clouds to +arrive at the fully developed baroque style. And it is odd +enough that its most romantic extravagances are clearly deducible +from this rather sober and pedantic illusionism of +Andrea Mantegna.</p> + +<div id='f_219' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_219.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 219.</span> Mantegna. Detail of Ceiling.—<em>Camera degli Sposi, Mantua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_220' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span> +<img src='images/f_220.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 220.</span> Mantegna. Portraits of the Gonzaga Family. Fresco.—<em>Camera degli Sposi, Mantua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of the painted cloths representing the Triumphs of Cæsar, +Figure <a href='#f_221'>221</a>, (1484–1492), nine remain in debased condition at +Hampton Court, England. Here the classicism of Mantegna +finds its most legitimate expression. The designs are better +seen in the engravings of his school and in the later woodcut +copies by Andreini.</p> + +<div id='f_221' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span> +<img src='images/f_221.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 221.</span> Mantegna. Triumph of Cæsar.—<em>Hampton Court, England.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Despite such great commissions, Mantegna lived in something +near poverty. He could never resist a beautiful antique, +and he was proud and difficult in his relations to exacting +patrons. His style after his Roman visit of 1488 to 1490 loses +something of its tension and develops breadth. Perhaps the +most impressive picture of this time is the Madonna of Victory, +Figure <a href='#f_222'>222</a>, in the Louvre, which was painted in 1495 to celebrate +Gianfrancesco Gonzaga’s drawn battle with the French +at Fornovo. Its severity is mollified by the graciousness of the +evergreen bower in which the group is set and by the contrasting +seriousness of St. Elizabeth and the kneeling donor. These +figures forecast a mystical and tender quality in certain of +the later Madonnas.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>In his last years Mantegna undertook an attractive but +difficult task in decorating the study of the famous bluestocking, +Isabella d’Este, wife of Gianfrancesco. With the +pertinacity of a suffragette born +out of due time, this great lady +framed the most elaborate written +programmes, upon the literal +accomplishment of which she +insisted. Her correspondence +with such unfortunate protegés +as Perugino and Lorenzo Costa +is among the delightful eccentricities +of Renaissance annals. +The resultant decorations reflect +the sophisticated and somewhat +brittle grace of Isabella’s own +personality. None are better +than those of Mantegna which +were done about the year 1500. +His Parnassus, Figure <a href='#f_223'>223</a>, with +its romantically picturesque gods +and godesses, and its admirable +round of dancing muses, is the +best that Northern Italy can show in comparison with Botticelli’s +mythologies, unless it be the companion piece, Minerva +expelling the Vices, Figure <a href='#f_224'>224</a>, which is wonderful alike in +energy, inventiveness and grotesque humor, anticipating in +its mood similar refinements in Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” +and Milton’s “Comus.” Mantegna in these works becomes +the true precursor of that poetic pastoralism which in +Giorgione soon dominates the Venetian scene.</p> + +<div id='f_222' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_222.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 222.</span> Mantegna. Madonna of Victory.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_223' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span> +<img src='images/f_223.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 223.</span> Mantegna. Parnassus.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_224' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_224.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 224.</span> Mantegna. Minerva Expelling the Vices.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>Mantegna lived on, none too well treated by the younger +Gonzagas, until 1506. To relieve his poverty he offered for +sale his most treasured marble, an Agrippina. He left in his +studio his most rigid and painful piece,—the Foreshortened +Christ he called it. All his probity is in the picture. For +Giovanni Bellini and others it served as the highest model of +the tragic style, and it refutes the shallow views of such as +find Mantegna merely academic and cold. He left many +engravings and marvellous drawings in which perhaps better +than in the paintings we may feel the exquisiteness of his +austerely fastidious taste. Such a drawing as the Judith in +the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_225'>225</a>, is an epitome of all that Mantegna had +to bequeath to the Renaissance.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Well his contemporaries knew the value of his example. +It rebuked the slackness of their own practice. Alongside +the exquisitely modelled foot of his St. Sebastian in the Louvre, +stands the severed marble foot from a Greek statue. As +he ever measured his work against the antique, so the +painters of Milan, Vicenza, Ferrara, Verona and Venice had +to measure their work against his. And that simple act of +honest comparison in a single generation furthered the art of +Northern Italy to a degree that in Tuscany it had taken a +century to attain.</p> + +<div id='f_225' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span> +<img src='images/f_225.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 225.</span> Andrea Mantegna. Judith. Wash Drawing.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_226' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span> +<img src='images/f_226.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 226.</span>—Antonello da Messina. The Condottiere.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_227' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_227.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 227.</span> Antonello da Messina. St. Jerome in his Study.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>At the moment when Mantegna’s influence was at its height, +it was happily modified in a realistic direction by the advent +of Antonello da Messina.<a id='r74'></a><a href='#f74' class='c012'><sup>[74]</sup></a> Despite recent discoveries, the +career of this great Sicilian realist remains obscure. Vasari +imagined him a traveler in Flanders and a direct pupil of +Jan van Eyck, whose invention of oil painting he was believed +to have adopted. The legend is thoroughly discredited by newly +discovered documents. Antonello came up in Sicily under the +influence of visiting Spanish masters. From them he caught at +second hand the point of view of Northern realism, from them +he learned the advantages of the more fluid and lustrous oil +vehicle. But he must also have seen and carefully studied +fine paintings of the Flemish school. There were such in Sicily +and at Naples. Antonello emerges about 1470 as the most +energetic and truthful draughtsman of his time, and a portraitist +of powerful character equipped with a new and better +technique. In 1475 he was in Venice and Lombardy. Such +portraits as the captain of mercenaries, Il Condottiere, Figure +<a href='#f_226'>226</a>, at the Louvre, immediately set the standard for the entire +region. We no longer find flat profiles, but heads perfectly +drawn in three-quarters aspect, modelled minutely, but with +no loss of character and effect. No such eye as Antonello’s, +unless it were that of Piero della Francesca, had as yet applied +itself to the problems of painting. Whether in the nude, in +his St. Sebastians and Crucifixions, or in his rare interiors, +such as the St. Jerome in his Study, Figure <a href='#f_227'>227</a>, in the National +Gallery, he announced new perfections in lighting, modelling +and perspective. He painted for the Church of San Cassiano +at Venice a stately and massive Madonna which led the local +painters in the direction of mass and monumentality. Recent +criticism has recognised the mutilated central panel in the +Vienna gallery. Antonello’s work imposes itself primarily +by its mere intensity of existence. It has no charm, and no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>especial emotion. Precisely this impersonality makes it an admirable +and safe model. Before his coming the Venetians had +experimented with oil mediums, but they gladly adopted his lustrous +enamels, and strong shadows. He returned soon to his +native Sicily, where he died in 1479, but his brief sojourn in +the North had left its stamp. Montagna of Vicenza, Cima of +Conegliano, Buonsignori of Verona, Alvise Vivarini of Venice +are among his conscious emulators, and all the figure painting +of Venice assumes new gravity and authority. And we +may mark his influence even in the leading masters of the new +school, Gentile and Giovanni Bellini.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The tardy emergence of these two brothers of genius is +one of the puzzles of the Venetian school. Neither makes +any impression till he is in his forties, and their work has no +directive influence till after 1480. The simplest explanation +is that of Mr. Berenson. He suggests that the brothers loyally +contented themselves with the position of partners in their +father’s <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> until his death in 1470. From that moment +their progress is swift. Giovanni enlarges the style of the +altar-piece in a Renaissance and monumental sense, and later +moves gradually in a pastoral direction. Gentile brings to +its perfection the complicated narrative style of his father. +Both paint admirable portraits. Since Gentile is less an innovator +than a perfector of an established mode, we may well +begin with him.</p> + +<div id='f_228' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span> +<img src='images/f_228.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 228.</span> Gentile Bellini. Sultan Mahomet II.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_229' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_229.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 229.</span> Gentile Bellini. A Turkish Youth. Miniature.—<em>Mrs. John L. Gardner, Boston.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Such early works as the organ shutters of St. Mark’s and +the processional banner with the portrait of the Blessed +Lorenzo Giustiniani, 1465, show that he based himself on +Mantegna. His career, however, is associated with narrative +mural paintings for the schools, in which work he developes +a real originality. Whatever he painted in 1466 for the Great +School of St. Mark was soon destroyed in a fire. It was presumably +the fame of these canvases that got him in 1469 the +titles of knight and count palatine. In 1479, being fifty years +old, he was called to Constantinople to serve that cruel voluptuary, +Sultan Mahomet II. Gentile’s portrait of him, now in +the National Gallery, Figure <a href='#f_228'>228</a>, is an appalling piece of +exact characterization. One feels the malignity of a character +softened by vices, but retaining all mental lucidity and capacities +for both cruelty and calculated self-indulgence. A more +amiable souvenir of this trip is the exquisite miniature portrait +of a young Moslem prince, Figure <a href='#f_229'>229</a>, which is at Fenway +Court. Gentile brought back to Venice the new title of Pasha. +We do not find him about his proper work until 1492, when he +agrees to do “not for money but by superhuman inspiration” +the new canvases necessitated by the fire in the Great School +of St. Mark.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The greatest of these is the view of the Piazza of St. Mark’s +with the procession made by the School itself on Corpus +Christi day, Figure <a href='#f_230'>230</a>. In the centre is their venerated +relic of the True Cross. About it attention is fixed and almost +military, relaxing gradually at the sides. There are hundreds +<span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>of figures and scores of portraits in the picture, yet there is no +smallness of presentation. Such eighteenth century town +painters as Canale and his followers could hardly improve +upon the truthfulness of the scene as regards light and air +even. Its value as record is immense. And, barring a certain +stiffness, its value as art is hardly less.</p> + +<div id='f_230' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_230.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 230.</span> Gentile Bellini. Corpus Christi Procession in Piazza of S. Marco.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Another panel from this series shows Gentile’s really great +capacity as an out-of-doors painter. It represents the miraculous +recovery of the reliquary of the cross which had fallen +into the canal. How perfectly the play of light over the +encrusted and plastered palaces is felt, its shimmer upon +the smooth water and through the moving crowds! In the +essentials of <em>plein-airisme</em> we moderns have not so much +surpassed this work. And if Gentile seems after all not quite +a great artist, it is due to that impassivity which is proper to +a luminist. With equal realism, Gentile’s imitator, Carpaccio, +added sentiment, hence he is beloved and Gentile ignored. Yet +early Venetian narrative painting is complete with Gentile, +and from every consideration of naturalism it is immensely +superior to anything produced at Florence in this period. It +gains all the smaller points of representation with the most +<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>amazing ease, perhaps because it waives the greater issue of +monumentality. It is well put together, but shows little selection, +is even at its best rather casually full of persons and things. +This produces, as compared with Florence, an odd reversal of +conditions. The altar-piece, which in Florence is rather intimate, +is in Venice far the most monumental type of painting. +We study the development of monumental design better in +Giovanni Bellini’s altar-backs than in his brother’s narratives. +To Gentile, at once a searching spirit in details and a conservative +on the whole, it must have been a great satisfaction +to have perfected the narrative mode that his father had so +brilliantly inaugurated.</p> + +<div id='f_231' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_231.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 231.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Pietà.—<em>Milan.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>After 1500, being in the seventies and ailing, old Gentile +acquired the ominous habit of frequently making and unmaking +wills. His last one, which became effective in 1507, left +<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>to his vigorous brother, Giovanni, the precious paternal sketch books +and the heavy duty of finishing for St. Mark’s School +the vast Canvas of St. Mark Preaching at Alexandria, which +is now at Milan. Giovanni was nearly eighty himself, but he +put the great work through handsomely.</p> + +<div id='f_232' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_232.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 232.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Christ at Gethsemane.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Giovanni Bellini<a id='r75'></a><a href='#f75' class='c012'><sup>[75]</sup></a> was a natural son, but as was the humane +Italian custom, taken into his father’s family. He was born +about 1430, and his early efforts were completely dominated +by Mantegna. Indeed he hardly finds himself artistically +until he is fifty, and then he develops a most gracious capacity +for growth which ceases only with his death at eighty-five. +Of the score of pictures which are Mantegnesque in quality +the earliest and most remarkable is the Pietà at Milan, Figure +<a href='#f_231'>231</a>. In the tragic power it outdoes Mantegna himself, and +with all its hardness, it is more painter-like. The distribution +of light and dark is broader, the expression more homely and +genuine. Only a little later, perhaps towards 1470, is the +Christ on the Mount of Olives, at London, Figure <a href='#f_232'>232</a>. With +<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>a very similar picture by Mantegna in the same gallery, it +is based on a sketch of Jacopo Bellini’s. Although Giovanni +frankly imitates the rigid folds of drapery and landscape from +Mantegna, it is with a distinct +difference. The mood is gentler, +details are less obtrusive, there +is an exquisite sense of evening +sky, and of hills in gloom, and +of the coming of twilight over +a river plain. It is the first +greatly felt landscape in Venetian +painting, and though Giovanni +was far to surpass it in +fineness and accuracy, even he +never excelled it in depth and +truthfulness of feeling. The +serenity of the eventide is the +fitting foil to Our Lord’s single +moment of human weakness and +despair.</p> + +<div id='f_233' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_233.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 233.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Madonna.—<em>Estate Theodore Davis.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Giovanni’s early Madonnas are singularly various. We +have one very stately and tender in the estate of Theodore M. +Davis, Figure <a href='#f_233'>233</a>. The Madonna in the John G. Johnson +collection, Philadelphia, is wistful and emaciated. One belonging +to Mr. Philip Lehman, New York, is of sensuous, peasant +type, while the painting, unlike the soberness of the two +earlier ones, shows the utmost resplendence of Mantegnesque +enamels. Its date may be about 1470. So we see Giovanni +wholly flexible and experimental at forty, and developing +chiefly under Mantegna’s influence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Giovanni’s emancipation from Mantegna takes place very +gradually. It is virtually complete in the Transfiguration, +Figure <a href='#f_234'>234</a>, at Naples which may be dated towards 1480. +Bellini asserts himself fully in the gracious monumentality of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>the chief group, while his Arcadian mood is forecast in the ample +landscape softly invested with a colorful light and shade. +There is a more specific emotion and a more romantic richness +of setting in St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, Figure <a href='#f_207'>207</a>, +Frick Collection, which may be a year or two later. These are +both Wordsworthian pictures, imbued with a mystical tenderness +for natural appearances. Such are the sources from which +Giorgione will soon draw his pagan pastoralism.</p> + +<div id='f_234' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_234.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 234.</span> Giovanni Bellini. The Transfiguration.—<em>Naples.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Towards 1480 Giovanni Bellini’s work assumes monumental +breadth, and withal a new sweetness. His Madonnas settle +into what was to be the Venetian type—superb, mature forms +at once queenly and maternal. Earlier there had been no +Madonna type in his work but a singular variety of forms and +faces. In generalizing the stately charm of Venetian motherhood, +Giovanni moves towards the grand style, and does so +nearly twenty years sooner than the Florentines. His characteristic +<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>works are now great altar-pieces, with monumental distribution +of the figures within fine architectural spaces. Generally +the frame is a part of the pictorial organism, the plastic +front of a pavillion. It is about the only survival of Mantegna’s +practice in these solemn and gracious pictures. Unluckily +the first of the series perished in 1867 in the disastrous +fire which robbed us also of Titian’s Death of St. Peter Martyr. +But surviving copies of this altar-back for the Church of S. +Giovanni e Paolo confirm the tradition that it was painted +well before 1480. In its arrangement and details, especially +in the tendency to crowd the many figures forward, it reveals +to me the influence of Antonello da Messina’s great altar-piece +for San Cassiano. It had apparently a somewhat rigid +formality like that of the slightly earlier piece at Pesaro. +Bellini is not yet quite at ease in his new and broader style, +but he has at least glimpsed the ideal of monumentality and +acquired a new technique, that +of oil painting, in which to express +it.</p> + +<div id='f_235' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_235.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 235.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Madonna with Saints.—<em>Frari, Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_235a' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span> +<img src='images/f_235a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 235</span><em>a.</em>> Giovanni Bellini. Madonna of St. Job.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We find him full-grown in the +noble Madonna of St. Job, Figure +<a href='#f_235a'>235a</a>, made for the church of +that name about 1484 and now +in the Venice Academy. In this +picture the new Venetian ideals +of ardor and gravity unite harmoniously +with the old ideal of +material splendor. What playings +of light and half-lights there +are over mosaics, polished marbles +and carvings! How admirably +the strict symmetry of the +group is relieved by varying the postures of the six saints +and by contrasting the sober garb of the monkish saints with +the superb nudity of Saints Job and Sebastian and the shimmering +silks of the playing angels below. And the great +picture, with all its monumentality, retains much of that old +lyrical fire, which is gradually yielding to more sedate and +reflective aims.</p> + +<p class='c007'>We shall find the two great Madonnas of 1488, for the +Frari, Figure <a href='#f_235'>235</a>, and for St. Peter’s at Murano, conceived +more impassively. For the city church, Bellini insisted on +hieratic effect and incidental splendors, reverting to the form +of the triptych and arranging it after Mantegna’s fashion with +the frame and picture in one perspective. It is perhaps the +grandest as it is the most formal of his altar-backs, consciously +regal in the attitude of the Virgin, with saints as magisterial +<span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>as so many Venetian senators. For the suburban church at +Murano he set the Madonna low amid her paladins and opened +up delicious landscape vistas at the sides. The thing, with +all its dignity, is lyrical, and almost intimate. It anticipates +the mood of the later open-air Sacred Conversations.</p> + +<div id='f_236' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_236.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 236.</span>—Giovanni Bellini. Madonna with St. Paul and St. George.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the nineties and the early years of the new century, +masterpiece follows masterpiece, and we must proceed by +selection. Giovanni invents a charming form of altar-piece +for private chapels. These Madonnas and saints at half-length have already the mood of the later conversation pieces, +and need only the less symmetrical scheme which Bellini’s +pupil, Titian, will soon give them. For harmony one might +prefer the Madonna with two female saints, or for robust +contrast and vitality the Madonna with two burly military +champions, Figure <a href='#f_236'>236</a>. Both are in the Venetian Academy.</p> + +<div id='f_237' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span> +<img src='images/f_237.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 237.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Madonna of the Trees.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The single, half-length Madonnas, Figure <a href='#f_237'>237</a>, of this period +are counted by scores, and are in many public and private +collections in Europe and America. They are singularly uniform +in inspiration, and yet the +mood is so rich and noble that +an apparent monotony is never +cloying. Bellini’s gift in these +pictures is to combine a kind of +serene obviousness with great +delicacy. There are hints of +wistfulness and sadness through +the series, but such sentiments +are never much insisted on. The +real mysticism of these pictures +is nothing but the notation of +the most natural and mysterious +thing in the world—the bond +between mother and babe, the +pride of it, the exclusiveness of +it, the joyous burden of it. Art could hardly be less theological +or more genuinely religious than in these Madonnas. I +think no human being could miss either their naturalness or +their sacredness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As Giovanni Bellini approached the scriptural term of +years, and the century drew to its close, he cultivates by way +of recreation certain old leads which become new and powerful +influences on his successors. The element of tact in the man +is miraculous. He does nothing till the time has come when the +doing will be most useful. Thus such pastoral recreations as +the Religious Allegory in the Uffizi, Figure <a href='#f_238'>238</a>, and the little +symbolical panels in the Venice Academy lead directly to the +fantastic Arcadianism of Giorgione. The Religious Allegory +is vaguely an illustration for the old French poem “Man’s +Pilgrimage.” We have a Paradise, with the new souls in infant +<span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>form. The apostles Peter and Paul stand guard outside +the celestial barrier, while the Madonna presides within. +Beyond a dark stream is the hazardous world, a place of caverns +and crags, and hermits and centaurs; of mystery and uncertainty. +Perhaps Giovanni Bellini cared rather more for the +darkling shadows over water and river bank, for the broken +light under a veiled sky than for the formal allegory. Certainly +the element of strangeness and glamour is evident +enough in the five little panels depicting virtues and vices. +Again the faery quality, our earth grown strange to us, is the +basis of the charm. We have noted similar fantastic inventions +at Florence, notably in the work of Piero di Cosimo. +Bellini evokes a more normal poetry which is based on a more +intimate study of nature. Such landscapes as his, even when +unpeopled, suggest nymphs and shepherds.</p> + +<div id='f_238' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_238.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 238.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Religious Allegory, Souls in Paradise.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_240' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span> +<img src='images/f_240.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 240.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Doge Loredano.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_239' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_239.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 239.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Madonna with Saints.—<em>S. Zaccaria.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>At seventy, at the opening of the new century, Giovanni +Bellini’s mind was still flexible, so much so that we hardly +know whether he leads or follows such pupils of genius as +Titian and Giorgione. His color acquires a deeper glow, his +warm shadows are heavier and more carefully graduated; he +drops his few remaining Mantegnesque habits. In the +Madonna for San Zaccaria, +Figure <a href='#f_239'>239</a>, dated 1505, we have +no longer the illusionistic perspective +of the altar-pieces of the +’80s. The group is set well back, +the suffusion of the niche with +air is more dense, the saintly +figures have exchanged the old +resolute, hieratic attitudes for a +gentle dreaminess; the mood is +that of Giorgione’s contemporary +altar-piece at Castelfranco. In +the portrait of Doge Loredano, +Figure <a href='#f_240'>240</a>, of the same year +resolution and wistfulness blend fascinatingly. The delineation +has the force and certainty of Antonello da Messina +with a refinement Antonello +never even glimpsed.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In these later years Giovanni +Bellini multiplied, largely +through student aid, conversation +pieces with gracious +gatherings of saints in the open +air. The mood is that of courtly +revery. Titian and Palma will +later repeat the theme indefinitely. +One of the best is at S. +Francesco della Vigna, and bears +the date 1507. It is an idyl +borrowing religious forms. In +the altar-piece painted in 1513, +Figure <a href='#f_241'>241</a>, for the church of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span>S. Giovanni Crisostomo, Giambellino anticipates the new +and compositional forms of the rising generation. The rich +architecture opens upon a contemplative old man reading on +a crag, with majestic mountain +lines behind him athwart a +serene sky. Everything above +is off centre and diagonal, stability +being preserved by the +great vertical figures of the +saints in the foreground, and by +the formality of the parapet +behind them. We have almost +a picture within a picture, the +maximum of formality and informality, +of nature and artifice—all +those elaborate and calculated +beauties which we associate +with Titian’s maturity. There is +withal a mystical earnestness of +which Titian himself lacked the +secret.</p> + +<div id='f_241' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_241.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 241.</span> Giovanni Bellini. St. John Crisostom.—<em>S. Giov. Crisostomo.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In his remaining two years +Bellini designed the lovely and +modest nude Lady at her Toilet, at Vienna, and the Feast of +the Gods, Figure <a href='#f_242'>242</a>, now in Mr. Joseph Widener’s collection +at Philadelphia. His career ends in a rather skeptical acceptance +of the sensuous graces of the new humanism, for the gods +are merely Venetian picnickers on an excursion. The penetrating +poetry of the picture is of a homely sort without pretensions +to grandeur. The landscape is partly by Titian.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Giovanni died in 1515, being more than eighty-five years +old. As late as 1506, Albrecht Dürer found him the greatest +artist at Venice. He had begun with the faint dawn of the +Renaissance and ended in its midday glow. He had raised +<span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>Venetian painting to monumental estate, had mastered the +secrets of landscape and its illumination, had initiated a delightful +pastoralism, had conveyed religious emotion in forms +humanly sweet and grave, had made the best of every world. +Scores of his pupils extended his manner to Brescia, Bergamo, +Vicenza, and Treviso. His genius knew neither haste nor +hesitation, he was almost never below his best. The Renaissance +produced a few painters of greater scope and powers, +but none more consistently great as an artist or more venerable +as a personality.</p> + +<div id='f_242' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_242.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 242.</span> Giovanni Bellini. Feast of the Gods.—<em>Widener Coll., Elkins Park, Pa.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_243' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span> +<img src='images/f_243.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 243.</span> Bartolommeo Vivarini. Madonna with Saints.—<em>Naples.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>To appreciate his value a glance at less progressive contemporaries +will suffice. We find Bartolommeo Vivarini normally continuing the routine of the Murano School. In the +polyptych at Bologna, done with his elder brother Antonio in +1450, we have with slight Squarcionesque improvements the +old attenuated Venetian forms. In the highly decorated +Madonna at Naples, dated 1465, we have an intelligent use +of both the Squarcionesque realisms, and the refinements of +Jacopo Bellini. Figure <a href='#f_243'>243</a>. Later pieces such as the triptych +of 1487 at the Frari reveal a heavy-handed imitation of +Mantegna, and any little originality of the master soon +gets lost in the voluminous output of the shop. Bartolommeo +died in the last year of his century, whose fair average +he had well represented. His nephew Alvise Vivarini deserves +<span class='pageno' id='Page_364'>364</span>notice as the transmitter of the realism of Antonello da +Messina to such artists as Montagna, Cima, and Lorenzo Lotto. +As a portraitist he has real power. His great altar-pieces have +their bleak and unattractive nobility. Venice greatly honored +him in confiding several of the new panels for the Ducal Palace +to his care. But since these works of the eighties were soon +burned, our view of Alvise remains imperfect. I suspect +modern criticism has somewhat exaggerated his importance. +He was active from about 1460 to 1503, and his altar-pieces +afford the best foils for Giovanni Bellini, as revealing a lesser +capacity for growth.</p> + +<div id='f_244' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_365'>365</span> +<img src='images/f_244.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 244.</span> Carpaccio. Prince Hero Taking Leave of his Father (L) and Greeting Ursula (R).—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>We have now to trace the old narrative style to its climax +and end in Vittore Carpaccio.<a id='r76'></a><a href='#f76' class='c012'><sup>[76]</sup></a> He inherited all the panoramic +and luministic accomplishments of Gentile Bellini, but applied +them with far greater imagination. He deals with legend, +giving it contemporary color, and in his sensitive hands it becomes +the most veridical and charming of fairy lands. Carpaccio’s +training is obscure to us. It may be that the very +mediocre narrative painter, Lazzaro Bastiani, first taught him. +In any case he drew more from Gentile Bellini’s resolute handling +of light, textures and costume. We first meet Carpaccio +as an artist in the decoration of the Great School of St. Ursula +from 1492 to 1495. He was probably all of fifty years old. +The childlike legend, with its numerous embassies, meetings +and partings, settings out and arrivings, gave him spectacular +opportunities of which he made the most winning use. In the +nine canvases now in the Academy we find an epitome of the +courtesy, circumstance and adventure that accompanied +travel in those days, and the mere spectacle is underlaid with a +pensive ideality; for these are no ordinary journeys, but the +quest of martyrdom by a princely youth and maiden. Nothing +is insisted on, however, but the gayety of the events, and the +picturesqueness of their settings. As in all good story-telling, +the persuasiveness depends on veracious minor episodes. +There are the most attentive scribes and secretaries, as if to +carry off the unlikely matter they are inditing. The heavy +ease of men-at-arms and self-conscious elegance of young +Venetian fops make them credible witnesses to else incredible +legend. To adorn his tales Carpaccio borrowed from the woodcut +illustrations to Breydenbach’s “Itinerary to Jerusalem.” +It is remarkable how he invests these mere skeletons of cities +with color, sunlight, the glamour of the orient. About all he +draws a veil of air saturated with sunlight, concentrated into +rising clouds whose shadows darken the lustrous blue of the +tranquil lagoon. There never was a more ravishing raconteur +in the art of making incidentals count for essentials. +Such a picture as Prince Hero taking leave of his father and +greeting St. Ursula, Figure <a href='#f_244'>244</a>, is the fulfilment of all that +old Jacopo Bellini and his Veronese precursors had dreamed +of. It is typical of a series which has its more intimate phases +only by way of exception. The virginal beauty of the legend +gets a real expression only in the Vision of St. Ursula. Figure +<a href='#f_245'>245</a>. The character of the earnest, slumbering face and the +sweet slight body carries through the exquisitely indicated +space, and we hardly need to be told that the wistful boyish +angel is offering a martyr’s palm. Possibly it takes a mundane +<span class='pageno' id='Page_366'>366</span>person like Carpaccio to realize the beauty of the more fantastic +religious ardors. A completely devout person takes +them as in the day’s work.</p> + +<div id='f_245' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_245.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 245.</span> Carpaccio. Dream of St. Ursula.—<em>Venice</em>.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Before the end of the century, Carpaccio painted for the +School of S. Giovanni Evangelista the Miracle of the healing +of a Demoniac. The picture is now in the Academy. It +is a marvellous panorama of contemporary Venice, with the +bustle of eager crowds, the slipping of gondolas over the canal, +and light flickering over and caressing the manifold colors +of the gay scene. It has the fidelity of Gentile Bellini +without his dryness.</p> + +<div id='f_246' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_367'>367</span> +<img src='images/f_246.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 246.</span> Carpaccio. St. George and the Dragon.—<em>School of St. George of the Slavonians.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The most delightful if not the most important monument of +Renaissance Venice is unquestionably the School of St. George +of the Slavonians. It is the only school that retains its primitive +paintings still set in the original carved and golded wainscoting. +There one sees in the ground floor the legends of +St. Jerome, an odd mixture of gravity, richness, and humor. +Nothing more sumptuous than the Saint in his exquisitely +appointed study, or more archly comic than the scene of consternation +when the Saint brings home his lion from the desert. +The series was painted about 1502. Upstairs we have the +chivalric legend of St. George of Cappadocia, painted some +eight years later. Nothing could be more romantically entrancing +than the boyish champion charging intrepidly over +the sun-dried shreds and tatters of his predecessors into the +very jaws of the most confidently virulent of dragons, Figure +<a href='#f_246'>246</a>, unless it be the scene where he leads his tame dragon into +the astounded court, or that in which he proudly baptizes his +future bride and her parents while a Turkish band plays a fanfare. +About the blowing of these horns of elfland there is no +faintness whatever. We are in the realm of most palpable +adventure and romance, and the emphasis depends on splendid +color and on drawing of a magical alertness.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_368'>368</span>Carpaccio’s merit as the liveliest and most persuasive of +<i><span lang="fr">raconteurs</span></i> seems so definite that it is almost a shock to meet +him in other capacities. Also a disappointment to find in the +New Testament subjects from +the School of the Albanians, +1504, that in such stereotyped +subjects he can be almost mediocre. +Certainly in the great +altar-piece of the Presentation +in the Temple, Figure <a href='#f_247'>247</a>, at +the Academy, he shows that he +fully understands the new monumentality +of Giovanni Bellini. +The date is 1510. The picture +is of the most reverent composure, +and as tender as it is +grand. In the portrait of Two +Courtesans on a Balcony, in +the Correr, Carpaccio shows a +force of character wholly modern. With a kind of irony he +has taken the moral emptiness of his sitters out of doors, +flooded it with sunlight and air, given it harshness and ugliness, +lavishing upon the rich costumes and fair skins the most +delicate pains. John Ruskin will tell you that these are honest +women. Such faith is more worthy of reverence than of imitation. +The greatness of Carpaccio lies in the impartiality +with which he renders a certain kind of life on its own terms. +The romancer is capable of appalling truthfulness.</p> + +<div id='f_247' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_247.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 247.</span> Carpaccio. The Presentation.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>That he was also a mystic of the most intense sort is hard +to believe. Yet if the marvellous Meditation on the Passion, +Figure <a href='#f_248'>248</a>, in the Metropolitan Museum, be really by him, +such is the case. In a desert the Dead Christ sits in a crumbling +throne, while two grim sages, St. Job and St. Onophrius, +sit in rapt contemplation. Their mood has evoked the bodily +<span class='pageno' id='Page_369'>369</span>vision of their Lord. Art has produced few such symbols for +the hallucinative intensity of the life contemplative. These +weather-beaten forms seem an emanation from the sands and +blistering sunlight. They have few relations to our world. +Their souls move in vast uninhabited spaces. That Carpaccio +can have produced this masterpiece as late as 1520, and cast +it deliberately in a style learned forty years earlier seems to +me a fantastic hypothesis, even if it has enlisted grave authority. +The abundant similarities of the landscape with +that of the St. Francis of the Frick Collection make me feel +that the invention of this picture is Giovanni Bellini’s, at his +moment of highest emotional power, about 1480. Since the +actual painting is evidently in large part Carpaccio’s, I am +driven to the by no means satisfactory hypothesis that Carpaccio may have executed this masterpiece, and the group to +which it belongs, while serving as studio assistant to Giovanni +Bellini. Such a view at least expresses my conviction that the +picture transcends Carpaccio’s powers.</p> + +<div id='f_248' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_248.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 248.</span>—Ascribed to Carpaccio, perhaps Giovanni Bellini’s Design. Desert Hermits Meditating the Passion.—<em>New York.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_370'>370</span>As for his later years, his work goes off, he loses most of his +Venetian patronage, and paints for the obscure Istrian and +Dalmatian seaports, the critics mock him, he dies some time +after 1523, leaving no deep impression. Vasari dispatches him +with a few condescending lines, and nobody cares for him till +young Burne-Jones came to Venice some sixty years ago. +He plainly stands out of the main line of progress. He was too +romantically traditional in his themes, and too minutely naturalistic +in his vision to fit into the monumental development of +the Renaissance. In a sense he merely brings the old narrative +tradition to a splendid close. But in so doing he preserves the +look of an exquisite moment—of Venice still in her mediæval +gayety and splendor, not yet reduced to her ultimate magnificent +decorum. In him we glimpse the eager comeliness of +patrician youth, self-sufficient in love of living. And this we +see between the glistening waters of the lagoon and the lambent +blue heavens, with pearly domes and bell towers rising as +lightly as the drifting summer clouds above. All this may or +may not be apart from what the wise esteem artistic greatness. +In any case it is charm of the most persuasive and durable +kind.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Whether Giorgione of Castelfranco is to be regarded as the +last of the Venetian primitives or as the first of the men of +the Renaissance is no simple problem. It is further complicated +by the fact that we do not surely know what pictures +he painted. According to the austerity or geniality of the +critics, the lists vary from eight, Lionello Venturi’s, to over +seventy, Herbert Cook’s. Naturally I also have my own list, +which, with old copies, runs to twenty-four, but I am unwilling +to claim demonstrative weight for what are merely strong +<span class='pageno' id='Page_371'>371</span>subjective convictions. Walter Pater daintily evaded the +issue by writing the most subtle of essays not on the person, +but on the School of Giorgione. I shall in part imitate him in +defining first the Giorgionesque +mood before considering the +canon of his works.</p> + +<div id='f_249' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_249.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 249.</span> Giorgione. Portrait of a Youth.—<em>Berlin.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>On the side of minor technique +Giorgione marks a great advance. +He early abandons the old frank +coloring of Giovanni Bellini for a +mysterious method which abolishes +line, builds in mass, invests +the picture with deep shadows +that are marvellously warm and +colorful. What contemporaries +loved to call the Venetian fire +originates with him about 1505. +Vasari may well be right in saying +that he learned the method directly from Leonardo da +Vinci, who was a fugitive in Venice in the year 1500. Only +Leonardo never taught him that shadow is color. That was +Giorgione’s own beautiful discovery, one immensely important +for all decorative painting ever since.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In his early phase, if I am right in thinking that Sir Martin +Conway’s two stories of Paris, Figure <a href='#f_250'>250</a>, and the Ordeal of +the Infant Moses and Judgment of Solomon in the Uffizi, are +his, Giorgione was merely a graceful continuer of the slighter +narrative mood of Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio,—that is, +distinctly a primitive artist. In his fully developed Arcadian +vein he is neither a primitive nor fully of the Renaissance, but +midway between, and his work constitutes not so much a +pioneer effort as a delectable episode quite complete in itself. +Unhappily we are almost without biographical details. Giorgione +was born in 1478, in Castelfranco, a long day’s ride +<span class='pageno' id='Page_372'>372</span>towards the Friulian Alps. The country abounds in streams, +meadows, and immemorial trees—is a subalpine Arcadia. +He came pretty young to Venice and worked with Giovanni +Bellini. Legend tells us that he was big and handsome, amorous, +and a musician. We know that he died of the plague of +1510, in his thirty-third year. The rest is conjecture from +pictures some of which are his, and all of which are inspired +by him.</p> + +<div id='f_250' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_250.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 250.</span> Giorgione. The Infant Paris found by Shepherds.—Sir Martin Conway. <em>Maidstone, England.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>These breathe a single mood, that of Arcadian revery. It +is a world of desire indulged for its own sweetness, of day +dreaming apart from will, action, and results. More blithely +it had pre-existed in the Idyls of Theocritus; more pensively, +in the Eclogues of Virgil. This world revives a far-away pastoral +golden age, of lovers and their lasses, of nymphs and +fauns, of vague ardors at once tempered and reinforced by a +sympathetic nature. We are dealing with one of the oldest +resources of poetry, and we can only understand this most +<span class='pageno' id='Page_373'>373</span>beautiful visualization of the old theme by associating it with +the tradition of literary pastoralism.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Of course the Eclogues of Virgil were read generation by +generation, if not very understandingly, through the Middle +Ages. Still the more sensitive felt the appeal of mountain +shadows lengthening over the evening meadows and the pathos +of love-lorn shepherds sighing musically for hard-hearted shepherdesses. +By the middle of the fourteenth century, the pastoral +mode becomes once more contemporary, incidentally in the +interludes of Bocaccio’s <cite>Decameron</cite>, explicitly in his idyl of +alternate prose and verse, the <cite>Ameto</cite>. These are pale lights +before the dawn. Pastoralism becomes widely current in the +<cite>Arcadia</cite> of Jacopo Sannazaro, the bulk of which was ready by +1489. It is the parent of those slow-moving, sentimental, and +ever lengthy romances in verse and prose of which Sir Philip +Sidney’s <cite>Arcadia</cite> is the most familiar to the modern reader. +Dante had once longed for a magic boat in which congenial +souls should drift forever and do nothing but discourse of love. +Transfer these discourses to a leafy nook beside a running +stream, with the herds in view below the branches, and nymphs +and satyrs overhearing the debate—and you have Sannazaro’s +<cite>Arcadia</cite>. We have the eternal poetry and perhaps eternal +fallacy of a bygone golden age where duty and effort are absent, +where love and poesy reign.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In his most famous song, <cite><span lang="la">Alma beata</span></cite>, Sannazaro, celebrating +a dead beauty, makes heaven itself merely an Arcadia—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Other mountains, other plains,</div> + <div class='line'>Other groves and streamlets</div> + <div class='line'>In heaven I see, and withal new blossoms.</div> + <div class='line'>Other fauns and sylvans, through sweet summer places,</div> + <div class='line'>Pursue their nymphs in happier loves than ours.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>You find the mood clear cut in the Venetian nobleman and prelate, +Pietro Bembo, both in his <cite>Asolani</cite> and in the separate +<span class='pageno' id='Page_374'>374</span>poems. These were being handed about in Giorgione’s time, +from 1500 on. Thus Bembo sings of the shepherd’s life:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Tryphon, who in place of ministrants and lackeys,</div> + <div class='line'>Loggias and marbles, woven gold and purple,</div> + <div class='line'>Lovest about thee willows leafy, cloister</div> + <div class='line'>Of joyous hillocks, plants and rivulets—</div> + <div class='line'>Well may the world admire thee.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>Naturally the denizens of such paradises live and dress in a +state of nature. The nymphs are lightly clothed and readily +discard their slight draperies for the joys of the bath, which +they considerately take within the range of their shepherd +swains. Bembo warmly praises those “courteous garments” +which do not too much hide the fair throat and bosom, and +roundly curses more churlish concealing fashions.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sannazaro describes with a confusing mixture of metaphors +what may be called a fortunate bath fall.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Leading one day my herds beside a stream,</div> + <div class='line'>I saw a light amid those waters fair,</div> + <div class='line'>Which bound me fast straightway with two blond tresses,</div> + <div class='line'>And stamped a face all milk and roses</div> + <div class='line'>Forever on my heart.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Earlier painters than Giorgione<a id='r77'></a><a href='#f77' class='c012'><sup>[77]</sup></a> had essayed these pastoral +themes. Botticelli, Signorelli; in a sardonic way, Piero di +Cosimo; Giovanni Bellini and even Andrea Mantegna had +variously attempted this sort of painted poesy. But the +flavor of the Giorgionesque poesy is fuller and richer. His +beauty is that of languor, revery, dream. Whatever the ostensible +theme may be, his painting is Arcadian. His people +have not merely no relation to our world, but slight and ambiguous +relations to each other within the picture. They are +isolated in their own musings, rarely look at each other, never +suggest an action, but only a mood. Even the portraits suggest +<span class='pageno' id='Page_375'>375</span>rather temperament than character or will. The proud +youth, at Berlin, Figure <a href='#f_249'>249</a>, withdraws himself from purpose +and deed. It is an early Giorgione. The Shepherd with a +Flute, at Hampton Court, is bemused with his own fancy. +It is of the later years. The fastidious patrician, at New York, +reveals an almost worried and sickly detachment. If indeed +a Giorgione, which I cannot doubt, it is of his latest manner.</p> + +<div id='f_251' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_251.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 251.</span> Giorgione. Fire Ordeal of Infant Moses.—<em>Uffizi.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_252' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_252.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 252.</span> Giorgione. “Soldier and Gipsy.”—<em>Giovanelli Palace.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Take the little Carpaccian idyls at Florence which cannot +be much later than 1500. How far we are from real narrative! +In the Ordeal of Moses, Figure <a href='#f_251'>251</a>, a child is thrusting his +tender fingers among live coals. Ladies and gentlemen stand +languidly about and bask in the pleasantness of their own +thoughts. There is a similar nonchalance in the Judgment +of Solomon where a newborn babe is threatened with the +sword. The horror is treated as a negligible incident of an +<i><span lang="it">al fresco</span></i> party.</p> + +<div id='f_253' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_376'>376</span> +<img src='images/f_253.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 253.</span> Giorgione. The Three Philosophers.—<em>Vienna.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Again what is the meaning of the mysterious idyl in Prince +Giovanelli’s gallery? Figure <a href='#f_252'>252</a>. In view of the picturesque +walls and moat of Castelfranco, a half nude mother, oblivious +of a coming thunder shower, nurses her child. Equally oblivious +of her and the weather, a fashionably dressed youth +turns away. Ruins reflect the ominous lightning flashes. +Old records call this (one of the few certain Giorgiones) The +Soldier and the Gipsy—evidently a bad guess. A learned +Viennese professor chooses to think that this is Prince Adrastus +finding the forsaken Princess Hypsiphile. Nobody can prevent +such conjectures or disprove them. It is safer to imagine +that coming rain and thunder at Venice recalls some old memory +of similar weather and state of mind at Castelfranco, +evokes some old desire of which this richly fanciful masterpiece +is the enigmatic symbol. Some story of loving and parting +surely underlies the poesy, it would be foolish to be more +specific than Giorgione himself has chosen to be. The Three +Philosophers, at Vienna, Figure <a href='#f_253'>253</a>, again has been explained +<span class='pageno' id='Page_377'>377</span>as Aeneas surveying the future site of Rome. What we actually +have is a glowing nook at eventide in which three grave +men of different ages go separately about some task requiring +thought and mathematical calculation. And even this duty +is yielding to the spell and mystery of the evening hour. These +pictures are probably a little earlier than the altar-piece of +1504 at Castelfranco.</p> + +<div id='f_254' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_254.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 254.</span> Giorgione. Madonna with St. George and St. Francis.—<em>Castelfranco.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_255' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_378'>378</span> +<img src='images/f_255.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 255.</span> Giorgione. Landscape by Titian. Sleeping Venus.—<em>Dresden.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>That lovely work, Figure <a href='#f_254'>254</a>, has much of the intimacy of +Bellini’s altar-piece at S. Zaccaria, in formal arrangement it +is rather monumental. The mood, however, is one of revery. +St. Francis of Assisi makes his gesture only for himself, +and St. George, exponent of the active life, broods moodily +beneath his slackly held pennon. The Arcadian landscape +quietly reinforces the idyllic feeling. Externally the thing +is splendid in color, and as saturated with atmosphere as it +is with mood.</p> + +<p class='c007'>From now on the question of chronology becomes at once +difficult, and, since we are dealing only with five years or so, +relatively unimportant. The sleeping Venus at Dresden, +Figure <a href='#f_255'>255</a>, may have been designed about 1505. A Cupid +slumbering at the Goddess’s feet has been painted out, and +the landscape was finished by Titian. The noble sleeping +body, to use a word of Lucretius which Montaigne commends, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_379'>379</span>seems “poured out” on the receptive earth—so grandly and +easily it lies. The gestures are unconscious caresses. The +Goddess dreams of old joys. What faun or sylvan even would +not respect that dream? Not +with passion, then, though himself +knowing all its sting, does +Giorgione deal, but with ardors +sublimated in memory. The +marvellous lines of this Venus, +as sweeping as the curves of +hills or river currents, were imitated +again and again, but +neither Titian, Palma Vecchio, +nor the rest ever recaptured the +evasive poetry of their model.</p> + +<div id='f_256' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_256.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 256.</span> Giorgione. Judith.—<em>Petrograd.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In 1508, working with Titian, +Giorgione finished certain frescoes +for the outside of the German +Warehouse. The remaining +red blurs, and Zanetti’s +fragmentary copies, tell us that +the postures begin to have the +breadth and conscious counterpoise +of the advancing Renaissance, +but that the mood is still that of languor. Very like +one of these figures is the fascinating Judith, at Petrograd, +Figure <a href='#f_256'>256</a>. After the horrors of the night, she stands +dreamily. Her lovely left leg escapes from the courteous +draperies, and the foot touches lightly the brow of the peaceful, +severed head of Holophernes. The touch of the foot is +almost careless, as if merely to assure herself that the portent +is really true. Her head bends gently, her nerveless beautiful +fingers barely feel her girdle or support her great sword. +Behind her, morning forests and fields stretch towards a tranquil +<span class='pageno' id='Page_380'>380</span>sea and sky. The gestures are those of one between +sleeping and waking, irresolutely feeling for some basis in +reality. We are in a realm where the most awful deeds and +experiences count only as raw material for delicate imaginings.</p> + +<div id='f_257' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_257.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 257.</span> Giorgione. Pastoral Symphony.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the later works problems multiply, and a critic is pretty +well reduced to personal intuitions. No doubt, however, +should attach to the pathetic and nearly effaced Christ of St. +Roch. The Christ is nobler than the earlier example at +Fenway Court, the feeling more expansive. Still nobody, not +even the executioner, seems to will the atrocity of the deed. +The thing is not an act but a vision, pervaded by a dreamy +tenderness.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The completely repainted Pastoral Concert, Figure <a href='#f_257'>257</a>, at +the Louvre is never the less fraught with Giorgione’s peculiar +poetry. A courtly lover has struck a chord on the lute, and +gazes intently, perhaps sadly, at a shepherd sitting close to +him. A rustic, nude nymph whose back only is seen takes the +pipe from her lips to listen. A proud beauty turns toward a +fountain, light draperies slip away from her superb form, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_381'>381</span>and with a graceful gesture of idleness she pours back into +the fountain a tinkling jet from a crystal pitcher, while she +bends to note the ripple and catch the pleasant, idle sound. +This strange scene takes place on the edge of a vale that winds +down to a glittering sea, affording a path to a shepherd and his +flocks. The meaning? Modern criticism is loath to look beyond +contrasts of nude and clothed forms, swing of tree-tops +and of sky, subtle interplay of light and shade. My own +reading is merely based on the contrast between the rustic +and urban lovers, and an intuition that the courtier in peering +so wistfully at the shepherd is merely seeing himself in a +former guise. In lassitude, perhaps in satiety, beside a courtly +mistress who is absent from him in spirit, there rises the vision +of earlier simpler love and of a devoted shepherdess who once +piped for him in the shade. The vision rises as his listless +hand sweeps the lute strings in a chord unmarked by the far +lovelier mistress at the fountain. The golden age of love, like +Arcady itself, is ever in the past. Such may be the reading of +this poesy. Indeed all Giorgione’s pictures are less facts than +apparitions born of roving thought in idleness,—such stuff +as dreams are made of.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The famous Concert, Figure <a href='#f_258'>258</a>, of the Pitti since Morelli’s +time has been generally classed as an early Titian, I think +erroneously. The precise and powerful execution of the Monk’s +head is certainly his, but I question if the motive itself lay +within the scope of his lucid and uncomplicated imagination. +An Augustinian monk holds the initial harmony on the clavichord +and turns towards the ’cellist while the singer waits impassively. +And this simple theme becomes a universal symbol +for thwarted desire. The player asks a kind of sympathy +which this world rarely affords, which certainly these companions +cannot give. As in the Pastoral Symphony, the +music awakens impossible longings, is the accompaniment of +inadequacy. Titian was too robust ever to have imagined +<span class='pageno' id='Page_382'>382</span>such a thing, and I feel we need only modify the old tradition +to the extent of giving Titian a hand in an unfinished Giorgione +to account for this poignant and most characteristic masterpiece.</p> + +<div id='f_258' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_258.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 258.</span> Giorgione <i><span lang="la">cum</span></i> Titian. The Concert.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>There remains old and good tradition for crediting Giorgione +with the design of the altar-piece in San Giovanni Crisostomo. +The execution is unquestionably by Sebastiano del +Piombo. If this view be correct, Giorgione attained the external +features of the coming Renaissance style, missing its +athleticism. Certainly the abstraction of the saint and the +unmotivated appearance of the three virtues, and their unrelated +gracefulness, is entirely in Giorgione’s manner, while the +whole invention is alien to Sebastiano’s heavy and forthright +talent.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_383'>383</span>For the view I have tried to give of this poet picture-maker +I may claim at least the merit of consistency. There is only +one theme—languor of love and of remembered happiness; +and there is only one setting—the +Arcadia of the pastoral +poets. Giorgione is the first +painter who realized Leonardo’s +definition of painting as “mute +poetry,” yet not quite mute for +there is generally a suggestion +of music. And the music is less +heard than contemplated, as is +the case in one of his latest +pictures, the Shepherd Boy, Figure +<a href='#f_259'>259</a>, who hesitates to set the +flute to his lips lest the melody +fall short of that which the imagination +has already heard.</p> + +<div id='f_259' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_259.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 259.</span> Giorgione. Shepherd with a Flute.—<em>Hampton Court.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>For ten years after Giorgione’s death his mood dominated +Titian with most of the rising artists. It seemed likely to +replace the sturdy and objective art of Venice with a quite +alien subjectivism. Meanwhile the normal effort of old +Giovanni, Bellini and of young Titian continued. The Renaissance +offered to the outer eye new dignities and splendors. +The inner eye went bankrupt in the numerous imitators of +Giorgione, in trivial symbolism and merely playful mythology. +After her brief pause in Arcadia, Venice once more took account +of her own proud charms. The nymphs paled before the +comparison, Arcadia vanished. But it never was wholly forgotten, +and, ever since, those who have craved actually to see +the golden age of poesy have had to consult Giorgione of +Castelfranco.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_384'>384</span> + <h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER VII</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Praise of Mantegna in the Renaissance</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>The immense authority of Mantegna kept his name on all honor lists +of painters long after his death.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lorenzo of Pavia, writing in 1504 to Isabella d’Este, says of a +Madonna by Giovanni Bellini:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“The Painter has made a great effort to do himself honour, chiefly +out of respect to M. Andrea Mantegna, and although it is true that in +point of invention it cannot compare with the work of Messer Andrea, +that most excellent master, I pray Your Excellency to take the picture, +both for your own honour and also because of the merit of the work.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Julia Cartwright, <em>Isabella d’Este</em>, New York, 1903, Vol. I, p. 351.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A little later Lorenzo writes:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“And, as I have said before, in point of invention no one can rival +Andrea Mantegna, who is indeed a most excellent painter, the foremost +of our age. But Zuan Bellini excels in colouring.” l. c. 352.</p> + +<p class='c007'>On Oct. 16, 1506, Lorenzo writes, on learning of Mantegna’s death:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“I am much grieved to hear of the death of our Messer Andrea Mantegna. +For indeed we have lost a most excellent man and a second +Apelles, but I believe that the Lord God will employ him to make some +beautiful work. As for me, I can never hope to see again a finer draughtsman +and more original artist.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Isabella replied:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“Lorenzo,—We were sure that you would grieve over the death of +M. Andrea Mantegna, for, as you say, a great light has gone out.”</p> + +<div class='c023'>l. c. I. 369.</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Titian’s View of Mantegna</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>As late as 1519, Titian admired the Mantegnas at Mantua. Girolamo +da Sestola, Isabella’s music master, writes to her:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“M. Dosso and M. Tiziano, another good master who is making a +fine picture here [The Bacchanal, at Madrid] for the Lord Duke, went +to Mantua. He saw all Mantegna’s works, and praised them greatly +to our signor, and he also praised your studies. But above all, he admired +your <i><span lang="it">Tondo</span></i> [the frescoed ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi, Fig. +<a href='#f_219'>219</a>] exceedingly, and calls it the finest thing he has ever seen. Our +Signor has one here, but Titian says yours is incomparably the finest.”</p> + +<div class='c023'>l. c. II. 171, 2.</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_385'>385</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Ariosto’s Honor List of Painters</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>Ariosto as late as 1515 still includes Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini +among the best artists. The list is instructive as to the fallibility of +contemporary judgments. The two Dossi and Sebastiano del Piombo +today have lost their place in the roll.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“And those who were and still are in our days—</div> + <div class='line'>Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Giambellino,</div> + <div class='line'>The Dossis, he who chiselled and colored equally</div> + <div class='line'>Michel, more than mortal, Angel divine,</div> + <div class='line'>Sebastian, Raphael, Titian who honors</div> + <div class='line'>No more Cadore, than they Venice and Urbino.”</div> + <div class='line in20'><cite>Orlando Furioso</cite>, Canto XXXIII, 2.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Lomazzo’s List of Great Painters and Their Kindred Poets</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>“Each painter has naturally had a genus more conformable to one +poet rather than another, and has followed that poet in his work, as it +is easy to see in the modern painters. For one sees that Leonardo has +expressed the movement and decorum of Homer, Polidoro the grandeur +and sweep of Virgil, Michelangelo the profound obscurity of Dante, +Raphael the pure majesty of Petrarch, Andrea Mantegna the keen +judgment of Sannazaro, Titian the variety of Ariosto, and Gaudenzio +Ferrari the devotion which one finds expressed in the books of the +saints.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>Paolo Lomazzo, <cite>Trattato dell’ Arte delle Pittura</cite>, Milan, 1584, p. 283.</p> + +<p class='c019'>See also Castiglione’s list in Illustrations to Chapter VI, p. 313.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Giorgione—Leonardo on Rural and Pastoral Delights</span></h4> + +<p class='c018'>“What moves thee, O man, to quit thy city habitations and leave +thy friends and kin, and go in places wild by reason of mountains and +valleys, if not the natural beauty of the world, the which, if thou well +considerest, thou enjoyest only through the sense of sight? And if the +poet wishes to call himself also a painter in such matters, why do you +not take such sites as described by the poet and stay at home without +feeling the excessive heat of the sun? And would not this be more useful +and less wearisome since it is done in coolness and without moving about +and risk of illness?</p> + +<p class='c019'>“But the mind cannot enjoy the benefit of the eyes, windows of its +habitation, and cannot receive the varieties of delightful spots, cannot +<span class='pageno' id='Page_386'>386</span>see the shady valleys furrowed by the play of winding streams, cannot +see the various flowers which with their colors make a harmony for the +eye—and so with all the things which can be represented to that eye.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>“But if the painter in the cold and harsh winter time sets before thee +those same places painted, and others, in which thou mayest have experienced +thy pleasures beside some fountain, thou canst see again +thyself as a lover, with thy loved one in blossoming meadows, under the +sweet shadow of verdurous trees—wilt thou not receive quite an other +pleasure than from hearing such an effect described by the poet?”</p> + +<div class='c024'>Leonardo, <cite>Trattato</cite>, Wien, 1882, p. 44.</div> + +<p class='c007'>This is so fully in the mood of Giorgione’s idyllism that one likes to +think that he may have talked over such themes with Leonardo when +they met in Venice in 1500.</p> + +<div id='f_260' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_388'>388</span> +<img src='images/f_260.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 260.</span> Titian. Bacchus and Ariadne.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_389'>389</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter VIII</span></span><br> VENETIAN PAINTING OF THE RENAISSANCE</h2> +</div> +<p class='c011'>Titian before 1545—Some contemporaries, Sebastiano del Piombo, Palma +Vecchio—The advent of Modern Sensitiveness in Lorenzo Lotto—Moretto +of Brescia—Correggio—Titian’s last Manner, its subjectivism +and impressionism—The Portraitist Moroni—Tintoretto and the new +dramatic emotionalism—Paolo Veronese, his spectacular mastery and +impressionism, his characteristic works—Eighteenth Century Venetians: +Tiepolo, Canaletto and Guardi—Longhi.</p> + +<p class='c006'>The glory of Venetian painting is to an unusual degree that +of a single individual, Titian<a id='r78'></a><a href='#f78' class='c012'><sup>[78]</sup></a> of Cadore. He lived nearly +a hundred years, from 1477 to 1576, and we can trace his painting +for more than seventy years of serene and unbroken progress. +He had great contemporaries—Sebastiano del Piombo, +Palma Vecchio, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Lorenzo Lotto, +Moroni, Moretto of Brescia—but so various and comprehensive +is his achievement that their work seems merely so many +extensions of the paths first explored by him. In his noble +and measured sensuousness, he seems nearer the Greeks than +any other Italian painter.</p> + +<p class='c007'>If he is something less than admirable as a character, it is +because of an unpleasantly calculating side. He schemed +ruthlessly for preferment and lucrative sinecures, had the +repute of envying young artists of talent, flattered to the limit +his Hapsburg patrons, bargained and begged concerning prices, +let himself be puffed egregiously by his blackguard friend, +Pietro Aretino, first and most formidable of yellow journalists. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_390'>390</span>Yet this element of craft in the man was eminently Venetian. +They schemed for splendor and pleasure, and measured even +their indulgences. Thus we should not expect lyrical raptures +or extremes of any sort in Titian. His art is one of judgment +and moderation. Indeed that calculating spirit which makes +him unamiable as a man was a source of strength to +him as an artist. One of his pupils, Palma Giovine, has described +his manner of working. First he laid in his pictures +heavily in neutral tones. Then he turned them to the wall for +months to dry. Then he would pass from one to the other, +scrutinizing each “as if it were his worst enemy.” He would +add color, amend drawing and composition, thus systematically +carrying many pictures forward at a time, and subjecting each +to repeated criticism and correction. He never painted a figure +at one go, saying that “he who improvises his song never +achieves learned verses or well turned.” Precisely the greatness +of Titian lay in his capacity to put ardor into these prolonged +critical processes. Thus if certain raptures are denied +him, he is never below himself, but always as noble in sentiment +as he is resplendent in color.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Tiziano Vecellio was born at Cadore, in the Dolomites, in +1477.<a id='r79'></a><a href='#f79' class='c012'><sup>[79]</sup></a> Its shadowy oaks and blue alps live in his backgrounds. +At eleven he was put with a mosaic worker, Zuccati, at Venice. +He may have worked for a time with Gentile Bellini, but attained +his real development in the studio of Giovanni Bellini, +under the stimulus of his fellow pupil, Giorgione. This intimate +and poetical phase of Titian’s genius lasts from before +1505 to 1516 and the Assumption.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His second period is that of fullest color and vitality. It +runs from 1517 to say 1536, Titian’s fortieth to fifty-ninth +year, and the characteristic works are the monumental altar-pieces +at Venice and the Mythologies painted for the Este +family at Ferrara.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The third period extends from about 1537 to 1548. It is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_391'>391</span>marked by deeper resonances of color that is tending towards +tone, and by a more objective and static ideal. Energy is no +longer squandered, and intimate poetry is not sought. Typical +works are those mythologies and portraits done for the Duke +of Urbino, and the early Hapsburg portraits.</p> + +<div id='f_261' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_261.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 261.</span> Titian. Portrait so-called “Ariosto.”—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_262' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_262.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 262.</span> Titian. Portrait of a Youth.—<em>Temple Newsham, England.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The fourth period begins with 1548 or a little earlier, Titian’s +seventieth year, and lasts nearly thirty years till his death. +A looser and more synthetic construction, the substitution of +broken shades and tone for frank color, a more tragic and ardent +mood, a more energetic grandeur of composition, with lesser +formality, are the marks of this amazing last phase, in which +Titian becomes a precursor of Rembrandt and Velasquez. +Since he now works chiefly for the Hapsburgs, the great examples +are at Madrid and Vienna.</p> + +<div id='f_263' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_392'>392</span> +<img src='images/f_263.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 263.</span> Titian. The Tribute Money.—<em>Dresden.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The earliest Titians show the sultry shadows of Giorgione, +and are distinguishable from his work only by a more linear +quality, and by a greater explicitness of mood. Titian’s poetry +is direct and rarely ambiguous. What ardors of flesh and spirit +are suggested in his early portraits of men! The portrait of +a bearded man in London, Figure <a href='#f_261'>261</a>, is conceived entirely +in Giorgione’s fashion, as a short bust showing the hands, and +the mysterious envelopment in warm shadow is Giorgione’s +as is the sensitiveness of touch +and characterization. But with +all his gentle beauty, the man is +formidable. His aloofness is no +revery, but some preparation of +will for action. Again Giorgione +would hardly have labored to +suggest the material splendor of +the silvery satin sleeve. Even +more perfect is the half-length +of a young patrician at Temple +Newsham, Figure <a href='#f_262'>262</a>, England. +It is full of a reserved poetry, +yet the effect is as well almost +shrewd and diplomatic. This +youth has the Venetian capacity +for both passion and affairs. Both these portraits should be +a little earlier than 1510. Such masterpieces of smouldering +ardor as the Knight of Malta, erroneously ascribed to +Giorgione and the Man with a Glove, at Paris, must be a +little later. In concentration these are as fine as Giorgione’s +portraits, but quite a different spirit transpires from the +investing shadows. These men of Titian are no day-dreamers, +but resolute and purposeful. They live little in memory and +much in prospect. Their imagination implies action and +possession. Even the drawing is more resolute. Study the eye +sockets, temples, and cheek bones of these early Titians. +Nowhere in Giorgione do you get such a sense of inner bony +structure, of thicker and thinner cushions of flesh, of tenser or +slacker skin. The method finds its most admirable expression +in the two marvellous heads of the Tribute Money (1514–5), +<span class='pageno' id='Page_393'>393</span>at Dresden, Figure <a href='#f_263'>263</a>. Yet how little mystery or pathos is +invoked. With a gesture and an expression of exquisite +consideration and breeding, the Saviour baffles the most eager +and fanatical of inquisitors. Nothing could be more unlike +the abstracted and almost morose Christs of Giorgione. +As usual, Titian stands on the ground of the finest worldliness, +as the Greeks had done. With the supernal, whether in heaven +or Arcadia, he has little concern.</p> + +<div id='f_264' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_264.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 264.</span> Titian. The Three Ages.—<em>Bridgewater House, London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the early poesies Titian at once manifests his adoration of +Giorgione and his own independence. In the Three Ages, +Figure <a href='#f_264'>264</a>, at Bridgewater House we may grasp at its highest +beauty his robust Arcadianism. In a meadow landscape an +ardent nymph woos her bronzed swain. Complacently he +accepts her unreserved advances. Nothing could be more +explicit than the relation between the lovers, and with +equal plainness an old man and sleeping child serve to +teach us that youth and its sweetest ardors are but a brief +pause between childhood and old age. Let us then seize +the moments when nature and love are kind to us. Such +is the forthright poetry of Titian. It is the poetry of every +<span class='pageno' id='Page_394'>394</span>boy and every girl—simple, classic, unchangeable. Think +of the overtones and personal interpretations with which +Giorgione would have overlaid such a theme. Such twilight +mysteries are alien to Titian’s fervent and lucid spirit. He +loves the morning hour with work and love ahead, as +Giorgione loves the veiling glamour and brooding memories +of eventide.</p> + +<div id='f_265' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_265.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 265.</span> Titian. “Sacred and Profane Love.”—<em>Borghese, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The Three Ages was probably painted about 1512, the far +more famous poesy, misnamed Sacred and Profane Love, Figure +<a href='#f_265'>265</a>, is two or three years later. The sumptuous variety +and richness of Titian are here at their height. Luminous +marbles, pearly nude forms, lustrous stuffs, dark shimmer of +foliage and sun-swept slopes of grass seem created merely to +set off their respective beauties of hue and texture. Purples, +azure, rose, saturated greens form a sonorous chord of colors +which is so satisfying that one scarcely asks why a Cupid stirs +the waters of a magic fountain, and why a splendidly clothed +figure sits tranquilly at the side while a superb nude figure +turns impulsively and holds aloft a burning lamp.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Explanations of the fable abound. It is Venus persuading +Helen to harken to Paris, or Medea to aid Jason. So the +Germans. I am sure only that if we knew the meaning it +would be quite as simple as these explanations. My friend, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_395'>395</span>the late William P. Andrews, suggested that we have a lovely +symbolism for the inquietude of maidenhood and the composure +of matronhood—love in prospect and retrospect. +The universality of the interpretation is in its favor. Titian’s +mind worked socially and concretely. +Plainly the nude figure +is reminiscent of Giorgione’s listless +beauty by the fountain in +the Pastoral Concert, Figure <a href='#f_257'>257</a>. +Titian’s maiden lacks something +of the momentary grace and +spontaneity of her model, but +has in compensation a fuller +grandeur.</p> + +<div id='f_266' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_266.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 266.</span> Titian. Flora.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps the ideal portrait of +Flora (1515–16), in the Pitti, +Figure <a href='#f_266'>266</a>, should be reckoned +with the poesies rather than +with portraits. In material beauty few Titians excel it. The +curded whites of the drapery vie with the flushed ivory of face +and bosom. The sweetness of the impression is almost awe-inspiring. +What a world it is that thrusts forth carelessly such +beauty as this! Think of Giorgione’s quite similar Shepherd +with the Pipe, Figure <a href='#f_259'>259</a>, and imagine again the twilight +mystery with which he would have invested this apparition. +Titian on the contrary thinks and feels like every man, but +with an intensity and clearness quite his own. The lyrical +and subjective note is incidental and superficial in him even +when he most seems to resemble his lost comrade.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Titian’s progress in composition is best noted in the religious +pieces. From the first he seeks to break up the old inert +symmetries. He invents active balances, brings the main +thrusts to the sides of the pictures rather than to the centre. +Thus even his Conversation Pieces gain implications of action +<span class='pageno' id='Page_396'>396</span>and energy. In the altar-piece of St. Peter with Donors, at +Antwerp, perhaps as early as 1502, and still somewhat in +Bellini’s style, we find the enthroned figure moved to the side +and the accessory figures arranged in a processional approach. +The somewhat later altar-piece +of St. Mark at the Salute, +painted probably in 1504, Figure +<a href='#f_267'>267</a>, again evades the old central +symmetries. The Saint is enthroned +off centre and his position +gains great energy and +novelty from its elevation and +consequent foreshortening. The +four plague saints keep the old +symmetry, their types are partly +from Bellini (the St. Sebastian), +partly from nature. The structure +in glowing shadow is that of +Giorgione. We trace the same +evasion of old symmetries and +the same Giorgionesque fire in +the Baptism of Christ, in the Capitoline at Rome, and Christ +and Mary Magdalen, at London. Such pictures with their +slightly conscious emphasis prepare the way for the more +assured and sonorous harmonies of the great altar-backs of +the ’20s.</p> + +<div id='f_267' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_267.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 267.</span> Titian. St. Mark with Plague Saints.—<em>Salute.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The Madonnas and Conversation pieces again show us most +vividly how his taste is working. The Gipsy Madonna, Figure +<a href='#f_268'>268</a>, at Vienna, painted about 1505, is highly Giorgionesque, +but Giorgione never painted such sculptural forms, nor ever +conceived so resolute a Christchild. Even the throwing of the +outlet to one side reveals Titian. At Madrid and Vienna are +superb half-length Madonnas arranged symmetrically after +Bellini’s fashion, but with greater freedom of pose. Titian +<span class='pageno' id='Page_397'>397</span>soon saw that the old compositional forms could not express +the new energy. He makes repeated experiments, shifts the +Madonna to one side, as in the unfinished Madonna with St. +Anthony at Florence. He adds figures and rearranges them +until the Conversation piece becomes an audience, with the +saints and donors approaching the Madonna, as in an Adoration +of the Magi. We find the completed form in the +admirable Conversation piece, of about 1510 with its two versions +in the Louvre and at Vienna, Figure <a href='#f_269'>269</a>; and considerably +later, a further development in those numerous full-length +Holy Families in landscapes of which the Madonna of +the Hare (1530), Figure <a href='#f_270'>270</a>, and The Marriage of St. Catherine, +at London, are consummate types. And with all the +conscious experimentalism of this work, the sense of character +and of beauty is unperturbed. As compared with the contemporary Holy Families of Raphael, the accent is more individual +and local. These superb Madonnas and gracious +female saints with attendant martyrs and church doctors, +are merely the lads and lasses of Carpaccio’s legends, grown +up to manhood and womanhood, increased in dignity and +sweetness.</p> + +<div id='f_268' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_268.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 268.</span> Titian. Gipsy Madonna.—<em>Vienna.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_269' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_398'>398</span> +<img src='images/f_269.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 269.</span> Titian. Madonna with Saints.—<em>Vienna.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Until the death of Giovanni Bellini, in 1515, Titian seems a +little hampered by his example as by that of Giorgione. Then, +as if relieved of a restraint, Titian pursues his own aims. His +design, in such great altar-backs as the Assumption and the +Madonna of the Pesaro family, doubles its breadth and energy. +His mythologies, in the bacchanals for the Alabaster Chamber +of Alphonso d’Este, at Ferrara, are no longer pensive lyrics, +but dithyrambs; primordial lyrics, for animation and power. +The religious pictures, such as the noble Entombment in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_399'>399</span>Louvre, are no longer insistently pathetic. Subjective poetry +is everywhere giving way to masculine assertion of the splendor +of love, motherhood, comradeship. And these great objective +commonplaces, which were the very staple in their +day of Greek Epic and Sculpture, receive in Titian their finest +modern embodiment. His new energy requires a changed +color. All the hues are brighter and more resonant. Their +harmonies no longer require the bond of deep shadow, but are +positive and established at the middle of the color scale, where +color is most itself. If the music of Giorgione was that of +vibrating lute strings, that of Titian has the clarity and clangor +of exquisitely harmonized woodwind and brass.</p> + +<div id='f_270' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_270.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 270.</span> Titian. Holy Family with Rabbit.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Before sounding this new music, Titian prudently secured +the sinecure, a Commissionership of the Salt Taxes, which old +Giovanni Bellini had enjoyed. While scheming for it, he was +designing also the most famous of his great altar-pieces, the +Assumption, Figure <a href='#f_271'>271</a>. It was finished in 1518, set on the +high altar of the Friar’s Church, whither it has lately returned. +Titian adopts a form of composition which Fra Bartolommeo +<span class='pageno' id='Page_400'>400</span>and Raphael had employed. The upper celestial tier is symmetrically +arranged, almost in a domical way, the lower tier +abounds in swinging turns and gestures, one carefully balancing +the others. The forms are large and athletic, such as the Renaissance +preferred, for greater gravity. Their weight is compensated +by the ease with which they hold themselves and by +the numerous floating and falling cherubs, playfully at home in +their clouds, like so many celestial rose leaves for the crispness +and lightness with which Titian’s brush has touched them in.</p> + +<div id='f_271' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_271.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 271.</span> Titian. The Assumption.—<em>S. M. dei Frari.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_272' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_272.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 272.</span> Titian. Pesaro Madonna.—<em>Frari.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>An over-spiritual observer might ask, Why are the Apostles +so jubilant at losing their beloved Mistress? Only a little +earlier, Giovanni Bellini, who painted the theme for San Pietro +Martire at Murano, invested his witnesses with pathos, silence, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_401'>401</span>wonder and awe. In comparison Titian is obvious, and barely +reverent. He thinks of nothing but that this is Mary’s moment +of highest glory, so of course her friends cheer boisterously as +they wave her off heavenwards. Titian’s mind does not work +in half tones of sensibility, yet he is honestly religious in his +own way. The Lord’s people are good enough for him, and he +likes them not in the hush of devotion but in the expansive +moments of action. The attitude is operatic. Choruses have +no business with overtones, all voices shall be <i><span lang="it">robusto</span></i>. What +infallible taste he shows along these simple lines! There is no +smallness, no mere floridness of utterance, no hint of over-emphasis. +Such art is the despair of the modern artist. He +cannot feel so simply. The great enduring commonplaces +are denied to his more complicated genius.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps Titian is even more himself in the Madonna of the +Pesaro Family, Figure <a href='#f_272'>272</a>, which was in hand from 1519 to +1526. For animation he sets the throne of Mary to the right, +and carries splendid columns back in depth. He gives to every +gesture of saint or donor a balancing relation to the gracious +curve of the body of the Queen of Heaven. He renews the +Giorgionesque mystery in the portraits of children, adds +picturesque accessories of armor, velvet, and silken banner. +The picture is as rich as it is logical and monumental, as varied +in character as it is unified in mood. It is only by chance that +it stands almost over Titian’s tomb, and yet it would have been +hard to find a picture that better represents both his more +intimate and his more objective perfections. Even such +masterpieces as the Madonna with six Saints in the Vatican +(1523), and the lost Slaying of Saint Peter Martyr (before 1530), +which enjoyed three centuries of praise, seem a little set and +over-reasonable in comparison.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Alphonso d’Este’s Alabaster Chamber at Ferrara represented +the high point of mythological poesy for the Full Renaissance, +as Castello with its Signorelli and Botticellis marked a similar +<span class='pageno' id='Page_402'>402</span>culmination for the Early Renaissance. It is lamentable that +we see these essential expressions of two great moments torn +from their context and relegated to the promiscuity of museums. +Yet the scattered poesies from the Alabaster Chamber remain a +delight, at London, Madrid, and Philadelphia, and give us the +truest impression of the pagan greatness of Titian in his maturity. +For this series old Giovanni Bellini, in 1514, painted a +sylvan Feast of the Gods, Figure <a href='#f_242'>242</a>. Titian, succeeding to +the work, freely repainted the landscape, to harmonize it +with his own poesies. Two years later Titian set up The +Worship of Venus, now in the Prado. Before the white +image of the goddess the shadowy lawn swarms with winged +loves. They frolic, dally, pluck apples shaken down by +their mates from the trees above. The strong little bodies +glow delicately like the inside of a great shell. A rhythm of +joyous life runs through the picture. In due course Rubens, +Boucher and Fragonard will fill earth and air with tumbling +Cupids like these, but will hardly recapture the spontaneous +ecstasy of this scene. It is baffling to learn that its origins are +academic—from the imaginary gallery of the Alexandrian +philosopher, Philostratus. Again a two year interval, for Titian +ever declined to be hurried, and, in 1520, the Bacchanal, or +Bacchus among the Andrians, was ready. About the lolling +figures of two clothed nymphs, the sleek brown bodies of +nude sylvans bend in grand gestures as they pour the wine. +At the left Bacchus in professional aloofness goes about +the serious business of emptying a flagon. At the right is +flung the relaxed body of a nymph overcome by sleep and wine. +Her splendid nudity shines forth in competition with a soaring +afternoon cloud, while behind her a lightly draped shepherd +dances with his lass. The orgy is swept by the clean breeze +and dappled with sunlight—purifying elements. We have +not intoxication in the gross sense, but the Greek notion of an +elemental Bacchic inspiration.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_403'>403</span>The decoration was triumphantly completed in 1523 with the +Bacchus and Ariadne, Figure <a href='#f_260'>260</a>, now in the National Gallery. +The noisy train of the god of wine sweeps into the picture +oblivious of the heroine. As the leopards swing the car along +the strand, the God flings himself rapturously towards the form +of startled Ariadne, who with a grand, hesitating gesture +turns her head and body away while her legs and feet still +bear her towards her wooer. The thing sparkles with wine-red +and azure, tingles electrically with passion, gives forth a +clamor which is also a harmony. Its exuberance is well contained +in noble compositional forms. The passionate yet +disciplined soul of Titian approaching fifty is fully expressed +in this marvellous work.</p> + +<div id='f_273' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_273.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 273.</span> Titian. The Entombment.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Passing to the religious pictures once more, the Entombment, +Figure <a href='#f_273'>273</a>, now in the Louvre, which was painted for the +Gonzagas about 1525, is again a masterpiece of unaffected feeling +and of finest disposition of masses. The central group looms +against the sky with the grandeur of a great dome. Whoever +<span class='pageno' id='Page_404'>404</span>has seen strong men caring for the dead or stricken will realize +the reserve and nobility of acts which are expressions of sympathies +too deep for words. I saw things like that at the +Messina earthquake. Equally fine and restrained is the protective +attitude of the Magdalen towards a Mary stark and +mute with grief. Magnificent is the contrast of the grand +nude forms of the dead Christ, with the rich stuffs in which the +attendants are clothed. I imagine when Titian conceived this +simple elegy with such power and pathos he may have had +scornful reference to Raphael’s distorted and sensational version +of the same theme, Figure <a href='#f_186'>186</a>. And perhaps the æsthetic +lesson of the picture is that choice feeling is far more difficult +of attainment than fine painting.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1533, Titian, by command, met the Emperor Charles V +at Augsburg, was promptly made a knight and later a count +palatine. From now on he was much employed by the Emperor +and his son Philip. With that relationship a change begins to +come over his art. He becomes less exuberant, more official +and objective. Titian at sixty has said almost every possible +thing on his own account, and is content for a space to be +observer and recorder of the stately world about him. We +have descriptions of him at this time, maintaining a princely +hospitality in his palace, and declining to share the dissipations +which he willingly provided for such loose-living friends as +Francesco Sansovino and Pietro Aretino.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He strangely depoetizes himself. The change comes somewhere +about 1536, and a notable evidence of it is in the portrait +of a lady in peacock blue velvet, in the Pitti. Posterity has +agreed to call her simply La Bella, and so impersonal a +style well befits her impassive beauty. Materially Titian +has never painted more exquisitely, but it has become a +painting of surfaces. The appeal is vague, general, social, +there are no personal intimations, merely a magnificent +statement of entirely obvious perfections.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_405'>405</span>Again Titian is content to be the mere painter in the so-called +Venus of Urbino, Figure <a href='#f_274'>274</a>. It was painted about +1538, and is in the Uffizi. Evidently the sleeping Venus of +Giorgione is in Titian’s mind, but what a loss in awaking her! +Titian sees the gracious forms for what they are of nacreous +light and rosy shadow, he sees the room for what it is in distribution +of curtained interior and alcove space irradiated by +morning light. He studies curiously the delicate nuances of +bluer sheet and creamier skin, he models out the slender body +with faintest investment of almost imperceptible shadow. In +short, he is just a painter, but what a painter he is!</p> + +<div id='f_274' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_274.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 274.</span> Titian. Venus of Urbino.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>About the same time he did the official portraits of Eleonora +and Federigo Gonzaga. He treats them as grandees. They +are imposing, almost pompous, every inch the prince and +princess. He sees with a courtier’s eye, and gives to official +portraiture that impersonal cast which it has since only too +faithfully retained. He revives the great traditions of Venetian +<span class='pageno' id='Page_406'>406</span>narrative painting. The great wall painting, in the Ducal +Palace, of the Imperial Victory at Cadore has perished. Old +copies and engravings tell us of its energy, picturesqueness and +panoramic breadth. Fortunately the great mural canvas, +finished in 1538 and representing Mary entering the Temple, +is still in its place; for the old School of the Carità has become +the Academy. In this picture Titian realizes all that the +Veronese and Venetian painters from Altichiero down had +sought for. Like his predecessors, he is chiefly spectacular, +subordinating character, but he attains a monumental breadth +which they never remotely glimpsed. The scheme is worked +out in magnificent oblongs varied by triangular forms which +repeat the motive of the steps. The chief narrative motives, +the childish determination of the Virgin, the gracious expectancy +of the high priest, the admiration of the women below, +hold their own amazingly in the vast space. The surface sings +with color. The painting was affixed to the wall in 1538, fully +ten years before Paolo Veronese had made this sort of pageantry +his special domain.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Almost as dispassionate is the great canvas, depicting Christ +before the People (1543), at Vienna. It becomes less an +expression of the submission of Christ than an exaltation of +the Imperial power that has him in charge and of the mob +spirit that cries for his blood. The architectural surroundings +are magnificent. There are wonderful details, as in the howling +boy at the left and the white form of a girl caught in the throng. +Her sudden apparition as an element of relief and mystery +anticipates by nearly a century a similar device in Rembrandt’s +Night Watch.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Very characteristic in its patrician decorum is The Disciples +at Emmaus, in the Louvre, Figure <a href='#f_275'>275</a>, which was painted +about 1545. Here there is no intensity in the moment of +surprise and revelation. Benignly the Christ breaks bread; +reverently and without excitement the disciples give him his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_407'>407</span>due worship. All the homeliness and surprise that are in St. +Luke’s narrative, and that Rembrandt later emphasized, have +been leveled out in the interest of discretion and nobility. +The disciples show no more enthusiasm than a Venetian dignitary +and prelate should.</p> + +<div id='f_275' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_275.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 275.</span> The Supper at Emmaus.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Two portraits which were both painted within the year +1545 show Titian at the parting of the ways. The Aretino, +in the Pitti Palace, the even finer sketch being in the Frick +Collection, New York, Figure <a href='#f_276'>276</a>, reveals the truculent and +sensual man of letters in all his formidable massiveness. The +satin and velvets in which he is clad are painted lightly but +with fullest regard for their textures and material beauty. Titian +liked Aretino and had profited by his bitter and venal pen. So +without emphasizing Aretino’s effrontery and brutality Titian +brings out his resolute intelligence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the portraits of Paul III, Figure <a href='#f_277'>277</a>, especially in that +scene where the decrepit Pope muses craftily between two +smooth flatterers and traitors, his own kinsmen, the sinister +<span class='pageno' id='Page_408'>408</span>air seems filled with contesting wills. A veil of atmosphere +interposes itself before the figures. The touch is light, contrasts +are evaded, materials count for very little, there is no +copying of rich surfaces. Even the color is reduced to tones +of gray merely warmed with reds or cooled with blues.</p> + +<div id='f_276' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_276.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 276.</span> Titian. Pietro Aretino.—<em>Frick Coll., N. Y.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_277' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_277.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 277.</span> Titian. Paul III and his Nephews.—<em>Naples.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In its tremulous psychology, in its reticence, in its substitute +of richly broken monochrome for a gamut of real color, this +picture is a kind of negation of everything Titian had attained. +His remaining thirty years were given to ideals which are no +longer bounded by the Venetian lagoon, but are as broad +perhaps and indeterminate as the modern imagination itself. +Before exploring this mystery of Titian’s renovation of his +art at seventy, and since his Venetian style has closed, we may +do well to consider some of his contemporaries at Venice and in +Lombardy.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sebastiano del Piombo<a id='r80'></a><a href='#f80' class='c012'><sup>[80]</sup></a> was born at Venice in 1487, and like +most of his generation emulated the smouldering harmonies of +Giorgione. He paints such admirable portraits as the so-called +Fornarina, at Florence, which long passed for a Raphael. He +soon passes from the lyrism of Giorgione to a dramatic mode +<span class='pageno' id='Page_409'>409</span>quite his own. He was called to Rome, made keeper of the +Papal Seal, became an executant of Michelangelo’s designs, +and thus indulged a losing rivalry with Raphael. He commands +a heavy dignity in his male portraits, and in his various +pictures of the Dead Christ and Mary, attains a robust and +telling pathos. Down to his death, in 1547, he maintained a +tradition of Giorgionesque color in the alien air of Rome, and +represented something of the gravity of the Venetian Renaissance +in a city rapidly giving itself to sensationalism.</p> + +<div id='f_278' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_278.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 278.</span> Palma Vecchio. Adoration of the Shepherds.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Palma Vecchio<a id='r81'></a><a href='#f81' class='c012'><sup>[81]</sup></a> is a more considerable figure. Born at +Serinalta amid the Bergamesque hills, in 1480, we find him at +Venice, by 1505 among the pupils of Giovanni Bellini. Like +the rest, he is touched by Giogione’s poetry, but on the whole +he merely intensifies and refines upon simpler methods. He +follows Titian in the conversation piece, and does many Arcadian +Holy Families which are beautifully lighted, radiantly +colored and felt with a warmth and simplicity that just misses +sentimentality. Among the best is the Adoration of the +Shepherds, Figure <a href='#f_278'>278</a>, in the Louvre.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_410'>410</span>With Titian, he loves women of generous build and he sets +off their impressive charms by careful posing, employing all +the new devices of counterpoise. One may see him at his +grandest in the altar-piece of St. Barbara, +Figure <a href='#f_279'>279</a>, painted after 1561. The saint is +worthy to be the patroness of artillerymen. +She holds her martyr’s palm like a field +marshal’s baton, she is imperiously confident +and yet gentle—a lovely Amazon of the +Christian pantheon.</p> + +<div id='f_279' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_279.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 279.</span> Palma Vecchio.—<em>S.M. Formosa.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In the Arcadian nude Palma has delicacy +and refinement of workmanship, but the +mood is obvious. For him beauty is literally +skin deep, and he gives himself to the impossible +competition of paint with nature’s +nacreous shades and ineffable carnations. +But he so nearly succeeds that just as a +painter of lovely surfaces no Venetian painter +quite equalled him, not even Titian, and with +this single talent Palma almost made himself a great portraitist. +Indeed if painting surfaces were all of portraiture, he +would be the greatest portraitist of the Renaissance. But his +big, blond models lose condition in his hands. Charming as is +such a group as the Three Graces at Dresden, or the dozen or +more single portraits of men and women, they lack the last +quality of distinction. He tries to gain it by adopting rather +overtly the pathos and wistfulness of Giorgione, but it doesn’t +suit his exquisitely groomed cavaliers nor yet their even more +exquisitely groomed and most ample light o’loves. Indeed, +despite a handful of superb portraits, Palma has ever the air +rather of a consummate beauty doctor than that of a great +artist. However that be, his influence was widespread +throughout Northern Italy, and especially around his native +Bergamo. He died in 1528, leaving a Veronese pupil, Bonifazio, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_411'>411</span>to complete his unfinished canvases and to carry on to +the middle of the century his brilliant and gentle style. Within +his narrow range Palma is admirable, never uneasy, never +below himself. In his unperturbed Arcadianism and even in +his harmless sentimentalism, in his delicacy and robustness, +he seems more Venetian than the Venetians themselves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Composure is the very soul of the grand style whether in +fifth century Athens or in sixteenth century Florence, Rome, +or Venice. It accepts the human spectacle as worthy and +thrilling, admires without misgivings the best things that +come before its eye. That is why radicals hate the grand +style—and rightly, for it is always aristocratic, caring rather +little for the average man and much for that privileged remnant +which lives in highest bodily efficiency and mental ease. The +grand style is on the side of what Matthew Arnold called the +barbaric virtues of wealth, health, and generous living. The +moment the artist begins to question the social order, to be +curious about the foibles and fates of individuals as such, the +grand style is in peril. This delicate and inquisitive sensibility +makes its appearance in Italy not long after the death of +Raphael. You will find it in Pontormo, at Florence, in Lorenzo +Lotto, in the Venetic region, in Moretto of Brescia, above all +in Correggio, more assertively in Tintoretto, and latent in +Titian’s last phase. It is a tremor on the sea of history that +heralds a new dawn.</p> + +<div id='f_280' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_412'>412</span> +<img src='images/f_280.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 280.</span> Lorenzo Lotto. Adoration of the Shepherds.—<em>Brescia.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Lorenzo Lotto,<a id='r82'></a><a href='#f82' class='c012'><sup>[82]</sup></a> born at Treviso in 1480, first and most +characteristically embodies the new intimacy. He worked +widely through Lombardy and the Marches, enjoying a transitory +vogue at Venice. Trained in the austere methods of +Alvise Vivarini, he soon gave himself to his own native melancholy. +One may see his qualities and defects in the great +Enthroned Madonna, in San Bartolommeo at Bergamo. Mr. +Berenson has well remarked that the saints are no longer demi-gods +and objects of worship, but “pious souls in whose faces +and gestures we discern the zeal, the fervor, the yearning, the +reverie, or even the sentimental ecstacy peculiar to the several +temperaments most frequently occurring among the children +of Holy Mother Church.” Note too how the stately architecture +derived from Giovanni Bellini and the crowded figure +group mutually dwarf one another. Intimacy and monumentality +do not live well together. This picture was finished +in 1516, the year that Titian began the Assumption. Does not +the contrast show Lotto an alien in his time and a harbinger +of ours? In later pictures of less monumental pretensions,—as +in a Nativity, Figure <a href='#f_280'>280</a>, at Brescia, which may profitably +be contrasted with Palma’s more assured version,—he attains +a penetrating beauty of a morbid kind, and his sensitiveness +makes him a most appealing portraitist. He has left an extraordinary +<span class='pageno' id='Page_413'>413</span>gallery of shy, inadequate, sometimes morose and +invalid men, and women, Figure <a href='#f_281'>281</a>. They have not the confidence +of the Renaissance, but hesitations like our own. +Which shows perhaps that the Renaissance mood was ever +urban and the affair of a minority of statesmen, merchants +and humanists. In the little cities where there was no enlightened +court the human spirit retained and betrayed its +immemorial frailties and misgivings. Lotto died in 1556, having +widely diffused his sensitive art through the Marca and Lombardy.</p> + +<div id='f_281' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_281.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 281.</span> Lorenzo Lotto. The Marriage Yoke.—<em>Madrid.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_282' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_414'>414</span> +<img src='images/f_282.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 282.</span> Moretto of Brescia. Madonna with St. Nicholas.—<em>Brescia.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_283' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_283.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 283.</span> Correggio. Detail of Ceiling.—<em>Convent of S. Paolo, Parma.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It is significantly the provincial painters and not the born +Venetians who indulge these quite feminine refinements of +sensibility. Such a one is Moretto of Brescia, born in 1498 and +active until 1555. Although closely in touch with Palma and +Titian, he avoids their positive color and dreams his pictures +in delicate harmonies of silver and blue. There is a morning +coolness about them which anticipates certain perfections of +early Velasquez and even of the +figure painting of Corot. He is +a distinguished spirit but an +anomaly in the age of Aretino. +Milton would have understood +him. In portraiture, as in the +richly clad nobleman of the +National Gallery, he forces the +note of picturesqueness to restlessness. +In such religious pictures +as the Madonna in Glory, +(1540), in San Giorgio Maggiore, +at Verona, or in the Madonna +with St. Nicholas, at +Brescia, (1539), Figure <a href='#f_282'>282</a>, he +shows an ecstatic lyrical feeling, and finds the free and florid +compositional forms to express it. It has an informality +<span class='pageno' id='Page_415'>415</span>which Titian would never have permitted himself at this +moment.</p> + +<div id='f_284' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_284.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 284.</span> Correggio. St. Augustine. Fresco. Toschi’s Copy.—<em>Cathedral, Parma.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of course the greatest of those who in the name of sentiment +undermined the grand style was +Antonio Correggio,<a id='r83'></a><a href='#f83' class='c012'><sup>[83]</sup></a> a provincial +painter, a disappointed and unsuccessful +man, who lived out +his less than fifty short years +(1489?–1534) in or near Parma. +His ideas he took from Mantegna, +master of all Northern +Italy, whose illusionism he carried +a point further. He made +in 1518 for the ceiling of the +reception room of the Convent +of San Paolo, Figure <a href='#f_283'>283</a>, a +trellis through the verdurous +ovals of which one sees pairs of +nude boy geniuses at play. He +paints away the domes of the Church of San Giovanni (1524) +and of the Cathedral (1530), shows us Christ or His +Mother soaring into the clouds with hosts of accompanying +angels. He brings the clouds down through the painted wall +and sets them before the pendentives. Church Doctors, Figure +<a href='#f_284'>284</a>, or Evangelists ride their cloud-thrones easily in the +company of the fairest nude angels of either sex. The painting +fairly annuls the architecture. These decorative frescoes are +so vital and so richly various that they demand admiration +and disarm criticism. To walk among the demi-gods and +goddesses that loll on the parapet painted about the Cathedral +dome, Figure <a href='#f_285'>285</a>, is to have known the company of Homer’s +immortals. The impression is over-powering and unforgettable. +Cautious people have always resented such profusion and such +unrestrained assertion of life and joy. At the time they called +<span class='pageno' id='Page_416'>416</span>the dome, with its confusion of wriggling rosy legs of ascending +angels, the “frog pond.” They cavilled at Correggio’s price +and appealed to Titian, who knowing a miracle of fine workmanship, +told them that if they turned the dome over and filled +it with ducats, it would not be too much.</p> + +<div id='f_285' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_285.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 285.</span> Correggio. Detail of fresco decoration of Dome of the Cathedral. After Toschi’s Copy.—<em>Parma.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It was Correggio’s distinction to fill an immense decoration +with lyrical ecstacy. Michelangelo in the ceiling of the Sistine +Chapel had done as much in elegiac vein. Both set a destructive +example to smaller men who followed. For two centuries +after Correggio’s death in 1534 the clouds blew into churches, +and rosy angelic apparitions cooled their nude charms in these +clouds and dangled their delicate legs therefrom, and painters +worked their will upon mere architecture, and the baroque style +took possession of all Catholic Europe. At its best it is captivating +even to an unwilling Protestant imagination, but it +never regained the height of its beginnings in Correggio.</p> + +<div id='f_286' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_417'>417</span> +<img src='images/f_286.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 286.</span> Correggio. “The Day.”—<em>Parma.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_287' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_287.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 287.</span> Correggio. Marriage of St. Catherine.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In his religious pieces and mythologies, Correggio is respectful +to the grand style. He had in one way or another taken +account of his Titian, Raphael, +and Michelangelo, and he builds +his groups in their active symmetries. +But such an allegiance +to the decorous style is merely +superficial, his affinities are with +the following centuries and the +devotees of sensibility. Even in +a grandly composed picture like +the Holy Family called The Day, +Figure <a href='#f_286'>286</a>, the women are disquieting +in their personal loveliness. +There is no relation to +the Parthenon marbles, as there +always seems to be in Titian, no +suggestion of a larger air. These +Maries know love, and raptures +and tears. In the somewhat earlier Marriage of St. Catherine, +Figure <a href='#f_287'>287</a>, at Paris, the mood is simply one of great tenderness. +In later pictures like the +Madonna with St. George and +the Holy Night, at Dresden, the +excitement of all the figures +becomes almost unpleasant. So, +in the mythologies, Leda, or +Danae, or Antiope, Figure <a href='#f_288'>288</a>, +is not goddesslike but perturbingly +feminine and desirable. A +most delicate erotic appeal is in +all this work. It is like Alexandrian +sculpture. It is still +noble, but less so than Titian or +<span class='pageno' id='Page_418'>418</span>Raphael, less abstract and stylistic. The exquisite ambiguity +of the mood is not quite compatible with the compositional +formulas. One feels it is but a step and a legitimate one from +Correggio to the rare, sentimental +nudes of Gainsborough +and Sir Joshua and Romney.</p> + +<div id='f_288' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_288.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 288.</span> Correggio. Jupiter and Antiope.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In every phase Correggio’s +work is distinguishable by the +most beautiful handling of color +and light and dark. Like Moretto +and Lotto he prefers a +blonder scale than the Venetian, +and makes his surfaces +so many miracles of ivory, silvery +grays and straw yellows, +invested with shadow tenuously +modulated, yet of strongest +modelling power. He cares nothing +about textures or individually +rich passages; it is the whole picture that counts. The +brush sweeps lightly and swiftly, there is no loading of color, +everywhere an exquisite economy and a subtlety that conceals +itself. At all points, technically as well as psychologically, +Correggio deals in overtones. And by that token he +is not of the Renaissance, but is greater or smaller than it, as +you may choose to decide. He is more our contemporary than +he is Titian’s.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Meanwhile Titian himself is passing into a subjective phase. +In 1545 he was at Rome. Michelangelo, who offered him unusual +courtesies, doubtless showed him the Sistine ceiling +and the recently finished Last Judgment. Titian, as he +writes himself, studied with humble amazement the “marvellous +<span class='pageno' id='Page_419'>419</span>old stones” that the Roman soil was yielding up to +the newly founded museums.</p> + +<div id='f_289' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_289.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 289.</span> Charles V. at Mühlberg.—<em>Madrid.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Even before the Roman trip, his style begins to show an old +man’s restless vehemence. The titanic ceiling decorations +for the Salute, of 1543 and 1544, Abraham and Isaac, Cain and +Abel, David and Goliath, display +at once an almost sensational +energy and a lesser regard +for the superficial attractions of +color. The rugged designs are +hacked out in bold splotches of +light and dark. The method +begins to be luministic. The +partial foreshortening of the +figures to adjust them to being +seen from below is the decorative +compromise which prevails +at Venice from Tintoretto +to Tiepolo. The new point of +view is easiest studied in Christ crowned with Thorns, in the +Louvre. Titian passes swiftly through this overtly dramatic +stage. The same year, 1548, that saw the Crowning with +Thorns, saw also the equestrian portrait of Charles V, Conqueror, +Figure <a href='#f_289'>289</a>, after the battle of Mühlberg. What is odd +about the picture is the elimination of all military conventions—no +battle reek, no stricken foes, no busy staff. Instead just +the pale, inflexible, thoughtful face of a slight old man, physically +frail but firmly seated on a cantering horse. There is +no frank color except the purple scarf and the gold of armor +and horse trappings. Everything is expressed in marvellous +grays and browns which contain hints of all the colors. There +is no linear drawing; edge melts into edge without abrupt contrasts. +A twilight mystery, a veiled quality, adds immensely +to the expression of melancholy and might. The mere spectacle +<span class='pageno' id='Page_420'>420</span>of life has become relatively uninteresting to Titian. +He rather meditates on those creative throes of the mind which +underlie action. His conqueror is a thinker.</p> + +<div id='f_290' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_290.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 290.</span> Titian. The Rape of Europa.—<em>Mrs. John L. Gardner, Boston.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In Titian’s own portrait, of 1550, at Berlin, the new method +is more strongly announced. The form grows out of a silvery +gloom by reason of hesitating flickers of light which yet have +extraordinary modelling power. In character the work is +remarkable. One senses smouldering under the weathered +surfaces of this man of seventy-three the most formidable +capacities for wrath and for passion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The nudes and mythologies of these final years, the various +Danae’s and the Nymph and Faun at Vienna, the Calisto +and Actæon at Bridgewater House, the Venus and Adonis +at Madrid, all show a very different temper from the early +<span class='pageno' id='Page_421'>421</span>poesies. There is no suggestion of meditative dalliance, no +shy Arcadianism. These are mortals stung and lashed by +desire. Love is not sweet on their lips but bitter and fateful. +Even Europa, Figure <a href='#f_290'>290</a>, at Fenway Court, the finest of these +later poesies, seems to fill the sunlight sky and sea with a +spasm of erotic expectancy. Passion becomes cosmic. Strange +capacities for tenderness also appear. Compare the Deposition +in the Prado, Figure <a href='#f_291'>291</a>, of 1559, with the masterpiece of +forty years earlier, Figure <a href='#f_273'>273</a>, at the Louvre. The noble domelike +arrangement persists, but within the compositional dome +what a change! The body of the Christ is no longer grandly +disposed. It crumples as it is turned into the tomb. The thing +has the unexpectedness of fact. The canvas is soberly incandescent +with half-lit faces which gleam through the deep +grays and browns. Each light is a focus of compassion. +Titian himself, impersonating St. Joseph of Arimathea, supports +the Christ.</p> + +<div id='f_291' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_291.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 291.</span> Titian. The Entombment.—<em>Madrid.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_292' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_422'>422</span> +<img src='images/f_292.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 292.</span> Titian. Education of Cupid.—<em>Borghese, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In one of the latest poesies, the Education of Cupid, Figure +<a href='#f_292'>292</a>, at the Borghese, Rome, the new method may be studied. +The forms are built up of little and apparently indeterminate +touches of russets and grays that glow from within. The form +builds itself out vibratingly. It is no longer as palpable to +the hand as that of the early Titians, but it is more palpable +to the eye and to the mind. Tone has driven out color; atmospheric +envelopment has replaced minute description; the +artist merely creates gradations of light which afford the illusion +of bulk. It is what we call today, rather loosely, impressionism, +or, more accurately, luminism. In the character +of these goddesses we have no longer wistfulness, that ineffable +adolescent quality of Titian’s early poesies, but women +fully conscious of their power to give or take away.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His later pictures, The Crowning with Thorns at Munich +(1570) and the Pietà (1576) in the Venice Academy, are +nobly tragic in mood. Titian faces the last great event not +<span class='pageno' id='Page_423'>423</span>as a humanist, but as a humble believer sorrowing in the +suffering of his Lord. Carried off by the plague in 1576, Titian +had lived nearly a century, for over seventy years had been a +famous painter. In that long course there is no sign of failure +of power. His dominant mood changes according to his age +from the ardent pastoralism of his early maturity, through +the dramatic energy of his middle age, and the impersonal +splendor of his first old age. And when he had passed the +scriptural term, he developed new depths of feeling, and +created to contain them a pulsating realm of light and dark in +twilight. He had begun with the cool preciseness of Giovanni +Bellini and closed with a passionate mystery of expression +which foretells Rembrandt. So far as Venice was concerned, +he not merely led its Renaissance, but was its Renaissance, +both in rise and decay. And it is noteworthy that while +Raphael and Michelangelo end in ostentation of power and decline +of feeling, Titian ends in deeper capacities whether for +passion or sympathy, works away from the daylight realities +of humanism towards new depths in natural appearance and +new depths in his own soul.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Around such a man a throng of able painters naturally +grew up. The poorest imitated him, the better took hints +from his marvellous practice and went their own way. Among +these was Giambattista Moroni of Bergamo, born in 1520 and +trained under Moretto of Brescia. Mediocre as a religious +painter, he was a portraitist of acutest vision for character. +A provincial, he cared little for the idealizations of the time. +In such a portrait as the Tailor, at London, or the amazing +old Abbess in the Metropolitan Museum, or the Husband and +Wife, at Cleveland, or The Widower, at Dublin, Figure <a href='#f_293'>293</a>, +he gives us the very look of people, even to their uneasiness +as they submit to the ordeal of being portrayed, and withal +<span class='pageno' id='Page_424'>424</span>their intelligence, diligence, and patience. Titian, when overdriven +with portrait commissions, habitually referred his clients +to Moroni, as an abler artist in the specialty. And indeed +Moroni, while lacking Titian’s +style, looked harder at his sitters +than Titian ever did. He +died in 1572, four years before +his generous friend.</p> + +<div id='f_293' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_293.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 293.</span> G-B. Moroni. The Widower.—<em>Dublin.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The Bassanos, the father +Jacopo and his sons Leandro +and Francesco, were too popular +to be omitted. Their style is +pretty eclectic with something of +late Titian and Tintoretto in it. +They treat the old religious +themes, are good portraitists, +and carry out on their own initiative +a bucolic sort of painting, +with abundant horses, cattle and dogs. So homely a tradition +has its place in breaking down the decorum of the grand +style. The excellent average of the family in their craft may +be judged from Leandro’s Pietà, at Cleveland.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sometimes over the velvety calm of Venice and the lagoon +will roll up a thunder storm. The radiant color becomes more +sombrely rich under the tossing clouds. Their steely edges +break into the lightning flash; domes and towers for a moment +stagger under the lashing of the rain squall. The storm passes, +the leaden clouds show saffron backs against the blue, the +evening is here with double serenity and purity. Such is +Jacopo Tintoretto amid the reflective tranquility, and confident +splendors of Venetian painting—a wind of the spirit, +a shattering, yet consoling, apparition. Tenderness, tragedy, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_425'>425</span>romance, are his realm. Where his contemporaries dealt in +superb averages, he deals in transcendent exceptions. Thus +he has ever been a baffling figure to the critics. For the febrile +Ruskin, he is among the greatest of painters; for the coolly +analytical Kenyon Cox, he is little better than a reckless sensationalist. +Every one, friend or foe of his art, must admit +its Shakespearean richness and variety. He lacks Titian’s +Olympian poise, but is more universal.</p> + +<div id='f_294' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_294.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 294.</span> Tintoretto. Tithonus and Aurora. Tempera color sketch.—<em>British Museum.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Jacopo Robusti,<a id='r84'></a><a href='#f84' class='c012'><sup>[84]</sup></a> the dyer’s son, was born in Venice in 1518. +At seventeen he was put with Titian. Once passing through +the studio Titian saw on the floor a number of Tintoretto’s +sketches. Not trusting himself to speak, he sent word that +the newcomer should never again enter his studio. An act +which contemporary gossip ascribed to jealousy, is rather to +be referred to disgust at Tintoretto’s unbridled vehemence. +Whoever has studied Tintoretto’s tempera sketches, Figure +<a href='#f_294'>294</a>, in the British Museum may realize how Titian felt. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_426'>426</span>sketches are superb, but Titian in 1535 was in no way to realize +their value. Twenty years later he may have appreciated them.</p> + +<div id='f_295' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_295.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 295.</span> Tintoretto. Presentation of Virgin in the Temple.—<em>S. M. dell’ Orto.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Driven out by the best master in Venice, Tintoretto was +reduced to the process of self-education, in which he was +aided by that brilliant decorative colorist and ever luckless +artist, Andrea Schiavone. Tintoretto’s earliest work of note +is the decoration of his own parish church of the Orto, which +he undertook about the year 1546 for the costs. The gigantic +canvases of the Deluge and Worship of the Golden Calf in the +Choir made his fame, but we see his peculiar quality better in +the Presentation in the Temple, Figure <a href='#f_295'>295</a>. It was finished +only a few years after Titian’s masterpiece in the Scuola della +Carità, hence the contrast between the two works on the same +<span class='pageno' id='Page_427'>427</span>theme is enlightening. Titian’s picture is fundamentally a +spectacle and a ceremony. Everything goes as arranged and +expected. Tintoretto’s picture is a sudden and thrilling event +full of unexpected graces. The little Virgin is well within the +picture, but keeps her prominence through her position against +the sky and even more by reason of the focusing of intense interest +on her by all the persons in the composition. It is a +charming invention that three mothers and their infant +daughters on the steps should share in the glory of her consecration. +At the left a prophetic figure suddenly grasps the import +of the moment and sways with wide stretched arms towards +the hope. From him to the head of the steps rises a +pathetic line of cripples and beggars mercifully veiled in half +light. These are witnesses to the human misery that the Virgin +through her Son is to assuage. The unifying principle, apart +from the fine linear design, is the light which floods out of the +picture over the beautifully carved steps. Everything is conceived +in depth, while Titian’s Presentation is relatively on one +plane. Golden browns and yellows of great luminosity are +prevailing colors, the crimsons and blues serving merely as +relief and accent. With all its richness of illustrative content, +the thing is a noble decoration.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A little later, perhaps in 1548, Tintoretto did the first of +three canvases for the Scuola Grande di San Marco. It represents +the moment when a Christian slave is about to be brained. +The liberating figure of St. Mark, Figure <a href='#f_296'>296</a>, swoops down, +the maul snaps in the executioner’s hand. With a singular +delicacy the entire interest of the bystanders is concentrated +on the helpless white body of the martyr. The suspense is +breathless. Only the old magistrate high at the right has seen +the miraculous breaking of the executioner’s sledge. His +gesture carries the eye to the figure of the downward swooping +saint, thus the most sensational feature is last seen and comes +as a climax. Such dramatic modulations are of the very essence +<span class='pageno' id='Page_428'>428</span>of Tintoretto’s genius. Again, though the sweeping +curves of the linear design are splendidly balanced, the light +is the ultimate harmonizer. It ripples out in an increasing +wave towards the spectator, kindling as it goes the colors of +rich stuffs and the bronzed or pearly roundings of brows, +shoulders, throats and limbs. The carrying of a uniform +rhythm of motion through earth and sky is again Tintoretto’s +invention. He uses it here as elsewhere not as a +sprightly device—which was later the baroque attitude—but +as a necessary factor in emotional expression.</p> + +<div id='f_296' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_296.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 296.</span> Tintoretto. Miracle of the Slave.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In 1561 Tintoretto finished the great Marriage at Cana for +the Salute. The picture is tremendously developed in depth, +and the Christ is set in the distance. The foreground figures +alone are concerned with the miracle. Very effective is the +contrast of the quiet feasters with those who are stirred by +the marvel. The lighting is consummately fine. There are +passages of extreme loveliness, such as the swaying row of +women’s faces on the right of the table, but the whole thing is +far from clear; illustrative and decorative features are imperfectly +<span class='pageno' id='Page_429'>429</span>harmonized. In this great scale Tintoretto’s richness +and insatiate inventiveness tend to work against him.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Before considering his colossal labor in the School of St. +Roch, we should note his avowed ideal. It might be read on +the walls of his studio: “The Drawing of Michelangelo and +the Coloring of Titian.” In the studio were casts of Michelangelo’s +sculptures brought up at great expense from Florence +and Rome. And to Michelangelo we owe the slender and alert +proportions of Tintoretto’s figures, quite different as they are +from the gravity, almost ponderosity of Titian, Palma, and +Paolo Veronese. The color is based on late Titian, but is more +sonorous, simple, and uncomplicated by minor tones. The +brush stroke is unlike anything earlier—sketchy, impetuous, +definitive, working by first intention. Accordingly the surfaces +are much broken, and, to a near view, lack preciousness. +We have neither the fluent enamel of Giorgione and early +Titian, nor yet the muffled richness of Titian’s later manner. +But in the best Tintorettos the touch is infallibly crisp, right +and expressive. To exaggerate these generously avowed influences +of the master who repudiated him and the master +he never saw would be easy. As a matter of fact, Tintoretto +is always more the illustrator than either of his models. If +he adopts the grand poses of Michelangelo, he does so not +for abstract beauty, but ever seeks a motive for them. If +he chooses Michelangelo’s slender, athletic proportions, he invests +them with tenderness and enthusiasm. Unlike Titian, he +avoids both classical draperies and rich contemporary costumes, +choosing compromise forms of dress which, without ceasing +to be classical, should seem familiar, and fit for a real world. +If he adopts Titian’s coruscating light, he gives it a special +poetry. It does not glow evenly through the picture, but +flashes intermittently, as an accent or accompaniment to +emotion.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1560 the famous charitable confraternity of St. Roch +<span class='pageno' id='Page_430'>430</span>determined to decorate their beautiful School. They called +Federico Zuccaro, and Francesco Salviati, who had Roman +honors, Tintoretto, and his friends, Schiavone and Paolo +Veronese. The subject in competition was to be a cartoon of +St. Roch in glory for the ceiling of the refectory. When the +day came, Tintoretto unveiled not a cartoon but the finished +oval. That was his drawing, he said; he hoped they would +not be offended, but he knew no other way. The misunderstandings +due to this summary procedure were soon cleared +up. Tintoretto became titular painter to the School, later +a member, and worked at the two great halls and ante-rooms +for twenty-eight years.</p> + +<p class='c007'>St. Roch was the Physician Saint who cared for the plague +stricken. Thus the upper hall was pictured with examples of +miraculous mercy and deliverance chosen from the Old Testament. +The lower hall was devoted to the more familiar +stories of the life of Christ and of His Mother. Sadly darkened +and neglected, often in impossible light, these pictures baffle +all but the enthusiast. One needs all the vicarious enthusiasm +that may be drawn from a Ruskin to do San Rocco with any +thoroughness. Whoever persists will be rewarded, for while +Tintoretto is by no means at his greatest as a painter in this +work, it reveals his inexhaustible inventiveness, his warmth and +tenderness, and power, as no other series does, whereas it has +in the little moonlit landscapes with St. Mary Magdalen +and St. Mary of Egypt faery refinements elsewhere lacking +in the master.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Everybody knows at least the great Calvary, with its +sense of cosmic disaster. Marvellous is the storm which +sweeps towards the cross from behind, superb alike the +cluster of faithful friends at the foot of the cross and the +proud riders at the flanks. Hate, love and indifference mingle +in the scene. It gets its profound tragedy on terms of fact, +is free from all mystical sentimentality. What was it like on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_431'>431</span>that awful evening? is the only question the artist asks himself, +and his answer, a sheer gift of the imagination, transcends all +the lyrical sweetness and measured solemnity of the ritual +crucifixions. Humanism and religion +unite for once in this masterpiece.</p> + +<div id='f_297' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_297.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 297.</span> Tintoretto. Christ Tempted by Satan.—<em>Scuola di S. Rocco.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Among the scores of narratives +in the two halls the eye will rest +upon Moses Smiting the Rock, +for its majesty; upon the meeting +of Mary and Elizabeth which +has the intensity of Giotto’s +fresco at neighboring Padua, with +an abandon all its own; upon the +Flight into Egypt, with its +idyllic landscape; upon the awful +tumult and despair of the +Massacre of the Innocents; upon +the pathos of the white-robed +Christ, awaiting his doom from +an indifferent proconsul. These +occur among many that are +equally memorable. Perhaps the +subtle humanism of Tintoretto +is best shown in the Temptation +of Christ, Figure <a href='#f_297'>297</a>. Instead of the ignoble bat-like Satan of +the mediæval painters, we have a magnificent starry-eyed +youth, a veritable genius of the pride of life. With outstretched, +generous arms he offers unstinted power and pleasure. +The Christ regards him with tranquil kindness, as one +might a splendid animal fawning too eagerly. For so Christian +a man as Tintoretto, it implies extraordinary sympathy to +imagine a Satan in his own way gloriously sure of his case. +In these compositions the method is most various. But +<span class='pageno' id='Page_432'>432</span>where there are many figures Tintoretto generally avoids +the convention of placing the chief personages on the picture +plane. You look over heads or between bodies to glimpse the +Saints or the Blessed Virgin or Christ. And curiously this +procedure does not confuse the eye. On the contrary these +apparently casual but really most thoughtful arrangements +heighten the sense of reality; one feels like a witness, like +one himself on the edges of the throng.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Along with the decoration of San Rocco, Tintoretto undertook +frequent commissions for the Ducal Palace. But the +fire of 1577 consumed his picture of the naval victory +at Lepanto, with much else. In the mythologies of the Anticollegio +painted in 1578 we have the loveliest poesies of the +Venetian school. These are the Marriage of Bacchus and +Ariadne, Mercury and the Graces, Minerva expelling Mars +and the Forge of Vulcan. From the point of view both +of decoration and sentiment these are perhaps the finest +nudes in painting. They glow with outdoor health, the +firm wholesome bodies sway from sheer joy in motion, or +hover lightly in the limpid air. The noble forms are fixed for +us in transparent shadows, and broad dapplings of light. +There is little of the sheer dreaminess of Giorgione, who yet +counts for something in the work, nor yet of the explicit sensuousness +of Titian. These noble creatures go about our +business,—marrying, seeking grace in life, composing strife, +providing munitions should strife arise. Miss Phillipps is +probably right in divining here an allegory of the greatness of +Venice, bride of the Adriatic, protected by her diplomacy, admired +for her arts, yet ever ready in her arsenals. What is +better worth noting is the combination of breadth and delicacy +in the finest of these poesies, The Marriage of Bacchus +and Ariadne, Figure <a href='#f_298'>298</a>. The interlocking of the superb +forms in a flowing rhythm or pattern, the technical miracle of +Venus’s easy turn in the air as she offers the ring and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_433'>433</span>starry crown, the exquisite alternations of light and half +light others might conceivably have invented. What is proper +to Tintoretto and to him alone is the hesitating hand of +Ariadne and her almost resigned and reluctant acceptance of +a new love, being mindful of love once betrayed. Also the +delicacy of Bacchus’s ardent gesture, as knowing himself +to be not only wooer but consoler, is purest Tintoretto. +The picture with its companion pieces is the effulgent afterglow +of the Arcadianism that began with Giorgione. It +breathes a charm that has never since been fully recoverable.</p> + +<div id='f_298' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_298.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 298.</span> Tintoretto. Bacchus and Ariadne.—<em>Ducal Palace.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>While these poesies were in progress, about 1575, Tintoretto +painted for the Church of San Cassiano the most original of +his Crucifixions, Figure <a href='#f_299'>299</a>. One looks over the narrow +top of Golgotha to a peaceful expanse of marbled evening +sky. The heads and serried pikes of the Roman legionaries +suggest a throng behind the hill. The sharpest note of color +is a banner, and the purple robe just stripped from the Christ. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_434'>434</span>Between John and Mary and the executioners on the ladder +and against the sky the strangest episode passes. It is the +moment when a Pharisee hands up to the executioner the +mocking placard “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews.” +With a sudden impulse John points out the act to Mary, to +console her. Christ’s enemies affirm the truth of him. Even +in the hour of defeat and death he is eternally his people’s +king. The level light which ripples softly over the nude +forms of Christ and the thieves takes away all harshness. +At San Rocco Tintoretto presented an epic and cosmic +terror. Here he suggests all the intimate and lyrical hopes +that have grown out of the sacrifice on Calvary.</p> + +<div id='f_299' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_299.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 299.</span> Tintoretto. Calvary.—<em>S. Cassiano.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Like all the Venetians Tintoretto was an admirable portraitist. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_435'>435</span>His sober and powerful vein is well shown in the +Madonna with Three Magistrates, Figure <a href='#f_300'>300</a>.</p> + +<div id='f_300' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_300.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 300.</span> Tintoretto. Madonna with Three Magistrates.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Among the later altar-pieces none is finer than the Miracle +of St. Agnes in the Orto. It has all of Tintoretto’s sweetness, +power and suddenness, and is nearly in its original condition +of color. In 1587, being nearly seventy years old, he got the +commission for his greatest and perhaps his last picture, the +Paradise, in the Hall of the Great Council in the Ducal +Palace. Darkened and dried, it is still to the perceptive +observer a billowing sea of rapturous faces of the blest, obeying +in its widening circles of cloud-borne angels an oceanic +rhythm. During the three years that Tintoretto was painting +it, his young daughter and comrade, Marietta, dressed +like a Shakespearean page for greater convenience, worked and +chattered beside him on the scaffolding. She hardly lived to +see the great canvas set on its wall. Tintoretto lived on till +1594, and then his aged and withered body was carried across +the canal from his palace to his vault in the Orto. Such +friends as Schiavone and Paolo Veronese had gone before him, +the old merrymakings and impromptu concerts in his home +had ceased. It was a very tired old man who bid his sons continue +the honorable trade of painting. He had shared nobly +the greatest range of human emotions, and his last artistic +vision was of an ecstatic peace in Paradise.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_436'>436</span>After Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese<a id='r85'></a><a href='#f85' class='c012'><sup>[85]</sup></a> seems an anti-climax. +His imagination is very limited. His greatest pictures treat +the sole theme of stately feasts. His soul is that of a very +high class society editor. But no well-advised person looks +to Paolo Veronese for soul. One rather seeks in him judgment +and fine painting. Both are at their maximum.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Paolo Caliari was born at Verona in 1528, trained by a half +primitive master, Antonio Badile, and influenced by the energetic +compositions of Brusasorci. Paolo inherited the long +Veronese tradition for spectacular narrative painting with +splendid architectural accessories, and he carries the local tradition +to its close and height. He came to Venice at twenty-seven, +a finished and famous artist, bringing with him a novel +sort of color. He avoids the contrasts and keen resonances of +the true Venetians, painting rather in luminous half tones +based on gray and blue. His forms are rich and solid without +heavy shadow, and his canvases have the generally blond +and uniform color quality of the modern out-of-door school.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His preference is for feasts and pageants. We have the +spectacle of a rich and gentle society, dignified in its pleasures +and resplendent in its costume. Gold brocade sets off the +pearly skins of the portly and gracious ladies in his pictures, +and their cavaliers are as magnificently clad in satins, velvets +and furs. The feasts are generally half out of doors in great +colonnades, with the light glinting impartially upon fair throats +and faces and upon channeled columns and sculptured balustrades. +Behind, pale cornices and spires swim against a blue +sky.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was the habit of the wealthy chapters of monks who +maintained the great Venetian churches to paint in their +refectories some Scriptural feast, as a warrant perhaps for +their own daily convivialities. Earlier, the most solemn of +all meals, The Last Supper, would have been chosen. Not so +with Veronese and his contemporaries. They chose instead +<span class='pageno' id='Page_437'>437</span>the Marriage at Cana or the Feast in the House of Simon or +of Levi, Figure <a href='#f_301'>301</a>,—splendid events of small or only incidental +religious significance, and treated merely as contemporary +banquets.</p> + +<div id='f_301' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_301.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 301.</span> Paolo Veronese. Feast in Levi’s House.—<em>Venice.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Of the four great feasts painted by Paolo Veronese the +Marriage at Cana, in the Louvre, painted in 1563, is earliest, +and most imposing. It builds up indefinitely from the +marble pavement, with tier upon tier of people, clinging +to columns and peering from balconies. One may count no +less than two hundred and fifty heads. It has all the stir of +a public banquet and everywhere the greatest richness of table +accessories and costumes. The theme called for little religious +emotion. The miracle itself is a convivial one. Yet +Veronese has made this different from other feasts by a most +complicated system of guiding lines which always lead the +eye to the gentle face of the Christ in the centre. He fairly +dominates all this animation and splendor. In the trio of +musicians in the foreground Veronese has given us a precious +hint of the part music played in the life of all Venetian artists. +Paolo himself plays the viola, Tintoretto the ’cello, and Titian +the bass. What is remarkable about the great canvas is its +unity. Bathed in equable cool light, the eye takes it in at a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_438'>438</span>glance; there is no confusing or distracting emphasis; the +whole thing is nobly tranquillizing.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1569 Veronese was in Rome. We may possibly see some +slight influence of Michelangelo +in the frescoes of the Villa Barbaro, +at Maser. These contain +the only nudes of Veronese that +have a real athleticism, and the +whole decoration has a more +positive and sprightly spirit than +is usual in Veronese’s placid +style. Working in a country +house for liberal and congenial +patrons, Daniele Barbaro was +himself an architect of merit, +Veronese sheds something of +that professional dignity which +is sometimes excessive in his +official work.</p> + +<div id='f_302' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_302.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 302.</span> Paolo Veronese. Marriage of St. Catherine.—<em>Santa Caterina.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Among his numerous altar-pieces, +the Marriage of St. Catherine, +Figure <a href='#f_302'>302</a>, in the Venetian Church of that name is perhaps +the most gracious. The women are adorable—hothouse +flowers, incredible for poise, hue and delicate surface +bloom. They are not very personal, their charm is a +social one. But they are very gentle, reasonably unconscious +of their own beauty, and quite unforgettably lovely. It +took a wonderful eye to see them at once so simple and so +regal.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the last twelve years of his life, Veronese was constantly +employed in the Ducal Palace and the adjoining public buildings. +He employed assistants freely, and the work affords difficult +critical problems. The work is uneven. In mythology +he belies the hopes based on the frescoes at Maser, where it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_439'>439</span>seemed as if he too might attain the Olympian mood. It is +sadly lacking in the hoydenish group that enacts Europa and +the Bull, Figure <a href='#f_303'>303</a>, in the Ducal Palace. Why are these +heavy Venetian lasses risking their skins and skirts and +shins near the seaside and a bull? The flat prose of the +feeling, or rather the absence of any real feeling, makes one +forget the splendor of the painting. Such also is the effect of +the superbly painted Venus and Mars, at New York, and of +most of the mythologies. We have to do with sheer prose and +not very sincere prose at that.</p> + +<div id='f_303' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_303.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 303.</span> Paolo Veronese. Rape of Europa.—<em>Ducal Palace.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>When, however, the theme can be drawn from everyday +Venice, Veronese is overpoweringly fine. Again and again +in looking at the ceilings of the Ducal Palace one catches +his breath before such visions of magnificence as Venice as +Justice, Figure <a href='#f_304'>304</a>, Venice as Queen of the World. For all its +<span class='pageno' id='Page_440'>440</span>contemporary quality, it attains a strange other-worldliness. +It is as if some one had looked at superb Venice through a +magnifying glass that ennobled the forms and greatly enhanced +the colors. You feel how +Veronese loved it all and how +little he cared for anything beyond +the splendor, dignity and +prosperity of his adoptive city. +He gives us the look of Venice +at her climax of Renaissance +glory, as Carpaccio had given the +dying radiance of her mediæval +estate. From the point of view +of judgment, style and fine +craftsmanship, it is impossible to +overpraise Veronese. He should +be regarded rather as a great +painter in the narrower sense +than a supreme artist. When +he died in 1588, only fifty years old, he left a very enduring +inheritance.</p> + +<div id='f_304' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_304.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 304.</span> Paolo Veronese. Venice attended by Force and Justice. Ceiling Panel.—<em>Ducal Palace.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>It was on the whole his moderate and judicious sumptuousness +that inspired the painters of the next century. It was well +that they sought his imitable merits and not the passion of +Titian and Tintoretto. It was largely thanks to Veronese +that Venetian art suffered no such sharp decline as befell that +of Florence and Rome. The decorative tradition of Veronese +sufficed to nourish a Piazetta and a Tiepolo a century and a +half after his death.</p> + +<div id='f_305' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_441'>441</span> +<img src='images/f_305.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 305.</span> G-B. Tiepolo. Time revealing Truth.—<em>Villa Biron, Vicenza.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>For Giovanni Battista Tiepolo<a id='r86'></a><a href='#f86' class='c012'><sup>[86]</sup></a> (1695–1770) in sheer force +and fertility yields to none of his Renaissance predecessors. +There never was a more valiant draughtsman or a more splendid colorist. Such decorations as those of the Scuola del Carmine, +and the Labia Palace fall little behind Veronese’s pageantry +in grandeur while representing an audacity of stroke +and coloration which Veronese lacked. So the tragic scenes +of Christ’s Passion at San Luigi have the intensity of Tintoretto +if lacking something of his nobility. In the ceiling +decorations of Tiepolo, Figure <a href='#f_305'>305</a>, we see the freest fancies of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_442'>442</span>the Baroque, its customary tumult of shimmering clouds and +hovering pearly figures, repeated with a lightness and audacity +and withal measure which the Baroque itself never attained +save in its great initiator Correggio. Such powers as Tiepolo’s +soon won him international patronage. He painted in Austria +and died at Madrid. With him perishes the grandeur of +the Venetian school. Only a tinge of masquerade and exhibitionism +puts him lower than his constant exemplar, Paolo +Veronese.</p> + +<div id='f_306' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_306.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 306.</span> Antonio Canale. Island of San Michele.—<em>Royal Collections, Windsor.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Indeed the simplicity which is the most enduring charm of +any art is more felt in the minor Venetians of Tiepolo’s time, +as in Antonio Canale, called Canaletto, Figure <a href='#f_306'>306</a>, who painted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_443'>443</span>the irradiated panorama of the Venetian lagoon and canals +with the ardent precision of a reborn Gentile Bellini. Francesco +Guardi<a id='r87'></a><a href='#f87' class='c012'><sup>[87]</sup></a> (1712–1765), Canaletto’s pupil, with a freer brush +and fancy paints the spectacle of Venice, Figure <a href='#f_307'>307</a>, its balls +and promenades and water pageants, with the sensitiveness +of a Carpaccio. But Carpaccio’s youthful world is no longer +there to paint. Romance has given way to casual amorous +intrigue, sentiment to show. But out of the welter of sophisticated +gayety still rise clean against the heavens the pale domes +and bell towers of an older and finer Venice. Guardi is perhaps +at his best in the numerous tiny oil sketches which deal +with the remote and solitary groves and ruins of the lagoon. +Here we have felicities of broken color and niceties of observation, +accurate notations of evanescent effects of light, which +can still give lessons to the most modern landscapists.</p> + +<div id='f_307' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_307.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 307.</span> Francesco Guardi. Scuola di San Marco. Pen and Wash Drawing.—<em>Lamperti Coll., Milan.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_444'>444</span>In Pietro Longhi (1702–1762) Venice developed a sympathetic +chronicler of her social pleasures, Figure <a href='#f_308'>308</a>. The +world of his delicate and witty little canvases is that of the +card party, the formal call, the +vanity and ceremony of philandering, +the shop, the musicale, +the masked ball. Only Holland +has given so true and sympathetic +a record of her smaller +affairs, and at the moment, only +Hogarth in England and Chardin +in France were doing the thing +with equal ability.</p> + +<div id='f_308' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_308.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 308.</span> Pietro Longhi. Maskers at the Zoo.—<em>London.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Nothing better shows the +slightly anachronistic quality of +Tiepolo’s grandeur than a fine +Longhi. The Venetian imagination +had moved indoors, so to +speak, had foregone in favor of +individual gratifications the old vision of the collective splendor. +Venice no longer dines grandly in the open with Veronese, +she coquettishly sips coffee with Longhi. If she had declined +in nobility, she had at least kept her sincerity and taste. Her +affair had ever been rather with appearances than with ideals +or interpretations. But since the Greeks no other nation had +considered appearances with such noble candor. She kept +to the end the good pictorial habit of letting appearances +explain themselves. Thus if a Titian will stand beside a Pheidian +marble, so will a Tiepolo beside an Alexandrian masterpiece, +while a trim belle of Pietro Longhi need feel no confusion +before a Tanagra figurine. Time passes gently over a city +whose artistic aims are as limited as her taste is sure. Venice +had ever been gracious in her grandeur, and gracious she remained +even after she had ceased to be grand.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_445'>445</span> + <h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER VIII</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Titian’s Assumption the Beginning of the Venetian Grand Style</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>Titian’s contemporaries were fully aware that the Assumption (1518) +marked the beginning of the Grand Style at Venice and that the change +was revolutionary. The critic Lodovico Dolce writes in his <cite>Dialogo +della Pittura</cite>, Florence, 1735, p. 286 f. putting the words into the mouth +of Aretino:</p> + +<p class='c019'>“After not much time [after the Fondaco frescoes, 1508] he was given +to paint a great panel for the high altar of the Friars Minor; where +Titian, still young, painted in oils the Virgin, who rises to heaven among +many angels who accompany her, and above her he figured a God Father +flanked by two angels. It seems really as if she rises with a face full of +humility, and her robes fly lightly. At the bottom are the disciples +who with various attitudes manifest joy and amazement, and are mostly +larger than life, and assuredly in that picture is contained the grandeur +and terribleness of Michelangelo, the pleasingness and grace of Raphael, +with the coloring proper to nature, and, moreover, this was the first +public work which he made in oils; and he made it in very little time, and +young.”</p> + +<p class='c019'>“Thereupon the stupid painters and the vulgar herd who up to then +had seen nothing but the cold and dead things of Giovanni Bellini, of +Gentile, and of [Alvise] Vivarini (since Giorgione, working in oils, had +not yet had any public work; and for the most part made no other works +than half figures and portraits) which were without movement and +without relief, spake great ill of that picture. Afterwards, as envy cooled, +and opening their eyes a little to the truth, the people began to be amazed +at the new manner discovered in Venice by Titian: and all the painters +from then on strove to imitate it; but being off their own path, became +confused. And surely it must seem a miracle that Titian, without having +at that time seen the antiquities of Rome, which were the light of all the +good painters, solely with that little spark, which he had discovered in +the works of Giorgione, saw and perceived the idea of perfect +painting.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>The general critical justness of this statement must condone its abundant +overstatements and errors of fact.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_446'>446</span> + <h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>Aurelio Luini on Titian’s Impressionism</span></h4> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>“Aurelio Luini has excellently understood this art [of landscape] +to whom it once happened that visiting Titian, and asking him his +opinion about the background of trees, besides many reasons which +he heard from him about making the foliage sparkle against the background, +he saw one of his [Titian’s] wonderful landscapes which he had +at home, which, having seen quietly, Aurelio thought a daubed up thing, +but afterwards, having withdrawn to a distance, it seemed to him that +the sun shone resplendently in it, making the paths retreat on this side +and that; so that Aurelio had to say that he had never seen a rarer +thing in the world in the way of landscapes.”</p> + +<div class='c023'>Lomazzo, <cite>Trattato</cite>, Milan, 1584, p. 474, 5.</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On Belle Nature and the Antique</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>The Renaissance idea that Nature must be ennobled and corrected +by the Antique is plainly formulated by Dolce, again under the name of +Aretino, <cite>Dialogo</cite>, p. 190.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“One should then choose the most perfect form, imitating nature in +part.... And partly one should imitate the beautiful marble and +bronze figures of the ancient masters. Whereof who so shall taste and +possess fully the marvellous perfection, will be able with certainty to +correct many defects of nature, and make his pictures noteworthy and +grateful to all. Inasmuch as the ancient things contain the entire perfection +of art, and can be the exemplars of all beauty.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>This is one of the earliest full statements of the notion of <i><span lang="it">belle nature</span></i>, +and of the antique as normative. The dogma persists with unabated +rigor down to Sir Joshua Reynolds (see Illustration to Chapter VI, +p. 316) and Jacques Louis David.</p> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>George Frederick Watts on the Greek Affinities of Venetian Painting</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>“The revival of the Greek Language and Greek Literature raised +the long ebb into a wave that swept over civilized Europe. On its glittering +crest the Venetian painters especially were lifted into the society +of gods, goddesses, nymphs, and satyrs. They might see sky, sea and +earth peopled with radiant beings; perhaps with a sort of semi-belief +such as we accord to the Lorelei and fairies, creations that somehow +easily worked in with creeds and experience. Anyhow, they might see +<span class='pageno' id='Page_447'>447</span>Pan come dallying down the sparkling brook-side, now shouting to the +laughing brown nymphs rustling through the reeds, and pretending to +be afraid, now scattering a shower of notes from his pipes that would +fall upon the ears as the brightness of the iris over a fountain falls upon +the eye.”...</p> + +<p class='c007'>“It may seem strange if I place the Venetian school and Titian, with +his liberal line—which, however, is by no means wanting in reticence—in +closer relationship with Greek art of the great period than the more +classical schools of Tuscany and Rome. Supposing one were to endeavor +to paint a restoration of the pediments of the Parthenon, it would be +possible to interpolate with figures by Titian, never with any by Poussin, +or, I think, even by Raphael or Michael Angelo.”...</p> + +<p class='c007'>“In spite of extravagant and even absurd defects (for the great +artist’s eyes no longer served him faithfully), when Titian, towards the +end of his life painted the ‘Europa’ ... the muse who inspired +Pheidias laid her hand on the old man’s shoulder, and she inspired +the wealth of volume, ease of line, and glowing sense of nature’s exuberance.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><em>George Frederick Watts, his Life and Writings</em>, London and New York, +Vol. III., pp. 251, 253, 254.</p> + +<div id='f_309' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_450'>450</span> +<img src='images/f_309.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 309.</span> Caravaggio. Death of the Virgin.—<em>Louvre.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_451'>451</span> + <h2 class='c005'><span class='large'><span class='sc'>Chapter IX</span></span><br> THE REALISTS AND ECLECTICS</h2> +</div> +<p class='c011'>The Confusion following Raphael and Michelangelo—Giulio Romano—Caravaggio +and realistic Revolt—Salvator Rosa, romantic Individualism +and the Picturesque—The Carracci and the Eclectic Ideal—Later +Eclectics; Guido Reni—Domenichino—The Waning of Italian Greatness—Influence +of Italy on the Schools of France, Flanders, and Spain.</p> + +<p class='c006'>Italian painting suddenly declined for lack of taste. The +followers of Raphael and Michelangelo possessed astonishing +power and knowledge, but, save their own cleverness, no +longer had anything to express. Thus painting became merely +an art of self-exploitation and display, a matter of difficult +foreshortenings, complicated groupings, and novel constructions +in light and shade. Such at least was the case at Rome, +and partly at Florence. At Venice, Milan, Cremona, Ferrara, +and generally in the North the decline was gradual and benign. +Sincere art of a minor character was still produced. +But in the artistic centre the collapse was complete, and all +the more disastrous that nobody realized that a collapse had +come.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is staggering to find that Vasari, in the face of merited +ridicule, had no doubt that he was a great painter. How he +boasts of his own powers! “But what matters most for this +art, is that they have made it so perfect today, and so easy +for him who possesses design, that where formerly a picture was +made by one of our masters in six years, today our masters +make six in one. And I am the credible witness of this both +by my observation and by my work. And many more perfect +<span class='pageno' id='Page_452'>452</span>and finished pictures are now seen, than formerly were made +by the important masters.” (Vol. IV, p. 13.) Nothing is more +appalling than to find Vasari at Florence and Lomazzo at Milan +regularly naming Giulio Romano, Polidoro and Maturino along +with Raphael and Michelangelo. Evidently the old sure +taste of the Renaissance has yielded to confusion.</p> + +<div id='f_310' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_310.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 310.</span> Giulio Romano. Battle for Troy. Fresco.—<em>Palazzo del Tè. Mantua.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Indeed patronage had changed. It is no longer spontaneous +but organized. We now have academies, art schools, art +criticism, exhibitions, archæologists, picture dealers. Art no +longer rests on generally accepted ideas and broad approbations, +but is a game between experts.</p> + +<p class='c007'>To enumerate the followers of Michelangelo and Raphael +and allot to each his due dispraise would be in no way profitable. +Giulio Romano may represent them all. With extraordinary +powers as a draughtsman of the figure, and with paradoxical +taste in minor decoration, we know him already as the vulgarizer +of Raphael’s designs in the Stanza of Heliodorus and +of the Burning City. Later (1524–46) removed from Raphael’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_453'>453</span>influence, at Mantua, he develops a coarse titanism. The old +Castello of the Gonzagas and the Palazzo del Tè, Figure <a href='#f_310'>310</a>, +are tediously full of sensational and occasionally obscene mythologies +which are done with amazing energy and facility, but are +as restless and undecorative in design as they are hot and foxy +in color. And the immoderations and indecencies have not +even the excuse of naturalness, they are coldly calculated and +studied. Such talented Florentine imitators of Michelangelo +as Pontormo and Bronzino we have already considered. At +Rome, he left at least one disciple of talent, Daniele da Volterra, +in the composition of whose masterpiece the Deposition in the +Convent of the Trinità, at Rome, the master himself may have +had a hand. Rather than delay over these complacent epigones +we do well to pass to those few more intelligent artists +who saw that something was amiss.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Michelangelo Amerighi, (1569–1608), called from his Lombard +birthplace Caravaggio, and Annibale Carracci of Bologna +are here the outstanding names. The former bitterly fought +the grand style in the name of naturalism, the latter attempted +to reintegrate it through a critical eclectism. Their influence +is dominant from the last decade of the sixteenth +century.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Caravaggio<a id='r88'></a><a href='#f88' class='c012'><sup>[88]</sup></a> had carefully studied the impressionistic manner +of late Titian but finally adopts a harsh and resolute chiaroscuro +with the light restricted and the canvas mostly black. +Thus his modelling is both brutal and academic. His real +fight was with the nobility of Raphael. His saints are taken +from the streets and often from the gutters. He loves character +above all, and wants it proletarian. Within his chosen +limitations he is a powerful and sincere artist. His masterpieces +are the Entombment in the Vatican, and the Death of +the Virgin in the Louvre, Figure <a href='#f_309'>309</a>, which created so much +disapproval that it had to be removed from its altar. Both +pictures take the theme out of the realm of legend, making it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_454'>454</span>drastic and contemporary. Both, while rejecting all grandeur +in the figures, preserve the tradition thereof in the composition. +One gets Caravaggio in epitome in The Peter denying his +Lord of the Vatican. Figure <a href='#f_311'>311</a>. It is a powerful character +study from low life. Indeed character is his watchword. +One finds it extravagantly over-emphasized in his famous +pothouse and gambling scenes, a revolutionary innovation. +The most famous and one of the best is The Card Players, at +Dresden, Figure <a href='#f_312'>312</a>. It is the symbol of the painter’s love +of low life. He killed his man in a duel, and died himself +when turned out of prison into the August sun.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Before that fitting end he had fled to Naples where amid +the corruption of the Spanish overlordship his proletarian ideals +became generally contagious. They were taken up eagerly +by the Valencian, José Ribera, who with an equal sense for +character and a more genuine religious feeling transmitted +the manner to Seville and eventually to Velasquez. So Caravaggio +became the founder of the modern realistic and impressionistic +schools, a precursor of Courbet and Manet. +Except for a surplusage of too emphatic character studies, +smiling and weeping philosophers, Ribera was a true and most +skilful artist. Having no quarrel with an earlier grand style, +he had the grace of simplicity.</p> + +<div id='f_311' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_455'>455</span> +<img src='images/f_311.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 311.</span> Caravaggio. St. Peter denying his Lord.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_312' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_312.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 312.</span> Caravaggio. The Card Players.—<em>Dresden.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_456'>456</span>Both at Rome and Naples swaggering Caravaggio had enormous +success. His heads, we read, brought more than other +men’s compositions. He boasted himself the greatest painter +of all time, and was often believed. From his swarthy tones +his entire school took the name, the Tenebrists. His experiments +in interior and artificial lighting were widely imitated, +and again ultimately passed into recent Impressionism. His +rejection of noble form in favor of what one sees, and of decorative +color in favor of natural, was the sharpest possible challenge +of the Renaissance style, and outside of Italy where the +noble tradition was only incipient did much to arrest its diffusion. From the point of view of modern art there are few +more important figures. From the point of view of art broadly +he has his serious limitations. Most damaging is his waiver +of civilization, he looks at low life not with the eyes of a detached +artist but with those of a ruffian. He did not have the +intelligence to live up to his own formula. Annibale Carracci +was once looking at Caravaggio’s Judith, and, being pressed for +an opinion, remarked that it was “too natural.” He spoke as +an admirer of the grand style. A modern realist would make +the far more radical criticism that Caravaggio is never natural +enough. He really makes no close study of the subtleties of +natural appearance or of the actual refinements of illumination, +but rather substitutes for the old stately formulas a new, +more ugly, and less studied formula of his own. Logically +he should have gone forward with Ribera and Velasquez to a +real investigation of appearances. But his logic was only that +of scorn, and it would doubtless have somewhat compensated +him for a sordid and premature end, could he have forseen +that his biographers would credit him with the ruin of Italian +painting.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Through Ribera, Caravaggio’s influence passes to the Neapolitan, +Salvator<a id='r89'></a><a href='#f89' class='c012'><sup>[89]</sup></a> Rosa (1615–1673). With greater vivacity +and better color Salvator repeats the character studies and +tavern scenes, also bringing the proletarian mood into mythology. +He painted battle pieces of real ferocity. He was an +irascible, vain and capricious person, proud of being so; a +scorner of his own patrons and of the bourgeois generally; +a maker of epigrams, and a writer of satires. His specialty +is the sinister and picturesque, and he practices it with gusto +and ability, Figure <a href='#f_313'>313</a>. Salvator is the real discoverer of the +picturesque, the first enthusiast for the savage aspects of nature. +Likewise he was one of the first artists to study effects—sunsets, +storms, mists, and whirling clouds. He excursioned +in the Abruzzo, equally savoring its crags, torrents, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_457'>457</span>and forests, and its ferocious banditti. His letters on these +wanderings are among the first and most important documents +of the modern cult of nature. He writes: “You have saddened +me by giving me the news of +your having been in Garfagna, +and having rejoiced in the savagery +of that country so congenial +to my nature.... To +be merely reminded of it brings +the tears to my eyes.” Again +he writes from the Adriatic +Apennines: “I have been two +weeks in continual travel and the +trip is much more strange and +picturesque than that of Florence, +beyond comparison so, +since there is such an extravagant +mixture of the rough and cultivated, of the level and precipitous +that nothing more could be desired for the satisfaction +of the eye.”... “At Terni, four miles off the road I saw the +famous falls of the Velino, a thing to haunt and possess the +most insatiable mind because of its horrid beauty. To see a +river that plunges straight down a mountain for half a mile, and +sends up its foam as high!” Much of the stormy and energetic +character of such scenes is transcribed in the best landscapes of +Salvator, Figure <a href='#f_314'>314</a>. In their age they evoked little following. +But these forests, cascades, evening seaports, and ruined +sites were freely bought by the English, greatly admired and +had their part in producing the literary enthusiasm for wild +nature in the eighteenth century.</p> + +<div id='f_313' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_313.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 313.</span> Salvator Rosa. Landscape with figures.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Salvator avows his “extravagant genius,” is driven by the +lust for novelty, is a modern and romantic spirit. Withal +he was a man of capacity and taste with an open-minded understanding +of quite alien merit. “Here, we esteem M. Poussin,” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_458'>458</span>he writes in October, 1665, “more than any one else in the +world.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Poussin could never have returned the compliment. His +approbation was for Raphael, the Carracci and Domenichino. +Indeed a chief glory of the Bolognese Eclectics was that their +critical method sufficed to nurture so classic a spirit as Poussin’s +and so to establish the academic tradition for Northern +Europe.</p> + +<div id='f_314' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_314.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 314.</span> Salvator Rosa. Landscape.—<em>Pitti.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Though the Eclectic movement is properly associated with +the cousins Lodovico and Annibale Carracci,<a id='r90'></a><a href='#f90' class='c012'><sup>[90]</sup></a> it somewhat antecedes +them. The impetus comes from Flanders with the painter +of Antwerp, Denis Calvert, who came to Bologna late in the +sixteenth century and founded an art school. Like all the +better educated Flemings, he represented a profound nostalgia +<span class='pageno' id='Page_459'>459</span>for Renaissance grandeur, and also a certain detachment from +the particular Italian artists who had embodied the ideal of +<i><span lang="it">grandezza</span></i>. Such a man is, perforce, an eclectic, studying widely +the methods of his great predecessors and seeking to assimilate +in his own art their various perfections. Besides, methods of +comparative study which had formerly been extremely difficult +if not impossible were now easy. Casts were available of the +antique marbles, fairly faithful engravings were at hand for +all the great painters. It is significant that both the Carracci +were reproductive engravers. Denis Calvert was no genius, +but a prudent and sagacious artist who made the most of a +slender endowment. His critical and assimilative spirit passed +over to his best pupils. Their reform, unlike Caravaggio’s, +was not revolutionary, but based on a careful restudy of the +grand style, which they had never wavered in venerating.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Annibale Carracci was reared in devotion to Raphael, +whose fine St. Cecilia was at Bologna. Venice lured him, +but he was rebuffed by Tintoretto. Annibale made profound +studies of Correggio at Parma, whence he writes that Raphael +now seems wooden to him in comparison. He is now launched +on the impossible quest of combining with the austere grandeur +of the Roman School, the charm of Venetian coloring and the +emotional instability of Correggio. Thus it was an attempt +to restore the grand style largely in the name of one of its +chief disintegrators, and as such it was from the first headed +for failure. Yet it was an attempt dictated by the times, +and the inevitable choice of any superior spirit who wished to +reknit the Renaissance tradition.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was the moment of the Catholic Reaction and of the endeavor +of the new Jesuit Order to rebuild a shaken Church +on the basis of persuasion. Largely shorn of authority, the +Church must now be popular or perish. It wisely chose to +be popular, adopting the thrilling novelties of Baroque architecture, +borrowing from the opera its swelling choral cadences, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_460'>460</span>everywhere stressing the note of charm, surprise and emotion. +So the moderation and austerity which underlay the Renaissance +style were forbidden to the Eclectics, and they chiefly +differed from the rival Naturalists in choosing to make their +sensationalism as decorous as the circumstances permitted. +Such is the social background of the Carracci’s reform, and they +deserve utmost credit for achieving so much under such limitations.</p> + +<div id='f_315' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_315.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 315.</span> Lodovico Carracci. Assumption.—<em>Bologna.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_316' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_316.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 316.</span> Annibale Carracci. Madonna in Glory.—<em>Bologna.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Agostino (1568–1602) was the brains of the family, courtier, +scholar, man of the world. Annibale (1560–1609) was the +nerves,—moody, shy, solitary, with titan ambitions in a small +and unprepossessing frame. His cousin, Lodovico (1555–1619), +was possibly the best artist of the three if only because +he attempted less and followed sentimentalism frankly without +too much bothering about grandeur.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lodovico, Figure <a href='#f_315'>315</a>, and Annibale, Figure <a href='#f_316'>316</a>, enriched +<span class='pageno' id='Page_461'>461</span>the churches of Bologna with great animated altar-pieces which +enthralled their contemporaries, and today seem more than a +little affected. But that is merely because we no longer share +what was an entirely sincere way of religious feeling. They +started an Academy in which the antique, the nude, and competitive +composition were the staple of instruction quite as in +French and British State art schools today. In the Bolognese +palaces the Carracci did in fresco great mythological series, +consulting Homer, Virgil and Ovid and Apollonius of Rhodes. +In the main they had friezes to do, and they drew heavily +from Correggio, tempering his alacrity with something of the +heavier energy of the Roman style.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1585 the Carracci set up their Academy. It was soon +thronged. Agostino, a courtly, learned and accomplished person, +was the leading influence, being lecturer as well as drawing +master. Even, Annibale, habitually an offish and difficult +man, is said to have been affable and helpful to his disciples.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In studying his pictures, one feels that he was thwarted of +his true development. Not only was he much of a realist, +painting tavern scenes, Figure <a href='#f_317'>317</a>, after Caravaggio’s lead, but +also a studious and charming landscape painter, Figure <a href='#f_318'>318</a>. +His soberly colored and gracefully composed landscapes were +an important influence on Poussin. Annibale’s adventures in +the grand style, though audacious and loudly applauded, +really did some violence to his modest and sensitive spirit. +His was the least academic temperament imaginable, and the +final disastrous quarrel with his eminently academic brother, +Agostino, was inevitable.</p> + +<div id='f_317' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_462'>462</span> +<img src='images/f_317.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 317.</span> Annibale Carracci. The Bean Eater.—<em>Prince Colonna, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_318' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_318.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 318.</span> Annibale Carracci. Flight to Egypt.—<em>Doria, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_319' class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_463'>463</span> +<img src='images/f_319.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 319.</span> Annibale Carracci. Ceiling Detail.—<em>Farnese Palace, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Annibale and Agostino were called to Rome in 1595 to fresco +Cardinal Odoardo Farnese’s palace. Annibale was thirty-five +years old, Agostino a few years younger. Both had reaped +all honors possible at Bologna, and they came to the Eternal +City at a fortunate moment. The favorite decorators were +men of routine talent, Taddeo Zuccaro and the Cavaliere +d’Arpino. Caravaggio’s amazing and perturbing genius had +already asserted itself, but he was not a mural painter. After +a preliminary series of mythologies in the riverside casino of +the Palazzo Farnese, Annibale turned, in 1597, to the decoration +of the great hall. It was a lofty tunnel-like room of refractory +proportions. The theme was to be the loves of the +gods. But the great spaces in which are represented Bacchus +and Ariadne, the Judgment of Paris, Polyphemus and Galatea, +Cephalus and Aurora, Hero and Leander, amongst other subjects, +yield in effect to the general plan and the incidental decoration. +Annibale, who despite contemporary accounts to the +contrary, controlled everything, has taken as his motive the +architectural framework which Michelangelo designed for the +Sistine, with its burden of decorative nudes. One looks past +heavy painted cornices, Figure <a href='#f_319'>319</a>, to painted statuary in +profusion, thickly set, and, behind, more nudes in natural +hues, the whole echoed by nudes in stucco relief on the walls. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_464'>464</span>We have instead of the relative flatness of Michelangelo and +his predecessors a consistent lumpiness, which, while theoretically +tasteless, is actually rich, satisfying, and even light. +Only an extraordinary ability could have kept any kind of +unity in this wilful and extravagant complexity, Figure <a href='#f_320'>320</a>. +But unity there is and coherent expression of a mood at once +pompous and festal.</p> + +<div id='f_320' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_320.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 320.</span> Annibale Carracci and Helpers. Grand Hall, Farnese Palace.—<span class='sc'>Rome.</span></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>The pictures, as we have noted, seem to count for less than +their borders. When we examine the love scenes, we find +them at once coarse and mannered. They are superficially +like Giulio Romano at Mantua but without his self-satisfied +brutality. To this extent they are inferior, and indeed +the strain to be at once grand, graceful, and passionate is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_465'>465</span>only too apparent throughout the pictorial part. Yet as a +whole the decoration seems hardly inferior in power, ingenuity, +and rhythmical fulness to such ancient masterpieces of kindred +inspiration as the Pergamon frieze. For the moment +the decoration was enthusiastically +acclaimed, after three-quarters +of a century it taught +Charles Le Brun the way to +decorate the Louvre and the +Palace at Versailles, and even +today the admirer of the fountains +of Rome and of her +Baroque churches must admit +that Annibale caught the very +spirit of his day, in its superfluity +of learned vaingloriousness +and shortage of the simpler and +more noble passions.</p> + +<div id='f_321' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_321.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 321.</span> Guido Reni. Madonna with two Saints.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>For the artist the work brought +only chagrin. The Cardinal +treated him with stinginess and +personal spite. His irritation +with his brother reached the explosive +point. Agostino left him staggering under the weight +of an ungrateful task, he fell into a dangerous melancholy, and +in 1609 died miserably, leaving his helpers Albani and Domenichino +to finish the gallery.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Of the followers of the Carracci, Guido Reni<a id='r91'></a><a href='#f91' class='c012'><sup>[91]</sup></a> (1575–1642) +and Domenichino (1581–1641), are the most important. At +his worst Guido Reni is the most repellant of sentimentalists, +at his best a realist of the calibre of Ribera himself. In his time +there are no grander old men than his, better painted or more +fully realized as characters. You find them at their best in +the Madonna of St. Paul, at Berlin, or the Immaculate Conception +<span class='pageno' id='Page_466'>466</span>at Petrograd, or the Madonna with St. Jerome, in the +Vatican, Figure <a href='#f_321'>321</a>. It is hard to reconcile them with +his sleek and cheaply seductive Magdalens, Cleopatras and +Venuses. What steadies him in his inconsistency is a fine +and simple sense of composition. He is lucid where his masters, +the Carracci, tend to be confused. His taste is more coherent +than his character. Under other conditions than those of +academic Bologna and Papal Rome he might easily have become +a realist of Zurbaran’s type. As it was, he undertook +the usual synthesis of the grand style with the new sentimentality. +Generally speaking he is neither grand nor sentimental +enough, but superficial in both regards. Yet his discretion +saves him in such works as the ceiling of the Villa Rospigliosi +(1615) and the supremely elegant St. Michael, Figure <a href='#f_323'>323</a>, of +the Cappucini. I like the Aurora, Figure <a href='#f_322'>322</a>, nay love it +well this side of idolatry, for the same reason that I like Kipling’s +lines</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“An’ the dawn comes up like thunder</div> + <div class='line'>Outer China ’crost the bay.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c017'>Both the fresco and the verses have the same pounding and +obvious, yet thrilling cadences, both bring lyricism to the +brink of bombast without letting it go over.</p> + +<div id='f_322' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_322.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 322.</span> Guido Reni. Aurora. Ceiling Fresco.—<em>Casino Rospigliosi, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_323' class='figcenter id002'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_467'>467</span> +<img src='images/f_323.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 323.</span> Guido Reni. Saint Michael.—<em>Cappucini, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<div id='f_324' class='figcenter id002'> +<img src='images/f_324.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 324.</span> Domenichino. Last Communion of St. Jerome.—<em>Vatican.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino,<a id='r92'></a><a href='#f92' class='c012'><sup>[92]</sup></a> (1581–1641) is +a far more serious figure. We see him best not in the sentimental +sibyls which he multiplied nor even in the studied emotionalism +of his most famous altar-piece, the Last Communion of St. +Jerome, in the Vatican, Figure <a href='#f_324'>324</a>, but, rather in such decorations +as those in S. Andrea della Valle, and in the monastic +church of Grotta Ferrata. Here we find a heavy and simple +emphasis, a great clarity both of figure construction and of +composition. For his personal awkwardness, patience +and quietism his comrades mockingly called him the Ox. It +took character to play the ox amid the febrile sprightliness of +the Catholic Reaction. His gravity is marked also in his color. +He forsakes the old decorative conventions of the Renaissance +and works in olive and silvery tones which suggest in a generalizing +way the coolness and freshness of nature. Above all +he is not facile like most of his contemporaries, but studious, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_468'>468</span>dilatory, and considerate. At times he yields to the prevailing +sentimentality, but usually he is both spontaneous and reticent. +He seldom insists, but candidly lets the picture be seen. All +these qualities appear in the modestly hoydenish masterpiece, +Diana and her Nymphs, in the Borghese Gallery, Figure <a href='#f_325'>325</a>. +It is completely captivating for its element of surprise, its +manly wholesomeness, its winsome setting of lithe girlish +bodies amid verdure under a gray sky. This unaffected mood +in mythology has rarely been recaptured. We have it in +Vermeer’s little Diana at the Hague and, only yesterday, in +the Nausicaa of Lucien Simon. Such qualities of lucidity, +reserve, and simple nobility made Domenichino the natural +model for Nicholas Poussin. We can trace the influence through +Poussin’s masterpieces, and had France been wise enough to +understand her greatest painter, her academic tradition, which +was promoted in Poussin’s name, might have taken a much +more fruitful course than it actually did.</p> + +<div id='f_325' class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/f_325.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +<div class='ic001'> +<p><span class='sc'>Fig. 325.</span> Domenichino. Diana and her Nymphs.—<em>Borghese, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_469'>469</span>An ill fate finally took Domenichino to Naples. There he +found the ruffianly local painters banded against every foreigner, +and in particular he met the systematic animosity of +the truculent Spaniard, Ribera. Outright terrorism alternated +with petty persecution. They defaced his work and tampered +with his materials. Soon they broke his delicate and timid +spirit, even turned him against the wife with whom he had +lived on terms of ideal affection. Today it remains uncertain +whether he died of shattered nerves or was actually poisoned. +Presumably the barbarous Neapolitans would have done about +the same to any visiting artist, but doubtless they turned the +screw a shade harder upon a gentle idealist who brought into +their realistic stews some afterglow of the quietistic dignity of +a Montagna or a Cima.</p> + +<p class='c007'>When all reservations are made, the Eclectics had fairly done +their work of correcting the disorder of the late Renaissance +and of restoring something of the old decorum. They made +possible the revival of the grand style at Rome, in the eighteenth +century, by Carlo Maratta and Raphael Mengs. The Eclectics +were the bridge by which the classical manner passed over into +Western Europe, an indispensable link in the chain of the +great hellenistic tradition. That should be enough to keep +them in memory if not in unqualified honor.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Our review of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth, century +in Italy will have served its purpose if it has convinced +the reader that this was no time of stagnation. We have rather +to do with activities of exploration and reconstruction which +are much too restless and various. The intellectual power of +the Italian painters had not greatly diminished in comparison +with the Renaissance. Italy still was capable of giving the +leads which have guided painting elsewhere ever since. What +was lacking was not energy but patience, reflection and taste. +The Italian artist tended to regard himself as a swift and resolute +executant first of all, and no longer knew how to nourish +<span class='pageno' id='Page_470'>470</span>his spirit as a man. Even as executants, the realists and eclectics +had the humiliation of finding themselves outdone by +foreigners. Successively in the seventeenth century Ribera, +Rubens, Van Dyck, Velasquez, Claude Lorrain and Poussin +came to Italy and sojourned there. It was in every case apparent +that the foreigner excelled all native artists in his field. +The traditional authority of Italian painting still held, but +its contemporary glory was evidently waning.</p> + +<p class='c007'>But even in decline Italy was strong enough to hand on her +torch to newer hands. From Titian stems the florid classicism +and aristocratic portraiture of Rubens and Van Dyck, which +dominated the whole eighteenth century in France and England; +through Caravaggio and Ribera, Italy made Velasquez the +founder of those most characteristic nineteenth century movements, +realism and impressionism; through Raphael, the +Carracci and Domenichino, she fed the white flame of Poussin’s +classicism, which in one way or another has determined the +academic development of all Western Europe. Thus Italian +painting, eternally alive in the timeless region where dwells the +fame of Giotto, Masaccio, Leonardo, Giorgione, Raphael, +Michelangelo, Titian, is as well most practically and actually +alive in the recent and present struggles, failures, and triumphs +of our modern schools. Without understanding Italian painting +we cannot understand our own painting. And while the modern +world will hardly return to the coherence, solidity, and grace +of the great Gothic and Renaissance masters, I am confident +that there can be no exit from our present confusion and incoherence +until our painters learn at least to consult those +great Italian predecessors who dwelt on the heights above +which is the abode of the human spirit’s creative rest.</p> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_471'>471</span> + <h3 class='c013'>ILLUSTRATIONS FOR CHAPTER IX</h3> +</div> + +<h4 class='c014'><span class='sc'>On the Eclectic Ideal</span></h4> + +<p class='c015'>The nearly contemporary account of Carlo Cesare Malvasia, <cite>Felsina +Pittrice</cite>, Bologna, 1841, Tom. I. p. 263 is instructive.</p> + +<p class='c019'>“Lodovico ... was the first who supplied a firm prop to tottering painting +and was able to save it from imminent harm and ruin. He was the one +who courageously opposed that vainglorious time, which succeeded the +most perfect age, and liberating it from the common ills of those erroneous +mannerisms which dared to tyrannize that fair profession that had been +raised so high, not only wished to restore it to its first vigor, but also +to a state still more perfect and sublime.... Taking the best from +all the best artists, one sees him, with a facility no longer used and valued, +form from them a brief compendium, rather a precious extract, outside +of and beyond which little more remained for the studious to desire. +And coupling and uniting with the discretion of Raphael the intelligence +of Michelangelo, and adding withal with the color of Titian the +angelic purity of Correggio, he succeeded in forming from all these +manners a single one, which had nothing to envy in the Roman, Florentine, +Venetian and Lombard manners.”</p> + +<p class='c006'>A Sonnet supposed, without complete evidence, to have been addressed +by Annibale Carracci to the painter Niccolò d’Abate gives an +even more complete and correct account of the elements that blended in +the style of the Carracci. I quote it from Rouchès, <cite>La Peinture Bolonaise</cite>, +Paris, 1913, p. 123, note 1.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“To make a good painter let him have</div> + <div class='line'>At ready and eager hand the drawing of Rome,</div> + <div class='line'>The movement with the shading of Venice,</div> + <div class='line'>And the dignified coloring of Lombardy.</div> + <div class='line'>The terrible manner of Michelangelo</div> + <div class='line'>And Correggio’s pure and sovereign style</div> + <div class='line'>And the true symmetry of Raphael,</div> + <div class='line'>Tibaldi’s decorum and substance,</div> + <div class='line'>The inventiveness of learned Primaticcio</div> + <div class='line'>And a little of Parmigianino’s grace.</div> + <div class='line'>Not without having strenuously made such studies</div> + <div class='line'>Let him place before himself for imitation</div> + <div class='line'>The works which our Niccolò has left here.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div>THE END</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_473'>473</span> + <h2 class='c005'>NOTES</h2> +</div> +<h3 class='c014'>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<div class='footnote' id='f1'> +<p class='c015'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. For the altar as tomb-shrine see Yrjö Hirn’s learned and fascinating +book, <cite>The Sacred Shrine</cite>, London, 1912.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f2'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. For the Byzantine pictorial style see the excellent summary in <cite>Fogg Art +Museum, Collection of Mediaeval and Renaissance Paintings</cite>, Harvard Univ. +Press, 1919, pp. 3–10; also a more extended treatment in O. M. Dalton <cite>Byzantine +Art and Archaeology</cite>, Oxford, 1911, chapters V, VI, VII.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f3'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. For the influence of St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Francis +read the respective chapters in Taylor, <cite>The Mediaeval Mind</cite>; for St. Francis, +Thomas Okey’s translation, <cite>The little Flowers of St. Francis</cite> in “Everyman’s +Library.” E. Gebhart, <cite>Italie Mystique</cite>, Paris, 1908, is also enlightening.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f4'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, Vol. XXXII (1918) pp. 45–6. Mr. Berenson in +<cite>Rassegna d’Arte, “Dedalo,”</cite> Vol. II., (1921) fasc. V, makes this superb Madonna +a Constantinople picture of the late 12th century. His confessedly slight +argument fails to convince me. Aside from the air of the picture, the form of +the wooden throne is specific for Tuscany and the second half of the 13th +century.</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>Cimabue.</cite> Andreas Aubert, <cite>Cimabue Frage</cite>, Leipzig, 1907, is the standard +work. The various views on the early frescoes of the Upper Church at +Assisi are well summarized in Brown and Rankin, <cite>A Short History</cite>, pp. 54 and +57–59.</p> + +<p class='c007'>An unsuccessful attempt to reduce Cimabue to a myth has been made by +Langton Douglas in his edition of <cite>C. &. C.</cite>, Vol. I., p. 187–193. The constructive +and accepted view is that of Aubert. My list differs slightly from his and is:</p> + +<p class='c007'>Louvre Madonna, about 1275, Louvre.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Trinità Madonna, about 1285, Uffizi.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The frescoes of the Choir and transepts of S. Francesco at Assisi, saving +possibly the big Ascent to the Cross, circa 1296, Assisi.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Madonna with St. Francis (fresco), after 1290, Assisi, +Lower Church of San Francesco.</p> + +<p class='c007'>St. John in mosaic in the Apse of the Cathedral at Pisa, 1301.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Venturi’s endeavor to attach to Cimabue some of the later New Testament +mosaics in the vault of the Florentine Baptistry, see <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. V., p. +229—is plausible but not convincing. His attribution of lost frescoes in the +portico of old St. Peter’s, known from sketch copies, <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. V, p. 195—has +no solid basis. Two fresco fragments, heads of Peter and Paul, remain, +and are published by Wilpert, <cite>Die Mosaiken &</cite>, bd. I, fig. 144, and by him +correctly assigned to Cavallini or some Roman follower.</p> + +<p class='c007'>R. van Marle, in <cite>La Peinture Romaine</cite>, Strasbourg, 1921, has made a +most careful study of all the earliest frescoes in the Upper Church. Generally +I concur in his conclusions, but cannot see Cavallini in the far abler work of +the Isaac Master. The date, 1296, which Van Marle found in the Choir at +Assisi, makes it pretty certain that all the frescoes in the Upper Church were +executed between 1293–5 and 1300.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In <cite>Toskanische Maler im XIII Jahrhundert</cite>, Berlin, 1922, Dr. O. Sirén +makes a comprehensive survey of the earliest painters of Lucca, Pisa, and +Florence. He endeavors to reconstruct the works of Coppo di Marcovaldo +whom he regards as a formative influence on Cimabue. To the usual list of +Cimabue’s works Dr. Sirén adds, with Aubert, a great Madonna in the Servi, +Bologna; and also a Madonna in the Verzocchi Collection, Milan; and an extraordinarily +fine crucifixion in the d’Hendecourt Collection, London. Dr. Sirén +also accepts for Cimabue the triptych of Christ, St. Peter and St James, which +Berenson first published in <cite>Art in America</cite>, for 1920. Of these accretions +none but the d’Hendecourt Crucifixion is at all persuasive to me.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f5'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_474'>474</span>The latest and fullest discussion of Pietro Cavallini is by Stanley Lothrop +in <cite>Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome</cite>, Vol. II, 1918. I think he is in +error in seeing Cavallini at Assisi and Perugia. Van Marle, note above, has +thrown additional light on the continuity of a Roman school.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f6'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. <cite>C. &. C.</cite> (Ed. Hutton) Vol. I, pp. 194–5. Zimmermann (<cite>Giotto</cite> &c., +Leipzig, 1899), H. Thode (<cite>Franz von Assisi</cite>, Berlin, 1904), and Fr. Hermanin +(<cite>Gallerie nazionali Italiane</cite>, Vol. V (1902), p. 113) ascribe the Stories of Isaac +and some other superior frescoes of the upper row to youthful Giotto. They +seem too accomplished and mature for that and are all allied to Gaddo Gaddi’s +mosaics at Rome.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f7'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. <cite>Giotto.</cite> Osvald Sirén, <cite>Giotto and Some of his Followers</cite>, Cambridge, +Harvard Univ. Press, 1917, in 2 Vols., gives a reasonable chronology and is +valuable for illustrations.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Roger E. Fry, <cite>Monthly Review</cite>, Vol. I, pp. 126–151; Vol. II, pp. 139–157; +Vol. III, pp, 96–121 is an admirable critical analysis of Giotto’s style, but the +ascriptions and chronology are often doubtful. Excellent on the frescoes at +Sta. Croce. The essay is reprinted in <cite>Vision and Design</cite>, London, 1921.</p> + +<p class='c007'>J. B. Supino’s startling views in the chronology of Giotto, expressed +in <cite>Giotto</cite>, Florence, 1920, in 3 Vols., seem to me fantastic.</p> + +<p class='c007'>His general order is the Allegories of the Lower Church and the Baroncelli +altar-piece about 1300, the Arena frescoes 1305, the St. Francis series in the +Upper Church about 1310, the Peruzzi Chapel about 1312, etc.</p> + +<p class='c007'>My list would be:</p> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Early Part of the St. Francis Series (II-XVIII)</td> + <td class='c025'>before</td> + <td class='c026'>1300</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Mosaic of the Navicella (completely restored)</td> + <td class='c025'>about</td> + <td class='c026'>1300</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Stigmatization of St. Francis (Louvre)</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Arena Frescoes</td> + <td class='c025'>about</td> + <td class='c026'>1305</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Madonna of Ognissanti</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Franciscan Allegories, Lower Church (design only)</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1312–20</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Stefaneschi Altar-piece (in part)</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1320, perhaps earlier</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce</td> + <td class='c025'>after</td> + <td class='c026'>1320</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Bardi Chapel, „ „</td> + <td class='c025'>about</td> + <td class='c026'>1325</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Dormition of the Virgin, at Berlin</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1325</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Madonna, Ancona, Bologna (design only)</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1330</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>The Paradise in the Bargello</td> + <td class='c025'>after</td> + <td class='c026'>1330</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Part of the Magdalen Legends there</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Part of the Magdalen Legends, Lower Church, Assisi</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Baroncelli Altar-piece (design only)</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Small panels of the Life of Christ</td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c026'> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>at New York, Fenway Court, Boston;</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Munich and Berenson Collection,</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c009'>Settignano (bottega works)</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>„</td> + </tr> +</table> + +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f8'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_475'>475</span>Padre Angelis, <cite>Collis Paradisi</cite>, 1704, I, p. 33.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f9'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. About the 28 stories of St. Francis there is no agreement except that +Nos. I and XXVI-VIII are by the “Cecelia Master.” Venturi sees Giotto only +in the later stories. I agree with Berenson that the ruder frescoes, II-XVIII, +which are based on the so-called Roman work above show us Giotto at his +beginnings. For the various views consult Brown and Rankin, <cite>A Short History</cite>, +pp. 48–9, 59, 61.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f10'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. Alex. Romdahl’s attempt to set the upper row many years later than the +rest is entirely unconvincing to me. See <cite>Jahrbuch der K. Preussischen Kunstsammlungen</cite>, +1911, pp. 3–18.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f11'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. John Ruskin, <cite>Mornings in Florence</cite>, <i><span lang="la">passim</span></i>.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f12'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. <cite>Giotto’s Followers.</cite> Osvald Sirén, <cite>Giotto and Some of his Followers</cite>, +see note 7, may be freely consulted for illustrations and very cautiously for +attributions.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f13'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. Peleo Bacci’s ascription of the recently discovered Passion frescoes in +the Badia to Buffalmacco seems reasonable, <cite>Bollettino d’ Arte</cite>, V (1911) pp. 1–27. +Dr. Sirén ascribes these frescoes to Nardo di Cione and follows Venturi in identifying +Buffalmacco with the “Cecelia Master.” <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, Vol. +XXXVI, p. 10. The hypothesis still lacks solid foundation.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f14'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. By Vasari the Spanish Chapel was divided between Taddeo Gaddi and +Simone Martini. <cite>C. &. C.</cite> discovered that the work was by an Andrea da +Firenze who as a document attests painted stories of S. Ranieri at Pisa, in 1377. +The contract which proves this Andrea to have been Andrea Bonaiuti, active +1343–77, was published in <cite>Arte e Storia</cite>, Florence, Feb., 1917, p. 33. It gives +the date of the contract for the Spanish Chapel, 1365.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The very elaborate decoration of the Spanish Chapel is fully described +in <cite>C. &. C.</cite> (Hutton) Vol. I., pp. 309–312. There are useful literary illustrations +in Venturi, <cite>Storia dell’ arte italiana</cite>, Vol. V., pp. 792–809. Ruskin in <cite>Mornings +in Florence</cite> gives a partial analysis which is fascinating from a literary point of +view, but badly overestimates the merit of the work.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER II.—SIENA</h3> + +<p class='c015'><span class='sc'>General Works</span>:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Langton Douglas. <cite>A History of Siena.</cite> New York, 1902.</div> + <div class='line'>Ferdinand Schevill. <cite>Siena, the Story of a Mediæval Commune</cite>, New York, 1909.</div> + <div class='line'>Edmund G. Gardiner. <cite>The Story of Siena and San Gemignano</cite>, London, 1902.</div> + <div class='line'>William Heywood and Lucy Olcott. <cite>Guide to Siena, History and Art</cite>, London, 1903.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c027'><span class='pageno' id='Page_476'>476</span><span class='sc'>Painting, the School.</span></p> + +<p class='c028'>Emil Jacobsen. <cite>Sienesische Meister des Trecento in der Gemälde Galerie zu +Siena</cite>, Strassburg, 1907; <cite>Das Quattrocento in Siena</cite>, Strassburg, 1908; +<cite>Sodoma und das Cinquecento in Siena</cite>, Strassburg, 1910; all very +valuable for illustrations.</p> + +<p class='c028'>Venturi, <cite>Storia dell’ Arte Italiana</cite>, Vols. V and VII.</p> + +<p class='c028'>Bernard Berenson, <cite>Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance</cite>, New York +and London, 1909.</p> + +<p class='c028'>C. Ricci, <cite>Il Palazzo Pubblico di Siena e la Mostra d’Antica Arte Senese</cite>, +Bergamo, 1904, offers a good and inexpensive survey of Sienese +handicraft in general.</p> + +<p class='c027'><span class='sc'>Sienese Pictures in the United States.</span> Consult the illustrated catalogues +of the Fogg Museum, Harvard; and of the Jarves Collection, Yale. Also +many special articles in <cite>Art in America</cite>, especially the series in Vol. VIII-IX, +by F. Mason Perkins, <cite>Some Sienese Paintings in American Collections</cite>.</p> + +<div class='footnote' id='f15'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. The fact that the Madonna of the Palazzo Pubblico had been much repainted +in Duccio’s time not unnaturally threw Milanesi and other critics off +the track. But the date is entirely genuine (see <cite>C. & C.</cite> [Douglas] Vol. I, p. 162, +note 1*; and E. Jacobsen, <cite>Das Trecento</cite>, p. 18). The latter writes, “The signature +and date are genuine. There is no tenable ground for doubting them.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>I have satisfied myself by close inspection that such is the case, and the half +dozen or so other panels associated with this Madonna stylistically all seem to +belong to the first half of the 13th century.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f16'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. Sirén, <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, XXXII (1918) p. 45, ascribes this panel to +Cavallini. Berenson in <cite>Dedalo</cite>, Vol. II, fasc. v, allots it to Constantinople +at the end of the 12th century. Neither view is even plausible to me.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f17'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. <cite>Duccio.</cite> A. Lisini, <cite>Notizie di Duccio</cite> &c. Siena, 1898. Curt Weigelt, +<cite>Duccio di Buoninsegna</cite>, Leipzig, 1911, the standard monograph, well +illustrated.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f18'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. The whole matter of the Rucellai Madonna is well discussed by Douglas +in his edition of <cite>C. & C.</cite>, Vol. I. Appendix to chapter VI. Andreas Aubert, +<cite>Cimabue</cite>, p. 138 ff., and Curt Weigelt, <cite>Duccio</cite>, both agree that the Rucellai +Madonna is the picture called for by the contract of 1285, hence is by Duccio. +Aside from many stylistic similarities to Duccio’s early Madonna with Franciscans +in the Siena Academy, the exquisitely drawn bare feet of the Angels +in the Rucellai Madonna amount almost to a signature for Siena’s greatest +painter. H. Thode and O. Sirén hold that a picture designed and begun by +Duccio was finished by Cimabue, <cite>Toskanische Maler</cite>, pp. 308–9, and note 41 +to latter page. The hypothesis that Duccio was strongly influenced by Cimabue +in this work seems simpler.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f19'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. The contract is worth quoting in part from G. Fontana, <cite>Due documenti +inediti riguardanti Cimabue</cite>, Pisa, 1878; it is reprinted in Strzygowski, <cite>Cimabue +und Rom</cite>, Wien, 1888. The papers were recovered from a grocer who was +about to use them for wrappers.</p> + +<p class='c006'>“Which picture of the Majesty of Divine and Blessed Virgin Mary and +of the Apostles and other saints is to be made in columns and in the predella +and [main] spaces of the picture good and pure florin gold shall be used; the +other pictures which are to be made in the aforesaid panel above the columns +in tabernacles, gables, and frames shall be made ... of good silver gilt.”</p> + +<p class='c006'>The picture apparently was a polyptych of three, five, or seven panels +with columns and round arches, with an upper order of gables and +tabernacles. It seems to have been the first well-peopled Madonna in +Majesty, and it probably served as Duccio’s exemplar. Cimabue died before +finishing it, but since in Nov. 1302 he received a large installment of 40 +Pisan <i><span lang="it">lire</span></i>, he must at least have fully drawn the composition on the panel.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f20'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_477'>477</span><cite>Simone Martini.</cite> See the standard work by Raimond van Marle, +<cite>Simone Martini</cite>, Strasbourg, 1920.</p> + +<p class='c007'>There is considerable difference among critics in dating these frescoes, and +no objective evidence. The early date, 1322–25, suggested by Venturi and +Van Marle, is confirmed by the stylistic character of the work. It lacks the +calligraphic, linear formulas which abound in Simone’s works after 1330. +The early date also agrees with the general probabilities of the course of events +in the decoration of the Lower Church at Assisi.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f21'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. Frey’s ed. Berlin, 1886, p. 42.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f22'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. The contract for this altar-piece is translated in the illustrations to chapter +II, p. 106.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f23'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. Venturi, Vol. V, pp. 680–694, offers a sensible compromise view of the +authorship of this series, assigning to Pietro himself only the Deposition, +Entombment, Stigmatization of St. Francis and a Madonna and Saints, +ascribing most of the subjects to an assistant. Dr. Ernest Dewald in a forthcoming +Princeton dissertation takes a more skeptical view than Venturi as to +Pietro’s presence at Assisi.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f24'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. However the “Cecelia Master,” active about 1300, deals ably with +such spatial problems. See O. Sirén, <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, Vol. XXXIV, +p. 234, and XXXVI, p. 4. and <cite>Giotto</cite>, plates 11–13, Vol. II.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f25'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. <cite>Sassetta.</cite> Bernard Berenson. <cite>A Painter of the Franciscan Legend</cite>, +(Sassetta), London and New York, 1909.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f26'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. <cite>Matteo di Giovanni.</cite> We have the standard work of G. Hartlaub, <cite>Matteo +da Siena</cite>, Strassburg, 1910. Mr. Berenson in <cite>Essays in the Study of Sienese +Painting</cite>, New York, 1918, essay on Cozzarelli, has made useful criticisms of +the list of pictures usually ascribed to Matteo.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f27'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. <cite>Sodoma.</cite> Hobart Cust, <cite>Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, usually styled “Sodoma,”</cite> +New York, 1906.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER III.—MASACCIO AND THE NEW REALISM</h3> + +<p class='c015'>On the general matter of the realists of the Early Renaissance not much has +been added to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, but Mr. Berenson’s comment in <cite>Florentine +Painters</cite> and <cite>Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance</cite> is of high critical +value. Vasari is interesting, but never more inaccurate than when dealing +with this group. As usual the latest collected information is in Venturi. <cite>Storia</cite>, +Vol. VII, part I, and elsewhere.</p> + +<div class='footnote' id='f28'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. Matteo Villani, <cite>Istorie</cite>, Florence, 1581, Lib. I, cap. iv, pp. 5–6.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f29'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. <cite>Lorenzo Monaco.</cite> The standard work is by O. Sirén, <cite>Don Lorenzo +Monaco</cite>, Strassburg, 1905.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f30'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_478'>478</span><cite>Fra Angelico.</cite> Langton Douglas. <cite>Fra Angelico</cite>, London and New +York, 1900.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Vasari’s <cite>Life</cite> is admirable and in essentials correct.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f31'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. <cite>Masolino-Masaccio.</cite> The summary in <cite>C. & C.</cite> (Douglas) Vol. IV; +(Hutton), Vol. II, reasonably brings the controversy up to date. The latest +review is by Dr. Richard Offner, <cite>Art in America</cite>, Vol. VIII, pp. 68–76, <cite>A St. +Jerome by Masolino</cite>. Dr. Offner, in <cite>Dedalo</cite>, Mar., 1923, publishes a fine St. +Julian, by Masolino, which reveals in a new light that artist’s romantic +temperamentalism. Mr. Berenson, l. c., publishes a predella piece for the +same panel.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The large album of plates accompanying August H. Schmarsow’s <cite>Masaccio, +der Begründer des Klassischen Stils</cite> &c. Kassel, 1900, is indispensable to the +serious student. It is available in the great libraries. Cuts of all the works +involved in the controversy are more readily attainable in P. Toesca’s <cite>Masolino +da Panicale</cite>, Bergamo, 1908, and in Venturi, <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. VII, pt. I.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f32'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. The rider with his back turned at the left of the fresco of the Calvary +has a rondel protecting the nape of his neck. It is a short-lived and unsuccessful +invention which was not used before 1435–40. This information, which I +owe to Dr. Bashford Dean of the Metropolitan Museum, dates the Calvary +well after Masaccio’s death, and, inferentially, all the other frescoes in the +same chapel.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f33'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. <cite>Cassoni</cite> and other Furniture Panels. The standard work is by Paul +Schubring, <cite>Cassoni</cite> &c. Leipzig, 1915.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Many of the examples in American Collections have been published and +discussed by William Rankin and myself in the <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, Vol. +VIII, IX. See also a popular sketch by me in <cite>Arts and Decoration</cite>, Dec. ’05. +The furnishing and decoration of a patrician Florentine house in the 15th +century is learnedly and delightfully treated by A. Schiaparelli, <cite>La Casa +fiorentina</cite> &c., Florence, 1908.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f34'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. See my article in <cite>Art in America</cite>, Vol. VIII, p. 154, and in <cite>Arts and Decoration</cite>, +Note 6, above.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f35'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. <cite>Masaccio</cite>, bibliography in Note 4 above.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In essentials the view and chronology of Masaccio’s works here given differs +from Cavalcaselle’s only in relegating the frescoes in S. Clemente to Masolino +and their proper date in the late 30s or early 40s. In this I have been partially +anticipated by Pietro Toesca, <cite>Masolino da Panicale</cite>, Bergamo, 1908.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The reader may justly wish me to commit myself on this most disputed +question to the extent of a list. I give it in a tentative chronological order assuming +that Masaccio may have begun to work as early as 1420.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><cite>Early Works under Masolino’s influence</cite>:</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Madonna and Saints (fresco). Shrine at Montemarciano near S. Giovanni.</div> + <div class='line'>Pietà (fresco). Cathedral, Empoli.</div> + <div class='line'>Miracle of healing by Christ (ruined by repainting). John C. Johnson Coll., Philadelphia.</div> + <div class='line'>Madonna and St. Ann. Uffizi, Florence.</div> + <div class='line'>Adam and Eve Tempted (fresco). Brancacci Chapel.</div> + <div class='line'>Resuscitation of Tabitha (fresco). Brancacci Chapel.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_479'>479</span><cite>Later Works</cite>:</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c016'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>St. Peter Preaching (fresco, possibly earlier). Brancacci Chapel.</div> + <div class='line'>Birth of St. John (salver). Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.</div> + <div class='line'>Polyptych for the Carmine, Pisa, 1426.</div> + <div class='line in4'>The Madonna, some small pilaster pieces, and a small rondel with bust of God Father. National Gallery, London.</div> + <div class='line in4'>Three predella panels (largely school work) and some small pilaster pieces. Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.</div> + <div class='line in4'>Crucifixion central pinnacle. Naples Museum.</div> + <div class='line in4'>A Saint (upper order). Civic Museum, Pisa.</div> + <div class='line in4'>A Saint (upper order). Lanckoronski, Vienna.</div> + <div class='line'>The Trinity (fresco). S. Maria Novella, Florence.</div> + <div class='line'>All the remaining frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel save the parts and panels now universally assigned to Filippino Lippi.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f36'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. Schmarsow, <cite>Masaccio Studien</cite>, bd. 3. p. 27, 8.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f37'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. <cite>Andrea del Castagno</cite>, see the important articles by Herbert P. Horne in +the <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, Vol. VII, 1905. Richard Offner, in <cite>Art in America</cite>, +Vol. VII, pp. 227–35, first published the admirable portrait in Mr. Morgan’s +Library, New York. A magnificent tournament shield with the figure of a +David is in the Widener Collection, Elkins Park, Penna., and was first published +by Guido Cagnola in <cite>Rassegna d’ Arte</cite>, Vol. XIII (1913), p. 49.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Andrea worked at Venice in 1442. See G. Fiocca, <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, +Vol. XL, p. 11.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f38'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. <cite>Alesso Baldovinetti.</cite> See E. Londi, <cite>Alesso Baldovinetti</cite>, Firenze, 1907.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER IV.—FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND THE NEW NARRATIVE STYLE</h3> + +<div class='footnote' id='f39'> +<p class='c015'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. <cite>Fra Filippo Lippi.</cite> Edward C. Strutt, <cite>Fra Filippo Lippi</cite>, London, +1906. Vasari’s <cite>Life</cite> is capital. Robert Browning’s poem, in <cite>Men and Women</cite>, +an admirable side-light.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f40'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. <cite>Benozzo Gozzoli.</cite> I accept Col. G. F. Young’s date for these frescoes. +See <cite>The Medici</cite>, New York, 1909, Vol. I., Chapter vii, where there is a good +analysis of this decoration.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f41'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. <cite>Antonio Pollaiuolo.</cite> Maud Crutwell’s <cite>Antonio Pollaiuolo</cite>, London and +New York, 1907. For later information consult Venturi, <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. VII, +pt. I, pp. 558–578.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f42'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. <cite>Piero della Francesca.</cite> W. G. Waters, <cite>Piero della Francesca</cite>, London, +1901; and Corrado Ricci’s superbly illustrated folio, <cite>Piero della Francesca</cite>, +Rome, 1910.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f43'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. <cite>Early Frescoes of the Sistine Chapel.</cite> Magnificently reproduced in the +album accompanying Ernst Steinmann’s <cite>Die Sixtinische Cappelle</cite>, Munich, +1901.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f44'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. <cite>Francesco Pesellino.</cite> Consult Dr. W. Weisbach’s able and beautifully +illustrated work, <cite>Francesco Pesellino und die Romantik der Frührenaissance</cite>, +Berlin, 1901. For cuts of <cite>Cassoni</cite>, Paul Schubring, <cite>Cassoni</cite>, Leipzig, 1915, +and the books and articles already cited in note 6 to Chapter 3.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f45'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_480'>480</span><cite>Domenico Ghirlandaio.</cite> A copious and satisfactory life is that of Gerald +S. Davies, <cite>Ghirlandaio</cite>, London and New York, 1909. Briefer but of greater +cultural scope is Ghirlandaio, by Henri Hauvette, Paris, “Les maîtres de l’art.” +For a summary criticism my article in <cite>The Nation</cite> (N. Y.), Aug. 20, 1908, +p. 167. Ruskin’s famous assault on Ghirlandaio in <cite>Mornings in Florence</cite> is +joyous reading if whimsically exaggerated.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER V.—BOTTICELLI AND LEONARDO DA VINCI</h3> + +<div class='footnote' id='f46'> +<p class='c015'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. <cite>Botticelli.</cite> The standard work is Herbert P. Horne, <cite>Sandro Botticelli</cite>, +London, 1908. A little additional information may be found in Crowe and +Cavalcaselle, <cite>A History of Painting in Italy</cite>, Hutton Ed. Vol. II, and in +Venturi, <cite>Storia dell’ Arte Italiana</cite>, Vol. VII, pt. 1.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Walter Pater’s essay in <cite>The Renaissance</cite> offers beautifully a one-sided view. +The essays, the <cite>Soul of a Fact</cite>, and <cite>Quattrocentisteria</cite>, in Maurice Hewlett’s +<cite>Earthwork out of Tuscany</cite> are poetically illuminative. Mr. Berenson’s analysis +in <cite>Florentine Painters of the Renaissance</cite> is important. I have written more +fully on Botticelli in <cite>Estimates in Art</cite>, New York, 1912.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Botticelli’s Dante illustrations are published in a cheaper and more sumptuous +form by Friedrich P. Lippmann. <cite>Botticelli, Zeichnungen von Sandro Botticelli</cite>, +Berlin, 1896.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lists of Botticelli’s works differ considerably. I incline to accept a number +of early paintings which are neglected by such exclusive critics as Berenson +and Horne. My own list, which for reasons of space cannot be given here, +would not differ much from that of A. Venturi, in <cite>Storia</cite> VII, i, 588–642.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f47'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. <cite>Filippino Lippi.</cite> I. B. Supino, <cite>Les deux Lippi</cite>, Firenze, 1904.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f48'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. <cite>Piero di Cosimo.</cite> Fritz Knapp, <cite>Piero di Cosimo</cite>, Halle, 1899. As usual +later information in Venturi, <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. VII, pt. 1.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f49'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. This extraordinary series of which four have been recovered is fully discussed +and somewhat differently interpreted by Roger E. Fry, in <cite>Burlington +Magazine</cite>, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 131<em>f.</em> See also letter on page 257.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f50'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. <cite>Leonardo da Vinci.</cite> The standard life is by W. von Seidlitz, <cite>Leonardo +da Vinci</cite>, Berlin, 1909. The early work of Leonardo and his relations with +Verrocchio have been thoroughly and lucidly analyzed by Jens Thys, <cite>Leonardo +da Vinci</cite>, London, 1913. Amid the confusingly rich bibliography, the student +may do well to stick to Vasari’s admirable <cite>Life</cite> in any of the translations, to +Dr. O. Sirén’s scholarly and cautious book <cite>Leonardo da Vinci</cite>, New Haven, +and London, 1916 and to the late Dr. J. P. Richter’s incomparable work “The +Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci,” London, 1883, obtainable only in +libraries. Giovanni Poggi, <cite>Leonardo da Vinci</cite>, Firenze, 1919, has thoroughly +edited Vasari’s <cite>Life</cite>, and should be consulted for latest views and for illustrations. +My own view on the early development of Leonardo, a most disputed +matter, is set forth more fully in <cite>Art and Archæology</cite>, Vol. IV. pp. 111–122.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For literary side-lights Walter Pater’s essay, in <cite>The Renaissance</cite>; for an iconoclastic +view Berenson in <cite>Study and Criticism of Italian Art</cite>, Fourth Series, +New York, 1920. Edward McCurdy’s selected translations from <cite>The Notebooks +of Leonardo da Vinci</cite>, New York, 1906, are valuable for those to whom +Richter is inaccessible. Leonardo’s drawings, which are no less important than +his paintings, may best be approached through Mr. Berenson’s monumental +work, <cite>The Drawings of the Florentine Painters</cite>, New York and London, 1903, +while the drawings before 1480 are clearly and ably discussed by Dr. Thys.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f51'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_481'>481</span>The capital mistake of the more exclusive critics of Leonardo’s early +work is that they set this delightful little masterpiece at the beginning of the +series in an impossibly early date. There is no such manipulation of paint and +no such feeling for unity of landscape before 1475 or so. Being a revision of +the design of the Uffizi Annunciation, it is necessarily later.</p> + +<p class='c007'>My list of Leonardo’s would include, in approximate order:</p> + + <dl class='dl_1'> + <dt>1.</dt> + <dd>In Verocchio’s Baptism. The landscape at left and distance, the Angel kneeling to right, + about 1470, Uffizi. + </dd> + <dt>2.</dt> + <dd>Madonna and Child with an Angel, design by Verrocchio, London. + </dd> + <dt>3.</dt> + <dd>The Annunciation, design mostly by Verrocchio, about 1475, Uffizi. + </dd> + <dt>4.</dt> + <dd>Portrait of a Girl, possibly a Verrocchio, Prince Liechtenstein, Vienna. + </dd> + <dt>5.</dt> + <dd>Annunciation, Louvre. + </dd> + <dt>6.</dt> + <dd>Benois Madonna, about 1478–9, Petrograd. + </dd> + <dt>7.</dt> + <dd>St. Jerome, unfinished, Vatican, Rome. + </dd> + <dt>8.</dt> + <dd>Adoration of the Magi, left unfinished about 1481, Uffizi. + </dd> + <dt>9.</dt> + <dd>Cartoon of St. Ann, Burlington House, London. + </dd> + <dt>10.</dt> + <dd>Madonna of the Rocks, between 1480–83, Paris. + </dd> + <dt>11.</dt> + <dd>So-called Belle Ferronnière, perhaps bottega piece, about 1490, Paris. + </dd> + <dt>12.</dt> + <dd>Girl with an Ermine, perhaps a bottega piece, about 1495, Cracow. + </dd> + <dt>13.</dt> + <dd>Clay model of the Sforza horse, destroyed in 1500. + </dd> + <dt>14.</dt> + <dd>Last Supper, 1498, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. + </dd> + <dt>15.</dt> + <dd>Cartoon for a St. Ann, lost but represented by sketches at Venice, 1503. + </dd> + <dt>16.</dt> + <dd>Madonna of the Distaff, represented by old copies. + </dd> + <dt>17.</dt> + <dd>Cartoon for Battle of Anghiari, only central group painted, partly represented by + sketches and old copies, 1504. + </dd> + <dt>18.</dt> + <dd>Portrait of Mona Lisa, Paris. + </dd> + <dt>19.</dt> + <dd>Cartoon for a standing Leda, probably only the figure, since numerous old copies have + widely varying accessories. + </dd> + <dt>20.</dt> + <dd>Madonna of the Rocks, 1507, London. + </dd> + <dt>21.</dt> + <dd>Cartoon for a Kneeling Leda, the figure only. Sketches and old copies. + </dd> + <dt>22.</dt> + <dd>Madonna and St. Ann, Paris. + </dd> + <dt>23.</dt> + <dd>St. John, half-length, Paris. + </dd> + </dl> + +<p class='c007'>All Leonardo’s main activity as a painter lies from 1470–1500. He painted +a picture about every two years.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Various sculptures have been ascribed to Leonardo. Of these only two, +which will have been made in Verrocchio’s <i><span lang="it">bottega</span></i> and under his direction, +seem to me to deserve the distinction. A terra cotta Madonna and Child in +the Metropolitan Museum, there ascribed to Verrocchio’s school, may represent +Leonardo’s modelling about 1465. A stucco Madonna owned by Mr. +George Diblee, at Oxford, is perhaps ten years later. The first is discussed +by me in <cite>Art and Archaeology</cite>, Vol. IV, p. 122; the second is reproduced and +accepted as a Leonardo by Prof. A. Venturi in <cite>L’ Arte</cite>, Vol. XXV, p. 131.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f52'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. The best study of this picture and of its contemporary influence is that +of George Gronau in <cite>Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst</cite>. N. F. Vol. XXIII, pp. +253–259. He fails to perceive that so primitive a picture as late as 1478 +furnishes the best reason for accepting most of the rejected early Leonardos.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f53'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_482'>482</span>In all this matter Jens Thys’s admirable studies are indispensable. +See note 5 above.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f54'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. The Lady and the Ermine and the Belle Ferronnière are thoroughly discussed +by H. Ochenkowski, <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, Vol. XXXIV, p. 186 <em>f.</em>, where +a full bibliography will be found.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f55'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. This error which has persisted since Vasari was finally corrected by +the great restorer Cavenaghi in his report of the last restoration. Malaguzzi +Valeri in <cite>Milano</cite>, Bergamo, 1906, pt. 2, p. 14, first advanced the correct view +that the painting was done in tempera.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f56'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. Kenyon Cox, <cite>Concerning Painting</cite>, New York, 1917, p. 73.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f57'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. <cite>Fra Bartolommeo.</cite> The standard work is Fritz Knapp’s <cite>Fra Bartolommeo +della Porta</cite>, Halle, 1903. H. v. d. Gablentz, <cite>Fra Bartolommeo</cite> in 2 vols., +Leipzig, 1922.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f58'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. <cite>Andrea del Sarto.</cite> H. Guinness, <cite>Andrea del Sarto</cite>, London and New +York, 1901. Andrea’s drawings are finely analyzed by Bernard Berenson in +<cite>The Drawings of the Florentine Painters</cite>.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f59'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. <cite>Bronzino.</cite> Hans Schulze, <cite>Die Werke Angelo Bronzino’s</cite>, Strassburg, +1911.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f60'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. <cite>Pontormo.</cite> We have two admirable books by the same writer, Dr. +F. M. Clapp; <cite>Les Dessins de Pontormo</cite>, Paris, 1914; <cite>Pontormo, his Life and +Work</cite>, New Haven, 1916.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Pontormo’s supreme masterpiece of portraiture, The Halberdier, is published +by myself in <cite>Art in America</cite>, Vol. X, p. 66.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<p class='c015'><span class='sc'>The High Renaissance.</span> The indispensable books are, for leading ideas, +J. C. Burckhardt, <cite>Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy</cite>, New York, 1890; +for the stylistic development in Art, H. Wölfflin, <cite>The Art of the Italian Renaissance</cite>, +New York, 1913. Very valuable for history and biography are J. Addington +Symonds’s <cite>The Renaissance in Italy</cite>, 5 Vols., London; and H. O. +Taylor’s <cite>Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century</cite>, New York, 1920. +For Renaissance ideals of nobility and moderation the capital contemporary +work is <cite>Il Cortegiano</cite>, by Baldassare Castiglione, translated as <cite>The Courtier</cite> +by L. E. Opdycke, New York, 1905. For stylistic analysis Berenson’s introductions +to <cite>Florentine Painters</cite>, and to <cite>Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance</cite>, +are suggestive and important.</p> + +<div class='footnote' id='f61'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. <cite>Gentile da Fabriano.</cite> A. Colasanti, <cite>Gentile da Fabriano</cite>. Bergamo, 1909. +Also my Essay review. <cite>The Nation</cite>, Vol. 89 (1909) pp. 168–170.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f62'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. <cite>Andrea da Bologna.</cite> <cite>The Nation</cite> (N. Y.) Vol. 95. (1912) p. 392.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f63'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. <cite>Fifteenth Century Umbrians.</cite> Walter Rothes, in <cite>Anfänge ... der Alt-Umbrischen +Malerschulen</cite>, Strassburg, 1908, gives excellent illustrations for +the Early Umbrian Artists. Also for cuts, U. Gnoli, <cite>La Mostra Umbra</cite>, Bergamo.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f64'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. <cite>Melozzo da Forlì.</cite> A. Schmarsow, <cite>Melozzo da Forlì</cite>, Berlin, 1886, and C. +Ricci, <cite>Melozzo da Forlì</cite>, Rome, 1911, are the standard works.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f65'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_483'>483</span><cite>Luca Signorelli.</cite> Maud Crutwell, <cite>Luca Signorelli</cite>, London, 1901. See +Venturi, vii, as usual.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f66'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. <cite>Pietro Perugino.</cite> Venturi, <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. VII, pt. 2, ch. v, makes Perugino +the direct pupil of Piero della Francesca, ascribing to Perugino many pictures +formerly ascribed to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. The view while attractive is not +wholly convincing to me. All of Perugino’s works are published in <cite>Klassiker +der Kunst</cite>, No. XXV, Stuttgart, 1914. The best general estimate of Perugino +is that of Wölfflin and of Berenson, in <cite>Central Italian Painters</cite>.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f67'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. The <cite>Cambio</cite> frescoes. While it is inherently likely that Raphael worked +on these frescoes, Prof. Venturi’s plea for Raphael’s authorship of God, the +Prophets and Sibyls, <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. VII, pt. 2, p. 828 <em>ff.</em> depends largely on the +shaky evidence of drawings attributed arbitrarily to Raphael.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='sc'>Raphael and Michelangelo.</span> From the point of view of pure style the best +treatment of these artists and of the High Renaissance is that of Heinrich +Wölfflin in <cite>The Art of the Italian Renaissance</cite>, New York, 1913. It is a book +that every student should read and if possible own. Mr. Berenson’s treatment +of space composition, in the introduction to <cite>Central Italian Painters of the +Renaissance</cite>, is perhaps his finest achievement in criticism.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f68'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. <cite>Raphael.</cite> Hermann Grimm’s two volume <cite>Life of Raphael</cite> is still valuable +for background. Among the numerous popular books in English none is outstanding. +Henry Strachey’s <cite>Raphael</cite>, in “Great Masters of Art,” is good, and +so are Julia Cartwright’s two monographs: <cite>The Early Work of Raphael</cite> and +<cite>Raphael in Rome</cite>, in the <cite>Portfolio Series</cite>, London, 1895.</p> + +<p class='c029'>For Raphael’s participation in the frescoes of the Cambio it seems to me +that Professor Venturi, in <cite>Storia dell’ Arte Italiana</cite>, Vol. VII, part 2, makes out +only a plausible case.</p> + +<p class='c029'>Reproductions of all of Raphael’s works in <cite>Klassiker der Kunst</cite>, No. I., +<cite>Raphael</cite>, Stuttgart and Leipzig.</p> + +<p class='c029'>Among the innumerable essays on Raphael none is more understanding +than John La Farge’s, in <cite>Great Masters</cite>, New York, 1903.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f69'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r69'>69</a>. <cite>Michelangelo.</cite> The best source for the study of Michelangelo, painter, +is the superb plates in Ernst Steinmann’s <cite>Die Sixtinische Cappelle</cite>, Munich, +1901. Among recent short biographies that of Charles Holroyd, <cite>Michelangelo</cite>, +London and New York, 1911 and Romain Rolland (a longer study, <cite>The Life of +Michelangelo</cite>, New York, 1912; a different and shorter work, <cite>Michelangelo, a +Study, &c.</cite>, New York, 1915) are perhaps the best. The two volume biographies +by Hermann Grimm and by J. Addington Symonds are valuable, especially +for historical background. But the reader may be wise to content himself with +one of the brief biographies and such contemporary lives as Vasari’s, Ascanio +Condivi’s, and Francesco d’Olanda’s. The two latter are translated in Holroyd’s +book. The drawings of Michelangelo are admirably discussed and presented +in a perfect selection by Mr. Berenson in <cite>The Drawings of the Florentine +Painters</cite>. The drawings are chronologically arranged and beautifully reproduced +by Karl Frey, <cite>Die Handzeichnungen Michelangelo’s</cite>, 2 vols., Berlin, +1911. W. R. Valentiner treats <cite>The Late Years of Michelangelo</cite> (New York, +1914) with insight, devoting himself chiefly to the more finished drawings. +For a brief yet comprehensive survey, John La Farge in <cite>Great Masters</cite>, New +York, 1903. The works are completely reproduced in <cite>Klassiker der Kunst</cite>, +No. VII. <cite>Michelangelo</cite>, Stuttgart and Leipzig.</p> +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_484'>484</span> + <h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER VII.—EARLY VENETIAN PAINTING</h3> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f70'> +<p class='c015'><a href='#r70'>70</a>. Little literature of a general sort is available to the English speaking +reader. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, <cite>A History of Painting in Northern Italy</cite>, +admirably edited by Tancred Borenius, in three volumes, London, 1913, is +the chief repository of facts. Evelyn March Phillipps, <cite>The Venetian School +of Painting</cite>, London, 1912, is an excellent brief survey. For readers of +Italian Lionello Venturi’s <cite>Le Origini della Pittura Veneziana</cite>, Venice, 1911, +is the best book. A treasure house of materials in Laudadeo Testi’s two +volumes, <cite>La Storia della Pittura Veneziana</cite>, Bergamo. John Ruskin’s masterpiece, +<cite>Stones of Venice</cite>, may be consulted with profit and delight. There +are treasures of antiquarian information in Pompeo Molmenti, <cite>La Storia di +Venezia nella Vita Privata</cite>, 3 vols., Bergamo, 1905.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f71'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r71'>71</a>. <cite>Jacopo Bellini.</cite> The extraordinary and fascinating sketch books are +published in two forms, by Corrado Ricci, <cite>Jacopo Bellini e i suo libri di designi</cite>, +2 vols., Florence, 1908, and by V. Goloubew, <cite>Les Dessins de Jacopo Bellini</cite>, +Bruxelles, 1908.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f72'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r72'>72</a>. G. McNeill Rushforth, <cite>Carlo Crivelli</cite>, London, 1900.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f73'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r73'>73</a>. <cite>Andrea Mantegna.</cite> The standard work is by Paul Kristeller, <cite>Andrea +Mantegna</cite>, London and New York, 1901. Maud Crutwell’s short biography, +<cite>Andrea Mantegna</cite>, London, 1901, is excellent. Mr. Berenson’s subtle analysis +in <cite>North Italian Painters of the Renaissance</cite> perhaps overstresses Andrea’s +defects. Mantegna’s complete works are reproduced in <cite>Klassiker der Kunst</cite>, +No. XVI, Stuttgart, 1910.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f74'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r74'>74</a>. <cite>Antonello da Messina.</cite> See L. Venturi, <cite>Le Origini</cite>, and A. Venturi, +<cite>Storia</cite>, VII, pt. 4. Recent attributions, Bernard Berenson, <cite>Study and Criticism +of Italian Art</cite>, 3rd Series, London, 1916, p. 79 <em>ff.</em></p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f75'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r75'>75</a>. <cite>Giovanni Bellini.</cite> Nothing notable in English except casual criticism by +Ruskin and Roger E. Fry’s admirable little book, <cite>Giovanni Bellini</cite>, London, +1899, which is unfortunately out of print. For such as read German—Georg +Gronau, <cite>Die Künstler-familie Bellini</cite>, Leipzig, 1907, with abundant illustrations. +Recently discovered pictures and a better chronology, in Bernard Berenson: +<cite>Venetian Painting in America</cite>, New York, 1916.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f76'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r76'>76</a>. <cite>Vettor Carpaccio.</cite> Ludwig and Molmenti’s <cite>The Life and Works of Victor +Carpaccio</cite>, London, 1907, gives, aside from its main topic, a vivid picture +of the cultural condition of Venice about 1500. See my essay review of it in +<cite>The Nation</cite>, Vol. 86, (1908) pp. 315 <em>ff.</em> John Ruskin’s delightful comments +on Carpaccio are mostly in the <cite>Guide to the Academy</cite> at Venice and in <cite>St. Mark’s +Rest</cite>, chapter <cite>The Shrine of the Slaves</cite>, Library ed. Vol. XXIV.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f77'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r77'>77</a>. <cite>Giorgione.</cite> For the smallest list L. Venturi, <cite>Giorgione e il Giorgionismo</cite>, +Milan, 1913; for the longest list Herbert Cook, <cite>Giorgione</cite>; for a middle view +L. Justi, <cite>Giorgione</cite>, 2 vols., Berlin, 1908, most useful plates.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The general conditions of the problem are clearly stated by the late Richard +Norton in <cite>Bernini and other Studies</cite>, New York, 1914. L. Hourticq, in <cite>La Jeunesse +de Titien</cite>, Paris, 1919, has lately worked over the pictures which lie between +Titian and Giorgione in an interesting but highly subjective fashion. Kenyon +Cox, <cite>Art in America</cite>, Vol. I, pp. 115 <em>ff.</em>, makes the plausible suggestion that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_485'>485</span>the several portraits signed V or VV are by Titian, the letters meaning +Vecellius Venetus. This would make the Berlin portrait a Titian.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Walter Pater’s essay on <cite>The School of Giorgione</cite>, in <cite>The Renaissance</cite> is as +masterly for insight as it is for verbal beauty.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I hesitate to add one more to the varying opinions concerning +Giorgione’s paintings. At least I may introduce a novelty by classing them according +to probability, or rather according to the completeness of my own +conviction. In the whole matter we are largely in the field of taste and opinion. +E means early.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><em>Paintings, m. j. surely by Giorgione</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>1. The Shepherds finding the Infant Paris (repainted fragment, E) Budapest</p> + +<p class='c007'>2. “The Soldier and the Gipsy” E. Prince Giovanelli</p> + +<p class='c007'>3. Madonna with St. Francis and St. George (1504) Castelfranco</p> + +<p class='c007'>4. The Three Philosophers (finished by Sebastiano del Piombo) Vienna</p> + +<p class='c007'>5. Orpheus and Eurydice (<em>cassone</em> panel) Bergamo</p> + +<p class='c007'>6. The Sleeping Venus (landscape by Titian) Dresden</p> + +<p class='c007'>7. Fresco of Nude Woman, nearly effaced (1508), represented by Zanetti’s +print Fondaco de’ Tedeschi</p> + +<p class='c007'>8. Judith (cut down at sides) Petrograd</p> + +<p class='c007'>9. His own Portrait (much cut down and damaged) Brunswick</p> + +<p class='c007'>10. Christ with his Cross Church of S. Rocco</p> + +<p class='c007'>11. The Concert (finished by Titian? or repainted in his manner?) Florence</p> + +<p class='c006'><cite>Paintings probably by Giorgione.</cite> I accept these, but do not think the evidence +demonstrative.</p> + +<p class='c007'>12–13. Stories of the Infant Paris (two <em>cassone</em> panels, E.) Sir Martin +Conway, Allington Castle, Maidstone, England</p> + +<p class='c007'>14. The Fire Ordeal of Moses (door panel, E.) Florence</p> + +<p class='c007'>15. The Judgment of Solomon (door panel, E.) Florence</p> + +<p class='c007'>16. Christ bearing his Cross, E. Fenway Court, Boston.</p> + +<p class='c007'>17. Homage to a Poet, E. London</p> + +<p class='c007'>18. Portrait of a Young Man (possibly an early Titian) Berlin</p> + +<p class='c007'>19. Boy With an Arrow (old copy?) Vienna</p> + +<p class='c007'>20. Shepherd with a Flute Hampton Court</p> + +<p class='c007'>21. David with Goliath’s Head (copy? or ruined original?) Vienna</p> + +<p class='c007'>22. Altar-piece of St. John Chrysostom (mostly executed by Sebastiano del +Piombo) S. Giovanni Crisostomo</p> + +<p class='c007'>23. The Pastoral Symphony (radically repainted in recent times.) Paris</p> + +<p class='c007'>24. Portrait of a Man New York</p> + +<p class='c006'>This list might still be extended by half a dozen numbers by including +pictures which may represent lost originals by Giorgione, but here we are in +a field too subjective for profitable discussion in a handbook.</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>Pictures generally ascribed to Giorgione, I think erroneously.</cite></p> + +<p class='c007'>The Knight of Malta (probably a Titian about 1515) Florence</p> + +<p class='c007'>Portrait of Broccardo Budapest</p> + +<p class='c007'>Storm Calmed by St. Mark (probably a Palma) Venice</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_486'>486</span>Judgment of Solomon (Hourticq plausibly regards as copy of lost fresco by +Titian) Banks Coll., Kingston Lacy</p> + +<p class='c007'>Madonna with St. Antony and St. Roch (probably a Titian) Madrid</p> + +<p class='c007'>Portrait of a Woman Casino Borghese, Rome</p> + +<p class='c007'>The reason for excluding such works is their over-pathetic or over-dramatic +quality. The argument applies especially to the Adulteress before Christ at +Glasgow. Corroborative technical evidence against this group may be found +in L. Venturi’s excellent monograph.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER VIII.—TITIAN AND THE VENETIAN RENAISSANCE</h3> + +<p class='c015'>On the Venetian Renaissance in general we have the works cited at the head +of Notes for Chapter VII and for biographies and lists D. V. Hadeln, new +ed. Ridolfi, <cite>Le Maraviglie dell’ Arte</cite>, Berlin, 1914. A brief survey by the late +Kenyon Cox, in <cite>Concerning Painting</cite>, New York, 1917, pp. 98–132, is valuable.</p> + +<div class='footnote' id='f78'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r78'>78</a>. <cite>Titian.</cite> Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s <cite>The Life and Times of Titian</cite>, in 2 vols., +London, 1881, is still the fullest repository of information. Georg Gronau’s +popular but carefully done <cite>Titian</cite>, London and New York, 1904, takes account +of later documentary discoveries. As a painter’s analysis of technical aims +Charles Rickett’s <cite>Titian</cite>, London, 1910, is noteworthy. Nearly all of Titian’s +works are published in <cite>Klassiker der Kunst</cite>, No. III, Stuttgart, 1906. Several +newly discovered pictures are reproduced in the recent volumes, 1918–22, of +the <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite>, <cite>Art in America</cite>, and <cite>Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst</cite>.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f79'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r79'>79</a>. <cite>Titian’s Age.</cite> All the available material on this disputed matter is +offered by Mr. Herbert Cook and Dr. George Gronau in a controversy printed +as appendices to Cook’s <cite>Giorgione</cite>, London, 1907. The early evidence is very +conflicting.</p> + +<table class='table1'> + <tr> + <td class='c025'>Writing</td> + <td class='c025'>in</td> + <td class='c030'>1557</td> + <td class='c009'>Dolce implies</td> + <td class='c025'>Titian</td> + <td class='c025'>was</td> + <td class='c025'>born</td> + <td class='c025'>about</td> + <td class='c026'>1489</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c030'>1566–7</td> + <td class='c009'>Vasari</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1489</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c030'>1564</td> + <td class='c009'>A Spanish Envoy</td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1474</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c030'>1567</td> + <td class='c009'>A Spanish Consul</td> + <td class='c025'> </td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1482</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c030'>1571</td> + <td class='c009'>Titian himself</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1477</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c030'>1584</td> + <td class='c009'>Borghini</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c025'>„</td> + <td class='c026'>1478–9</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class='c007'>Writing in 1545 and 1548 Titian refers to his old age and disabilities (Cook, +p. 141 note), expressions more natural if he was sixty-eight and seventy-one +than they would be if he were only fifty-six and fifty-nine.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Cook’s theory that Titian and his Spanish official friends grossly exaggerated +his age to secure prompter remittances from the Emperor seems to +me gratuitous and flimsy. Dr. Gronau convinces me that neither Dolce nor +Vasari can be regarded as serious witnesses. L. Hourticq in <cite>La Jeunesse de +Titien</cite>, Paris, 1919, adds next to nothing to Cook in maintaining the later +date for Titian’s birth.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The whole weight of evidence points to the fact that Titian told the broad +truth about his age, perhaps, indulging in a round number. I am sure he was +well over ninety when he described himself as ninety-five in the letter of 1571, +and that he died all but a centenarian.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f80'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r80'>80</a>. <span class='pageno' id='Page_487'>487</span>Pietro d’Achiardi, <cite>Sebastiano de Piombo</cite>, Roma, 1908.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f81'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r81'>81</a>. Max von Boehn, <cite>Giorgione und Palma Vecchio</cite>, Leipzig, 1908.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f82'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r82'>82</a>. Bernard Berenson, <cite>Lorenzo Lotto</cite>, London, 1905. Comprises also careful +studies of Alvise Vivarini, Cima, Montagna and other Venetic painters. In +<cite>The Study and Criticism of Italian Art</cite>, 3rd series, London, 1916, the superb +Saint Justine of the Valsecchi Collection is rightly restored to Giovanni Bellini, +l.c. p. 38 <em>ff.</em></p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f83'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r83'>83</a>. <cite>Correggio.</cite> The standard work, C. Ricci, <cite>Antonio Allegri da Coreggio</cite>, +New York, 1896. A delightful critical study, T. Sturge Moore, <cite>Correggio</cite>, +London and New York, 1906. The complete works in <cite>Klassiker der Kunst</cite>, +No. XVII, Stuttgart.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A new and convincing view of Correggio’s date of birth and early development +in Venturi, <cite>Storia</cite>, Vol. VII, pt. iii, pp. 1152 <em>ff.</em></p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f84'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r84'>84</a>. Evelyn March Phillipps, <cite>Tintoretto</cite>, London, 1911. Many of the extraordinary +tempera sketches are reproduced in the <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite> for January +and February, 1910. H. Thode, <cite>Tintoretto</cite>, Leipzig, 1901.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Many eloquent criticisms by Ruskin in <cite>Modern Painters</cite> and <cite>Stones of Venice</cite> +(see indices) and in the <cite>Guide to the Academy at Venice</cite>, Library ed. Vol. XXIV.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f85'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r85'>85</a>. <cite>Paolo Veronese.</cite> See Kenyon Cox’s masterly essay in <cite>Old Masters and +New</cite>, New York.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f86'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r86'>86</a>. <cite>G. B. Tiepolo.</cite> The standard work is by Pompeo Molmenti. <cite>G. B. +Tiepolo</cite>, Milan, 1909.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f87'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r87'>87</a>. G. A. Simonson. <cite>Francesco Guardi</cite>, London, 1905. Numerous additions +by the same author in the <cite>Burlington Magazine</cite> for succeeding years.</p> +</div> + +<h3 class='c013'>CHAPTER IX.—THE REALISTS AND ECLECTICS</h3> + +<p class='c015'>On this period there is little available literature in English, but there are excellent +sketches of most of the artists treated in this chapter in C. Ricci, <cite>Art +in Northern Italy</cite>, New York, 1911.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A. Pératé in A. Michel, <cite>Histoire de l’Art</cite>, Vol. Vª, gives a fuller summary.</p> + +<div class='footnote' id='f88'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r88'>88</a>. <cite>Caravaggio.</cite> W. Kallab, Austrian <cite>Jahrbuch</cite>, Vol. XXVI (1906), p. 272 <em>ff.</em>, +brief illustrated essay. Felix Witting, <cite>Michelangelo da Caravaggio</cite>, Strassburg, +1916.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f89'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r89'>89</a>. <cite>Salvator Rosa.</cite> Lady Morgan, <cite>The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa</cite>, +in two vols., Paris, 1824. Leandro Ozzola, <cite>Vita e opere di Salvator Rosa</cite>, +Strassburg, 1908.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The passages translated in the text are from Bottari, <cite>Raccolta di lettere sulla +Pittura</cite> &c., Vol. I, pp. 447, 450 <em>f.</em>, Milan, 1822.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f90'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r90'>90</a>. <cite>The Carracci.</cite> The fundamental source is Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s +highly contentious and anecdotal work <cite>Felsina Pittrice</cite>; I have used the two volume +edition, Milan, 1841.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Gabriel Rouchès, <cite>La Peinture Bolonaise à la Fin du XVI<sup>e</sup> Siècle</cite>, Paris, 1913, +is the standard work on the Eclectic School. On the landscape of this school, +which is highly important as preparatory to Claude and Poussin, Rouchès +has two remarkable essays in <cite>Gazette des Beaux Arts</cite>, 5<sup>e</sup> période Tome, III. +(Jan. and Feb. nos. 1921) pp. 7 <em>ff.</em>, and 119 <em>ff.</em></p> + +<p class='c007'>Hans Tietze, in Austrian <cite>Jahrbuch</cite>, Vol. XXVI (1906) p. 51 <em>ff.</em>, <cite>Annibale +<span class='pageno' id='Page_488'>488</span>Carracci’s Galerie im Palazzo Farnese und seine Römische Werkstätte</cite>—a very +thorough and richly illustrated monograph on the Carracci, including such +scholars as Francesco Albani, and Domenichino.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f91'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r91'>91</a>. <cite>Guido Reni.</cite> Max von Boehn, <cite>Guido Reni</cite>, Leipzig, 1910, fully illustrated.</p> +</div> + +<div class='footnote' id='f92'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r92'>92</a>. <cite>Domenichino.</cite> Luigi Serra, <cite>Domenico Zampieri detto Domenichino</cite>, +Rome, 1909. Also Tietze’s article, above, note 3.</p> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_489'>489</span> + <h2 class='c005'>HINTS FOR READING</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'><span class='sc'>Comprehensive Histories of Italian Painting.</span> For English speaking +readers the greatest resource for reference is Crowe and Cavalcaselle, <cite>A New +History of Painting in Italy</cite>, which covers the Central Italian field up to about +1500. I prefer the three volume edition by Edward Hutton, published by J. M. +Dent and Co., London; and E. P. Dutton, New York, (1908–9) to the fuller +six-volume edition annotated by Langton Douglas and published conjointly +by the Murrays of London and the Scribners of New York. For the North +Italian field Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s <cite>History of Painting in Northern Italy</cite>, +re-edited in three volumes by Tancred Borenius, John Murray-Charles +Scribner’s Sons, 1912, is indispensable. Both works are ordinarily cited as +“C. & C.” The Italian articles in A. Michel’s <cite>Histoire de l’Art</cite>, Paris, are excellent.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='sc'>Manuals.</span> Bernard Berenson’s four Handbooks, <cite>Venetian Painters of the +Renaissance</cite>, <cite>Florentine Painters of the Renaissance</cite>, <cite>Central Italian Painters of +the Renaissance</cite>, and <cite>Northern Italian Painters of the Renaissance</cite>, New York and +London, G. P. Putnam and Sons, are uniquely useful. Each contains a thorough +critical discussion and lists of the works of the more important painters. The +latest editions should be used.</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>A Short History of Italian Painting</cite>, by Alice van Vechten Brown and William +Rankin, Dent-Dutton, 1914, offers brilliant, if uneven, characterizations and +able summaries of contested points.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='sc'>Technique.</span> Consult the delightful <cite>The Book of Art by Cennino Cennini</cite>, +edited by Christiana J. Herringham, London: George Allen, 1922, for methods +of painting in tempera and fresco.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='sc'>Biography.</span> Giorgio Vasari’s picturesque <cite>Lives of the Painters</cite> may most +profitably be read in the translation of Gaston DuC. de Vere, in ten volumes, +London: Philip Lee Warner; New York: The Macmillan Company. There +are many color-prints. The matter is available inexpensively in the handy +“Everyman’s Library.” Mrs. Ady, “Julia Cartwright,” has epitomized the +chief lives agreeably, with necessary corrections, in <cite>The Painters of Florence</cite>, +E. P. Dutton and Company, 1916.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='sc'>Periodicals.</span> The reader may most profitably cultivate the habit of paging +over the files of <cite>The Burlington Magazine</cite> and <cite>Art in America</cite>, <cite>Rassegna d’Arte</cite> +and <cite>L’Arte</cite>, which contain good reproductions of many fine Italian pictures in +private collections.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='sc'>Historical Background.</span> Excellent the many Italian Chapters in Henry +Osborn Taylor’s <cite>The Mediaeval Mind</cite>, in two volumes, The Macmillan Company, +1911. For Florentine conditions consult Guido Biagi, <cite>Men and Manners +of Old Florence</cite>, Chicago, A. C. McClurg and Company, 1909, and <cite>The +Builders of Florence</cite>, by J. Wood Brown, London, Methuen and Company, 1907.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_490'>490</span><span class='sc'>Photographs</span>, etc. The ideal way to use a handbook would be to skim it +before visiting a great European gallery and to reread it carefully while the +impression of the pictures themselves was still vivid. But the student must +also depend much on photographic reproductions. For Italy those of Messrs. +Alinari at Florence and of Dominick Anderson at Rome are comprehensive, +finely made, and remarkably cheap. Alinari has most of the Italian paintings +of the Louvre and Dresden Gallery; Anderson, those of the Prado, Madrid, +and National Gallery, London. The collections of Hanfstaengl and of Bruckmann, +Munich, cover most of the galleries of Northern and Central Europe. +Photographs of the Italian pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, New York; +the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Mass., and +the Jarves Collection, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., may be purchased +from those museums. Besides these four main collections of Italian pictures +in America, that of the New York Historical Society, New York, and of Mrs. +John L. Gardner, Fenway Court, Boston, occasionally open to the public, are +noteworthy. The art museums of Worcester, Mass., Providence, R. I., Cleveland, +O., Indianapolis, Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis have Italian pictures +of quality. There is something in the Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia, and +whenever the John G. Johnson Collection shall be worthily exhibited, Philadelphia +will be rich indeed in Italian art. The student should not fail to utilize +such local resources, however slight they may seem, for one minor original +thoroughly enjoyed is worth days of poring over reproductions.</p> + +<p class='c007'>For students who cannot afford a considerable number of photographs the +<em>University Prints</em>, Newton, Mass., afford a tolerable substitute. For quick +reference the numerous cuts in Venturi’s monumental <cite>Storia dell’ Arte Italiana</cite>, +Milan, Ulrico Hoepli, are very useful. The halftones in the “Künstler Monografien,” +Leipzig, Velhagen and Klasing, and the larger prints in the “Klassiker +der Kunst,” Stuttgart and Leipzig, serve a similar purpose. Details may be +had from any importing bookseller.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_491'>491</span> + <h2 class='c005'>INDEX</h2> +</div> + +<p class='c006'>Where an artist has a family name, that is the indexed word, e.g., Bellini, +Giovanni. Where there is no surname, the Christian name is used, e.g., Nardo +di Cione, Andrea da Bologna. So is the Christian name the index word when +an apparent surname is really only descriptive of birthplace or civil estate, +e.g., Domenico Veneziano, Lorenzo Monaco. In the case of well-known artists, +the most familiar name is employed, e.g., Angelico, Fra; Giorgione, Titian, +Perugino, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Botticelli, Michelangelo, etc.</p> + +<ul class='index'> + <li class='c031'>Academic, light and shade, Leonardo, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>; + <ul> + <li>theory of generalization, Sir Joshua Reynolds, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>;</li> + <li>of selection and Belle Nature, Leonardo, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>;</li> + <li>L. Dolce, <a href='#Page_445'>445</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Altar, as shrine and tomb, influence on subjects of painting, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Alunno (Niccolò Liberatore), <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Andrea da Bologna, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Andrea del Castagno, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>–147, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Andrea del Sarto, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>–253</li> + <li class='c031'>Angelico of Fiesole, Fra, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>–122, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Antonello da Messina, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>–348, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>, <a href='#Page_360'>360</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Antonio da Negroponte, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Ariosto, list of greatest painters, <a href='#Page_385'>385</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Baldovinetti, Alesso, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>; + <ul> + <li>an official appraisal of his frescoes, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Barna of Siena, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bartolo di Fredi, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Baroque decorative painting, derives from Mantegna, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>–341; + <ul> + <li>Correggio, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_415'>415</a>–416;</li> + <li>Tiepolo, <a href='#Page_442'>442</a>;</li> + <li>Influence of Catholic Reaction on mood of, <a href='#Page_459'>459</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Bartolommeo, Fra (Baccio della Porta), <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>–248, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bartolommeo della Gatta, Don, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bellini, Gentile, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>–352, <a href='#Page_364'>364</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bellini, Giovanni, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a>–362, <a href='#Page_369'>369</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bellini, Jacopo, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>–333, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bembo, Pietro, <a href='#Page_373'>373</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Benvenuto di Giovanni, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Birth salvers (deschi da parto), <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bologna School and Eclecticism, <i><span lang="la">passim</span></i>, <a href='#Page_458'>458</a>–465, <a href='#Page_471'>471</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bonfigli, Benedetto, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Botticelli, Sandro (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>–220, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Brancacci Chapel, problem of the frescoes, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>–141</li> + <li class='c031'>Byzantine manner, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>–12; + <ul> + <li>in Venetia, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Bartolommeo di Giovanni, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bassano, Jacopo and Leandro, <a href='#Page_424'>424</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Bonauiti, Andrea, decorator of the Spanish Chapel, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>–53</li> + <li class='c031'>Bronzino, Agnolo, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Brunellesco, investigator of perspective, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Canale, Antonio, <a href='#Page_442'>442</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Caravaggio (Michelangelo Amerighi), <a href='#Page_453'>453</a>–456, <a href='#Page_470'>470</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Carpaccio, Victor, <a href='#Page_364'>364</a>–370</li> + <li class='c031'>Carracci, their academy at Bologna, <a href='#Page_461'>461</a>.; + <ul> + <li>Carlo Malvasia on the Eclecticism of the C., <a href='#Page_471'>471</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'><span class='pageno' id='Page_492'>492</span>Carracci, Annibale, <a href='#Page_453'>453</a>, <a href='#Page_459'>459</a>–465; + <ul> + <li>sonnet ascribed to, <a href='#Page_471'>471</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Cassone painters, before 1450, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>–130; + <ul> + <li>after 1450, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>–183</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Castiglione, Baldassare, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>; + <ul> + <li>list of greatest artists, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Cavallini, Pietro, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>–18</li> + <li class='c031'>Cimabue, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>–15, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Classic Spirit, Kenyon Cox on, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Correggio (Antonio Allegri), <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_415'>415</a>–417; + <ul> + <li>Initiator of the Baroque Manner, <a href='#Page_416'>416</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Cox, Kenyon, on the Classic Spirit, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Crivelli, Carlo, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>–335</li> + <li class='c002'>Dante, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>; + <ul> + <li>Giotto’s portrait of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>;</li> + <li>Botticelli’s drawings for, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Domenico di Bartolo, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Domenico Veneziano, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>–148, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri), <a href='#Page_465'>465</a>, <a href='#Page_467'>467</a>–469</li> + <li class='c031'>Donatello, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Duccio di Buoninsegna, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>–72; + <ul> + <li>Procession on installation of his great Madonna, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c002'>Florence, about 1300 described, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>–4, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>; + <ul> + <li>the new looser manners after the plague of 1348, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>;</li> + <li>Renaissance pageantry in, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>–196;</li> + <li>Savonarola’s revolution, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</li> + <li>End of liberty in and demoralization, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Folgore da San Gemignano, Sienese sonnet quoted, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Francesco di Giorgio, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Francis of Assisi, St., initiator of the new emotionalism in painting, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Fresco, method of painting in, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Gaddi, Agnolo, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Gaddi, Gaddo, possibly to be identified with the “Isaac Master,” <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Gaddi, Taddeo, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Gentile da Fabriano, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>–270, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Ghiberti, Lorenzo, Sienese anecdote by, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>; + <ul> + <li>his studies, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Ghirlandaio (Domenico Bigordi), <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>–194</li> + <li class='c031'>Giorgione, <a href='#Page_370'>370</a>–383; + <ul> + <li>problem of, <a href='#Page_370'>370</a>;</li> + <li>early works, <a href='#Page_371'>371</a>, <a href='#Page_372'>372</a>;</li> + <li>his Arcadianism related to pastoral poetry, <a href='#Page_373'>373</a>–374;</li> + <li>his dreamy and indeterminate mood, <a href='#Page_374'>374</a>–377;</li> + <li>Castelfranco Madonna, and other later works, <a href='#Page_378'>378</a>–380;</li> + <li>pastoral symphony, <a href='#Page_380'>380</a>–382;</li> + <li>The Concert, its problems, <a href='#Page_381'>381</a>–382;</li> + <li>Summary, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a>;</li> + <li>Suggestion of G’s subjects in Leonardo’s “Trattato,” <a href='#Page_385'>385</a>–386</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Giottino, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Giotto’s pupils, “Master of the Right Transept,” <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>–45; + <ul> + <li>Taddeo Gaddi, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>;</li> + <li>Buffalmacco, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>;</li> + <li>Bernardo Daddi, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>;</li> + <li>Giottino, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Giotto di Bondone, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>; + <ul> + <li>early work at Assisi, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>–22;</li> + <li>at Rome, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>;</li> + <li>at Padua, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>–29;</li> + <li>later work, the Allegories at Assisi, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>–34;</li> + <li>at Santa Croce, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>–39;</li> + <li>The Campanile and last phase, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>;</li> + <li>general characterization, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>;</li> + <li>poem by, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>;</li> + <li>mentioned, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Giovanni di Paolo, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>–95</li> + <li class='c031'>Girolamo di Benvenuto, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Giulio Romano, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_452'>452</a>–453</li> + <li class='c031'>Gozzoli, Benozzo, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>–166, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Grand style defined, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>–266; + <ul> + <li>Sir Joshua Reynolds on, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>–319;</li> + <li>L. Dolce on, in Titian, <a href='#Page_445'>445</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Guariento of Padua, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Goya, Francisco, quoted, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> + <li class='c031'><span class='pageno' id='Page_493'>493</span>Guardi, Francesco, <a href='#Page_443'>443</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Guido of Siena, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> + <li class='c002'>“Isaac Master,” perhaps Gaddo Gaddi, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, relations with Mantegna, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>; + <ul> + <li>Opinion of him, <a href='#Page_384'>384</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c002'>Landscape, new sense of the picturesque in, and Salvator Rosa, <a href='#Page_456'>456</a>–457</li> + <li class='c031'>LeBrun, Charles, dependence as decorator on A. Carracci, <a href='#Page_465'>465</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Leonardo da Vinci, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>; + <ul> + <li>on Masaccio, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>–235, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>;</li> + <li>His new principles, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>;</li> + <li>Early Florentine period, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>–237;</li> + <li>Adoration of the Magi, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>–236;</li> + <li>Madonna of the Rocks, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>;</li> + <li>First Milanese period, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>–240;</li> + <li>Last Supper, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>–240;</li> + <li>Second Florentine Period; Mona Lisa, Anghiari, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>–241;</li> + <li>Second Milanese Period; St. Ann, Second Madonna of the Rocks, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>–244;</li> + <li>Roma and France, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>–245;</li> + <li>His Influence, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>–246;</li> + <li>Tractate on Painting, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>–260, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_371'>371</a>, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a>, <a href='#Page_385'>385</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Lomazzo, Paolo, Great Italian painters compared with the poets, <a href='#Page_385'>385</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Longhi, Pietro, <a href='#Page_444'>444</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>–45, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzetti, Pietro, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>–78; + <ul> + <li>Followers of, at Assisi, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>;</li> + <li>Contract for Arezzo altar-piece, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>–106</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzetti followers, Triumph of Death, Pisa, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzettian, panoramic style, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Lotto, Lorenzo, <a href='#Page_411'>411</a>–413</li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzo de’ Medici, his birth salver, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>–184</li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzo Monaco, Don, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzo da San Severino, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Lorenzo Veneziano, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Mantegna, Andrea, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>–345, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>.; + <ul> + <li>Titian on, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Marcovaldo, Coppo di, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Tommaso Guidi), <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>–142, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Masolino da Panicale, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>–127</li> + <li class='c031'>Matteo di Giovanni, of Siena, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>–99</li> + <li class='c031'>Melozzo da Forlì, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>–274</li> + <li class='c031'>Michelangelo Buonarotti, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>; + <ul> + <li>perturbing influence on Raphael, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>;</li> + <li>Early works; + <ul> + <li>Doni Madonna, The Bathers, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>–303;</li> + <li>The Sistine Ceiling, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>–313;</li> + <li>The Last Judgment, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>–314;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li>Defects of his followers, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>;</li> + <li>Advice on posture, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>,</li> + <li>on the unity of painting and sculpture, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_407'>407</a>, <a href='#Page_429'>429</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Michelozzo, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Modern sensibility, in Pontormo, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>; + <ul> + <li>Moretto, Lotto, Correggio, Tintoretto, <a href='#Page_411'>411</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Moretto of Brescia, <a href='#Page_412'>412</a>–413</li> + <li class='c031'>Moroni, Giambattista, <a href='#Page_423'>423</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Nardo di Cione, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Neroccio di Landi, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Oil Painting, introduced at Florence by Domenico Veneziano, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>,; + <ul> + <li>practiced in Lombardy by Antonello da Messina, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Orcagna (Andrea di Cione), <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>–50; + <ul> + <li>Contract for Strozzi altar-piece, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Ottaviano Nelli, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Palma Giovine, on Titian’s technique, <a href='#Page_390'>390</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Palma Vecchio, <a href='#Page_407'>407</a>, <a href='#Page_411'>411</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Paolo Veronese (Caliari), <a href='#Page_436'>436</a>–440</li> + <li class='c031'><span class='pageno' id='Page_494'>494</span>Pastoral poetry as background of Giorgione’s inventions, <a href='#Page_370'>370</a>–374</li> + <li class='c031'>Perspective, discovery by Brunellesco, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>,; + <ul> + <li>Uccello’s experiments in, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>;</li> + <li>Piero della Francesca’s book on, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>;</li> + <li>Mantegna’s illusionistic, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>–340;</li> + <li>further developed by Correggio, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_415'>415</a>–416</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Perugino (Pietro Vannucci), <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>–280, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>–282, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Pesellino, Francesco, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Piero della Francesca, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>–172, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Pollaiuolo, Antonio, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>–169, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Piero di Cosimo, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>–223, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Pintorricchio, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Pisanello (Antonio Pisano), <a href='#Page_328'>328</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Plague banners, Umbrian, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Poliziano, Angelo, his poetry as an inspiration for Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>–256</li> + <li class='c031'>Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci), <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Poussin, Nicholas, derives from Raphael and the Eclectics, <a href='#Page_458'>458</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Raphael Sanzio, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>; + <ul> + <li>His Umbrian beginnings, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>–283.</li> + <li>At Florence, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>–288.</li> + <li>At Rome, The Segnatura, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>–293;</li> + <li>Stanze of Heliodorus and of the Incendio, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>–296.</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Realists, Early Florentine, enumerated, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Reni, Guido, <a href='#Page_465'>465</a>–466</li> + <li class='c031'>Reynolds, Sir Joshua, on the Grand style, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>–319</li> + <li class='c031'>Rodin, Auguste, on Michelangelo, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Roman revival before 1300, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Rosa, Salvator, <a href='#Page_456'>456</a>–457</li> + <li class='c031'>Rosselli, Cosimo, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Rubens, Peter Paul, + <ul> + <li>his praise of Leonardo, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>,</li> + <li>derives from Titian, <a href='#Page_468'>468</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c002'>Sannazaro, Jacopo, <a href='#Page_373'>373</a>, <a href='#Page_374'>374</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni), <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>–92</li> + <li class='c031'>Sebastiano del Piombo, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_408'>408</a>–409</li> + <li class='c031'>Signorelli, Luca, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>–278</li> + <li class='c031'>Sistine Chapel, early frescoes analyzed, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>–179</li> + <li class='c031'>Savonarola, Fra Girolamo, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a></li> + <li class='c031'>St. Dominic, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Siena, the Sienese temperament illustrated, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>–61; + <ul> + <li>its artistic conservation, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Simone Martini, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>–76, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Sodoma (Antonio Bazzi), <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_471'>471</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Squarcione, Francesco, School of, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Starnina, Gherardo, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Tempera, painting in, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, <a href='#Page_440'>440</a>–442, <a href='#Page_444'>444</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), <a href='#Page_424'>424</a>–435</li> + <li class='c031'>Titian of Cadore (Tiziano Vecellio), <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_389'>389</a>–408, <a href='#Page_418'>418</a>–423. + <ul> + <li>His calculating character and technique, <a href='#Page_389'>389</a>–390;</li> + <li>his four periods, <a href='#Page_390'>390</a>–391;</li> + <li>Early, Giorgionesque period, <a href='#Page_392'>392</a>–398;</li> + <li>(1515–1533), <a href='#Page_396'>396</a>–404;</li> + <li>(1533–1548), <a href='#Page_404'>404</a>–407;</li> + <li>(1548–1577), subjective and impressionistic phase, <a href='#Page_418'>418</a>–423.</li> + <li>Lodovico Dolce on T’s impressionism in landscape, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>;</li> + <li>G. F. Watt on T’s classical quality, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Tommé, Luca, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Torriti (Jacopo), <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> + <li class='c002'>Uccello, Paolo, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>–144, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Umbria, + <ul> + <li>its characteristics, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>–267;</li> + <li>foreign painters in, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c002'><span class='pageno' id='Page_495'>495</span>Vasari, Giorgio, on Masaccio, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>; + <ul> + <li>on Paolo Uccello, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>;</li> + <li>on a Trick to get a chapel, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>–197;</li> + <li>on the “Modern style,” <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>;</li> + <li>boasts of his own dexterity, <a href='#Page_451'>451</a>.</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class='c031'>Velasquez, draws from Caravaggio and the Italian Tenebrists, <a href='#Page_456'>456</a>, <a href='#Page_470'>470</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Venice, its colorful aspect, and nature of its civilization, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>–326</li> + <li class='c031'>Veronese, see Paolo Veronese</li> + <li class='c031'>Veronese, early panoramic manner, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>–330, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Verrocchio, Andrea, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>–230</li> + <li class='c031'>Villani, Giovanni, summary of Florence, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>–56</li> + <li class='c031'>Villani, Matteo, on the relaxation of Florentine morals after the plague of 1348, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>–111</li> + <li class='c031'>Vivarini, Antonio, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#Page_363'>363</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Vivarini, Bartolommeo, <a href='#Page_362'>362</a>, <a href='#Page_363'>363</a></li> + <li class='c031'>Vivarini, Alvise, <a href='#Page_363'>363</a></li> +</ul> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c004'> +</div> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c001'> + <div>Books on Italians or on Rome</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='large'>CROCE’S</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite class='bold'>ARIOSTO, SHAKESPEARE AND CORNEILLE</cite> $2.50</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>J. E. Spingarn</cite>: “I regard this book as the most important body +of criticism that has ever been translated into English from a +modern tongue.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite class='bold'>THE POETRY OF DANTE</cite> $2.00</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>Keith Preston, in Chicago News</cite>: “His design is to scrape off +the barnacles from his poet and present the essential poetry—free +from historical philosophical and allegorical incumbrances ... at the same time he reviews the canons of art with vigor +and sanity.”</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='large'>TENNEY FRANK</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite class='bold'>VIRGIL: A Biography</cite> $2.00</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>The New Republic</cite>: “You will find a new force drawing you to +<cite>Virgil</cite>, and discover at what a heavy cost to you instruction in +Latin has been entrusted to grammarians, instead of Tenney +Franks.”</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite class='bold'>A HISTORY OF ROME</cite></p> + +<p class='c007'><cite>New York Times</cite>: “From beginning to end, a narrative of vital +interest whose dramatic developments every now and then +become profoundly fascinating.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>American Historical Series: Library Edition, 8vo., 613 pp., $4.50</p> + +<p class='c007'>J. B. FLETCHER</p> + +<p class='c007'><cite class='bold'>DANTE</cite></p> + +<p class='c007'>A brief book on his personal confessions, teaching and art.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Home University Library 90 cents</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='large'>W. W. 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BROCK’S</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><cite class='bold'>WILLIAM MORRIS: His Work and Influence</cite> +The story of how Morris turned from making works of art to remaking society.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='large'><cite>Art Books for the Young</cite></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='large'>JOHN D. 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Poets who were chary +of lending their support to an unknown venture +have now generously permitted the use of their +work.</p> + +<p class='c007'>This edition includes the “new” poets such as +<span class='sc'>Masefield</span>, <span class='sc'>Chesterton</span>, <span class='sc'>Frost</span>, <span class='sc'>Rupert +Brooke</span>, <span class='sc'>de la Mare</span>, <span class='sc'>Ralph Hodgson</span>, etc.</p> + +<p class='c032'>“A collection so complete and distinguished that it is +difficult to find any other approaching it sufficiently +for comparison.”—<cite>New York Times Book Review</cite> on +the first edition.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><em>India Paper, 4096</em> pages. <em>Gilt-edged. 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