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-<body>
-<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30098 ***</div>
-<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Venetian School of Painting, by Evelyn
-March Phillipps</h1>
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-<p class="notes">
-Transcriber’s Note:<br />
-<br />
-Variations in the spelling of names and recording of some
-questionable dates have been left as printed in the original
-text.<br />
-<br />
-Text underlined in blue indicates a transcriber's note. Hover
-the cursor over the text to see the note.</p>
-<p> </p>
-<hr class="full" />
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-
-<h1>VENETIAN</h1>
-
-<h1>SCHOOL OF PAINTING</h1>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 392px;">
-<img src="images/img002.jpg" width="392" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Giorgione.</em> MADONNA WITH S.
-LIBERALE AND S. FRANCIS. <em>Castelfranco.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h6>
-The Venetian<br />
-School of Painting</h6>
-
-<h3>BY</h3>
-<h2>EVELYN MARCH PHILLIPPS</h2>
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-
-<p class="center"><em>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</em></p>
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-
-<p class="center"><span style="font-size: larger;"><strong>BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS</strong></span><br />
-FREEPORT, NEW YORK</p>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-
-<p class="center"><strong>First Published 1912</strong><br />
-<strong>Reprinted 1972</strong></p>
-
-<p> </p><p> </p>
-
-<p class="center" style="font-size: small;">INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NUMBER:<br />
-0-8369-6745-3</p>
-
-<p class="center" style="font-size: small;">LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER:<br />
-70-37907</p>
-
-<p class="center" style="font-size: small;">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br />
-BY<br />
-NEW WORLD BOOK MANUFACTURING CO., INC.<br />
-HALLANDALE, FLORIDA 33009</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h2>PREFACE</h2>
-
-
-<p>Many visits to Venice have brought home
-the fact that there exists, in English at least,
-no work which deals as a whole with the
-Venetian School and its masters. Biographical
-catalogues there are in plenty, but these, though
-useful for reference, say little to readers who are
-not already acquainted with the painters whose
-career and works are briefly recorded. “Lives”
-of individual masters abound, but however excellent
-and essential these may be to an advanced
-study of the school, the volumes containing
-them make too large a library to be easily
-carried about, and a great deal of reading and
-assimilation is required to set each painter in
-his place in the long story. Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s
-<em>History of Painting in North Italy</em> still
-remains our sheet anchor; but it is lengthy, over
-full of detail of minor painters, and lacks the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi"></a></span>
-interesting criticism which of late years has collected
-round each master. There seems room
-for a portable volume, making an attempt to
-consider the Venetian painters, in relation to
-one another, and to help the visitor not only
-to trace the evolution of the school from its
-dawn, through its full splendour and to its
-declining rays, but to realise what the Venetian
-School was, and what was the philosophy of
-life which it represented.</p>
-
-<p>Such a book does not pretend to vie with,
-much less to supersede, the masterly treatises on
-the subject which have from time to time
-appeared, or to take the place of exhaustive
-histories, such as that of Professor Leonello
-Venturi on the Italian primitives. It should
-but serve to pave the way to deeper and more
-detailed reading. It does not aspire to give a
-complete and comprehensive list of the painters;
-some of the minor ones may not even be
-mentioned. The mere inclusion of names, dates,
-and facts would add unduly to the size of the
-book, and, when without real bearing on
-the course of Venetian art, would have little
-significance. What the book does aim at is to
-enable those who care for art, but may not have
-mastered its history, to rear a framework on
-which to found their own observations and appreciations;
-to supply that coherent knowledge
-which is beneficial even to a passing acquaintance
-with beautiful things, and to place the unscientific
-observer in a position to take greater advantage
-of opportunities, and to achieve a wide and
-interesting outlook on that cycle of artistic
-apprehension which the Venetian School comprises,
-and which marks it as the outcome and
-the symbol of a great historic age.</p>
-
-<p>The works cited have been principally those
-with which the ordinary traveller is likely to
-come into contact in the chief European galleries,
-and, above all, in Venice itself. The lists do not
-propose to be exhaustive, but merely indicate
-the principal works of the artists. Those in
-private galleries, unless easy of access or of first-rate
-importance, are usually eliminated. It has
-not been thought necessary to use profuse illustrations,
-as the book is intended primarily for
-use when visiting the original works.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">PART I</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER I</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Venice and her Art</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER II</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Primitive Art in Venice</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER III</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Influences of Umbria and Verona</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER IV</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The School of Murano</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER V</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Paduan Influence</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER VI</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jacopo Bellini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER VII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Carlo Crivelli</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER VIII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Gentile Bellini and Antonello da Messina</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER IX</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alvise Vivarini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER X</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Carpaccio</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XI</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giovanni Bellini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giovanni Bellini</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XIII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cima da Conegliano and other Followers of Bellini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">PART II</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XIV</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giorgione</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XV</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giorgione</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XVI</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Giorgionesque</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XVII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Titian</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XVIII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Titian</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XIX</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Titian</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XX</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Palma Vecchio and Lorenzo Lotto</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXI</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Sebastian del Piombo</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bonifazio and Paris Bordone</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXIII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Painters of the Venetian Provinces</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXIV</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Paolo Veronese</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXV</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tintoretto</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXVI</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tintoretto</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXVII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bassano</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">PART III</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXVIII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Interim</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXIX</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tiepolo</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXX</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pietro Longhi</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_309">309</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXXI</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Canale</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXXII</th> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Francesco Guardi</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-
-<tr> <td align='left'>BIBLIOGRAPHY</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td align='left'>INDEX</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_333">333</a></td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
-
-<div class='center'>
-
-<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-
-<tr> <td align='right'></td> <td class="td2"></td>
- <td class="td3">BY</td> <td class="td4">AT</td> <td align='right'></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td style="vertical-align: top;" class="td1">1.</td> <td class="td2">Madonna with S. Liberale and S. Francis</td>
- <td style="vertical-align: bottom;" class="td3">Giorgione</td> <td style="vertical-align: bottom;" class="td4">Castelfranco</td> <td style="vertical-align: bottom;" align='right'><em><a href="#frontis">Frontispiece</a></em></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">2.</td> <td class="td2">Adoration of the Magi</td>
- <td class="td3">Antonio da Murano</td> <td class="td4">Berlin</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">3.</td> <td class="td2">Agony in Garden</td>
- <td class="td3">Jacopo Bellini</td> <td class="td4">British Museum</td> <td align='right'><a href="#agony">41</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">4.</td> <td class="td2">Procession of the Holy Cross</td>
- <td class="td3">Gentile Bellini</td> <td class="td4">Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">5.</td> <td class="td2">Altarpiece of 1480</td>
- <td class="td3">Alvise Vivarini</td> <td class="td4">Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#altar">60</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">6.</td> <td class="td2">Arrival of the Ambassadors</td>
- <td class="td3">Carpaccio</td> <td class="td4">Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">7.</td> <td class="td2">Pietà</td>
- <td class="td3">Giovanni Bellini</td> <td class="td4">Brera</td> <td align='right'><a href="#pieta">87</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">8.</td> <td class="td2">An Allegory</td>
- <td class="td3">Giovanni Bellini</td> <td class="td4">Uffizi</td> <td align='right'><a href="#allegory">94</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">9.</td> <td class="td2">Fête Champêtre</td>
- <td class="td3">Giorgione</td> <td class="td4">Louvre</td> <td align='right'><a href="#champ">136</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">10.</td> <td class="td2">Portrait of Ariosto</td>
- <td class="td3">Titian</td> <td class="td4">National Gallery</td> <td align='right'><a href="#aris">156</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">11.</td> <td class="td2">Diana and Actaeon</td>
- <td class="td3">Titian</td> <td class="td4">Earl Brownlow</td> <td align='right'><a href="#diana">161</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">12.</td> <td class="td2">Holy Family</td>
- <td class="td3">Palma Vecchio</td> <td class="td4">Colonna Gallery, Rome</td> <td align='right'><a href="#holy">185</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">13.</td> <td class="td2">Portrait of Laura di Pola</td>
- <td class="td3">Lorenzo Lotto</td> <td class="td4">Brera</td> <td align='right'><a href="#laura">194</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">14.</td> <td class="td2">Marriage in Cana</td>
- <td class="td3">Paolo Veronese</td> <td class="td4">Louvre</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">15.</td> <td class="td2">S. Mary of Egypt</td>
- <td class="td3">Tintoretto</td> <td class="td4">Scuola di San Rocco</td> <td align='right'><a href="#egypt">258</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">16.</td> <td class="td2">Bacchus and Ariadne</td>
- <td class="td3">Tintoretto</td> <td class="td4">Ducal Palace</td> <td align='right'><a href="#bacchus">261</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">17.</td> <td class="td2">Baptism of S. Lucilla</td>
- <td class="td3">Jacopo da Ponte</td> <td class="td4">Bassano</td> <td align='right'><a href="#bapt">274</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">18.</td> <td class="td2">Antony and Cleopatra</td>
- <td class="td3">Tiepolo</td> <td class="td4">Palazzo Labia, Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#cleo">304</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">19.</td> <td class="td2">Visit to the Fortune-Teller</td>
- <td class="td3">Pietro Longhi</td> <td class="td4">National Gallery</td> <td align='right'><a href="#visit">310</a></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td1">20.</td> <td class="td2">S. Maria della Salute</td>
- <td class="td3">Francesco Guardi</td> <td class="td4">National Gallery</td> <td align='right'><a href="#della">324</a></td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h2>LIST OF PAINTERS</h2>
-
-<div class="box">
-<p>
-Paolo da Venezia, <em>fl.</em> 1333-1358.<br />
-Niccolo di Pietro, <em>fl.</em> 1394-1404.<br />
-Niccolo Semitocolo, <em>fl.</em> 1364.<br />
-Stefano di Venezia, <em>fl.</em> 1353.<br />
-Lorenzo Veneziano, <em>fl.</em> 1357-1379.<br />
-Chatarinus, <em>fl.</em> 1372.<br />
-Jacobello del Fiore, <em>fl.</em> 1415-1439.<br />
-Gentile da Fabriano, 1360-1428.<br />
-Vittore Pisano (Pisanello), <em>circa</em> 1385-1455.<br />
-Michele Giambono, <em>fl.</em> 1470.<br />
-Giovanni Alemanus, <em>fl.</em> 1440-1447.<br />
-Antonio da Murano, <em>circa</em> 1430-1470.<br />
-Bartolommeo Vivarini, <em>fl.</em> 1420-1499.<br />
-Alvise Vivarini, <em>fl.</em> 1461-1503.<br />
-Antonello da Messina, <em>circa</em> 1444-1493.<br />
-Jacopo Bellini, <em>fl.</em> 1430-1466.<br />
-Jacopo dei Barbari, <em>circa</em> 1450-1516.<br />
-Andrea Mantegna, 1431-1506.<br />
-Carlo Crivelli, 1430-1493.<br />
-Bartolommeo Montagna, 1450-1523.<br />
-Francesco Buonsignori, 1453-1519.<br />
-Gentile Bellini, <em>circa</em> 1427-1507.<br />
-Giovanni Bellini, 1426-1516.<br />
-Lazzaro Bastiani, <em>fl.</em> 1470-1508.<br />
-Vittore Carpaccio, <em>fl.</em> 1478-1522.<br />
-Girolamo da Santa Croce.<br />
-Mansueti, <em>fl.</em> 1474-1510.<br />
-Giovanni Battista da Conegliano (Cima), 1460-1517.<br />
-Vincenzo Catena, <em>fl.</em> 1495-1531.<br />
-Bissolo, 1464-1528.<br />
-Marco Basaiti, <em>circa</em> 1470-1527.<br />
-Andrea Previtali, <em>fl.</em> 1502-1525.<br />
-Bartolommeo Veneto, <em>fl.</em> 1505-1555.<br />
-N. Rondinelli, <em>fl.</em> 1480-1500.<br />
-Girolamo Savoldo, 1480-1548.<br />
-Giorgio Barbarelli (Giorgione), 1478-1511.<br />
-Giovanni Busi (Cariani), <em>circa</em> 1480-1544.<br />
-Tiziano Vecellio (Titian), 1477-1576.<br />
-Palma Vecchio, 1480-1528.<br />
-Lorenzo Lotto, 1480-1556.<br />
-Martino da Udine (Pellegrino di San Daniele).<br />
-Morto da Feltre, <em>circa</em> 1474-1522.<br />
-Romanino, 1485-1566.<br />
-Sebastian Luciani (del Piombo), 1485-1547.<br />
-Giovanni Antonino Licinio (Pordenone), 1483-1540.<br />
-Bernardino Licinio, <em>fl.</em> 1520-1544.<br />
-Alessandro Bonvicino (Moretto), <em>circa</em> 1498-1554.<br />
-Bonifazio de Pitatis (Veronese), <em>fl.</em> 1510-1540.<br />
-Paris Bordone, 1510-1570.<br />
-Jacopo da Ponte (Bassano), 1510-1592.<br />
-Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto), 1518-1592.<br />
-Paolo Caliari (Veronese), 1528-1588.<br />
-Domenico Robusti, 1562-1637.<br />
-Palma Giovine, 1544-1628.<br />
-Alessandro Varotari (Il Padovanino), 1590-1650.<br />
-Gianbattista Fumiani, 1643-1710.<br />
-Sebastiano Ricci, 1662-1734.<br />
-Gregorio Lazzarini, 1657-1735.<br />
-Rosalba Carriera, 1675-1757.<br />
-G. B. Piazetta, 1682-1754.<br />
-Gianbattista Tiepolo, 1696-1770.<br />
-Antonio Canale (Canaletto), 1697-1768.<br />
-Belotto, 1720-1780.<br />
-Francesco Guardi, 1712-1793.</p></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
-<h2>PART I</h2>
-
-<p> </p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>VENICE AND HER ART</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Venetian painting in its prime differs altogether
-in character from that of every other part of
-Italy. The Venetian is the most marked and
-recognisable of all the schools; its singularity
-is such that a novice in art can easily, in a
-miscellaneous collection, sort out the works
-belonging to it, and added to this unique character
-is the position it occupies in the domain
-of art. Venice alone of Italian States can boast
-an epoch of art comparable in originality and
-splendour to that of her great Florentine rival;
-an epoch which is to be classed among the
-great art manifestations of the world, which has
-exerted, and continues to exert, incalculable
-power over painting, and which is the inspiration
-as well as the despair of those who try to
-master its secret.</p>
-
-<p>The other schools of Italy, with all their
-superficial varieties of treatment and feeling,
-depended for their very life upon the extent to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
-which they were able to imbibe the Florentine
-influence. Siena rejected that strength and
-perished; Venice bided her time and suddenly
-struck out on independent lines, achieving a
-magnificent victory.</p>
-
-<p>Art in Florence made a strictly logical
-progress. As civilisation awoke in the old Latin
-race, it went back in every domain of learning
-to the rich subsoil which still underlay the ruin
-and the alien structures left by the long barbaric
-dominion, for the Italian in his darkest hour
-had never been a barbarian; and as the mind was
-once more roused to conscious life, Florence
-entered readily upon that great intellectual
-movement which she was destined to lead.
-Her cast of thought was, from the first, realistic
-and scientific. Its whole endeavour was to
-know the truth, to weigh evidences, to elaborate
-experiments, to see things as they really were;
-and when she reached the point at which art was
-ready to speak, we find that the governing motive
-of her language was this same predilection for
-reality, and it was with this meaning that her
-typical artists found a voice. No artist ever
-sought for truth, both physical and spiritual,
-more resolutely than Giotto, and none ever spoke
-more distinctly the mind of his age and country;
-and as one generation follows another, art in
-Tuscany becomes more and more closely allied
-to the intellectual movement. The scientific
-predilection for <em>form</em>, for the representation
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
-of things as they really are, characterises not
-Florentine painting alone, but the whole of
-Florentine art. It is an art of contributions
-and discoveries, marked, it is needless to say, at
-every step by dominating personalities, positively
-as well as relatively great, but with each member
-consciously absorbed in “going one better” than
-his predecessors, in solving problems and in
-mastering methods. Florentine art is the outcome
-of Florentine life and thought. It is part of
-the definite clear-cut view of thought and reason,
-of that exactitude of apprehension towards
-which the whole Florentine mind was bent, and
-the lesser tributaries, as they flowed towards
-her, formed themselves on her pattern and
-worked upon the same lines, so that they
-have a certain general resemblance, and their
-excellence is in proportion to the thoroughness
-with which they have learned their lesson.</p>
-
-<p>The difference which separates Venetian from
-the rest of Italian painting is a fundamental one.
-Venice attains to an equally distinguished place,
-but the way in which she does it and the
-character of her contribution are both so
-absolutely distinct that her art seems to be the
-outcome of another race, with alien temperament
-and standards. Venice had, indeed, a history and
-a life of her own. Her entire isolation, from her
-foundation, gave her an independent government
-and customs peculiar to herself, but at the same
-time her people, even in their earliest and most
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
-precarious struggles, were no barbarians who
-had slowly to acquire the arts of civilised life.
-Among the refugees were persons of high birth
-and great traditions, and they brought with them
-to the first crazy settlement on the lagoons some
-political training and some idea of how to reconstruct
-their shattered social fabric. The Venetian
-Republic rose rapidly to a position of influence
-in Europe. Small and circumscribed as its area
-was, every feature and sentiment was concentrated
-and intensified. But one element above all permeates
-it and sets it apart from other European
-States. The Oriental element in Venice must
-never be lost sight of if we wish to understand
-her philosophy of art.</p>
-
-<p>There are some grounds, seriously accepted
-by the most recent historians, for believing that
-the first Venetian colonists were the descendants
-of emigrants who in prehistoric times had
-established themselves in Asia and who had
-returned from thence to Northern Italy. “These
-colonists,” says Hazlitt, “were called Tyrrhenians,
-and from their settlements round the mouth of
-the Po the Venetian stock was ultimately
-derived.” If the tradition has any truth, we
-think with a deeper interest of that instinct for
-commerce which seems to have been in the
-very blood of the early Venetians. Did it,
-indeed, come down to them from the merchants
-of Tyre and Carthage? From that wonderful
-trading race which stretched out its arms all
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
-over Europe and penetrated even to our own
-island? From the first, Venice cut herself adrift,
-as far as possible, from Western ties, but she
-turned to Eastern people and to intercourse with
-the East with a natural affinity which savours
-of racial instinct. All her greatness was derived
-from her Asiatic trade, and her bazaars, heaped
-with Eastern riches, must have assumed a deeply
-Oriental aspect. Her customs long retained
-many details peculiar to the East. The people
-observed a custom for choosing and dowering
-brides, which was of Asia. The national
-treatment of women was akin to that of an
-Oriental State; Venetian women lived in a
-retirement which recalled the life of the harem,
-only appearing on great occasions to display their
-brocades and jewels. Girls were closely veiled
-when they passed through the streets. The
-attachment of men to women had no intellectual
-bias, scarcely any sentiment, but “went
-straight to the mark: the enjoyment of physical
-beauty.” The position of women in Venice was
-a great contrast to that attained by the Florentine
-lady of the Renaissance, who was highly educated,
-deeply versed in men and in affairs, the fine flower
-of culture, and the queen of a brilliant society.
-The love for colour and gorgeous pageantry
-was of Semitic intensity and seemed insatiable,
-and the gratification of the senses was a
-deliberate State policy. But passionate as was
-the spirit of patriotism, enthusiastic the love and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
-loyalty of the people, the civic spirit was absent.
-The masses were contented to live under a despotic
-rule and to be little despots in their own houses.
-In the twelfth century the people saw power pass
-into the hands of the aristocracy, and as long as
-the despotism was a benevolent one, the event
-aroused no opposition. Like Orientals, the
-Venetians had wild outbursts, and like them
-they quieted down and nothing came of them.
-As Mr. Hazlitt remarks, “their occasional
-resistance to tyranny, though marked by deeds
-of horrid and dark cruelty, left no deep or
-enduring traces behind it. It established no
-principle. It taught no lesson.” Venice was a
-Republic only in name. The whole aspect of
-her government is Eastern. Its system of
-espionage, its secret tribunals, its swift and
-silent blows,—these are all Oriental traits, and
-the East entering into her whole life from
-without found a natural home awaiting it. We
-should be mistaken, however, in thinking that
-the Venetians in their great days were enervated
-and lapped in the sensuality which we are apt to
-associate with Eastern ideals. Sensuality did in
-the end drain the life out of her. “It is the
-disease which attacks sensuousness, but it is not
-the same thing.” The Venetians were by nature
-men with a deep capacity for feeling, and it is
-this deep feeling which has so large a share in
-Venetian art.</p>
-
-<p>The painters of Venice were of the people
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
-and had no wide intellectual outlook at its
-most splendid moment, such as was possessed by
-those men who in Florence were drawn into the
-company of the Medici and their court of
-scholars, and who all their lives were in the
-midst of a society of large aims and a free public
-spirit, in which men took their share of the
-responsibilities and honours of a citizen’s life.
-The merchant-patrons of Venice are quite uninterested
-in the solving of problems. They
-pay a price, and they want a good show of colour
-and gilding for their money. Presently they
-buy from outside, and a half-hearted imitation
-of foreigners is the best ambition of Venetian
-artists. Art, it has been said, does not declare
-itself with true spontaneity till it feels behind it
-the weight and unanimity of the whole body
-of the people. That true outburst was long in
-coming, but its seeds were fructifying deep in
-a congenial soil. They were fostered by the
-warmth and colour of Oriental intercourse, and
-at last the racial instinct speaks with no uncertain
-accent in the great domain of art, and
-speaks in a new and unexpected way; as
-splendid as, yet utterly unlike, the grand intellectual
-declaration of Florence.</p>
-
-<p>Let us bear in mind, then, that Venice in all
-her history, in all her character, is Eastern
-rather than Western. Hers is the kingdom of
-feeling rather than that of thought, of emotion
-as opposed to intellect. Her whole story tells
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
-of a profoundly emotional and sensuous apprehension
-of the nature of things; and till the time
-comes when her artists are inspired to express
-that, their creations may be interesting enough,
-but they fail to reveal the true workings of
-her mind. When they do, they find a new
-medium and use it in a new way. Venetian
-colour, when it comes into its kingdom, speaks
-for a whole people, sensuous and of deep feeling,
-able for the first time to utter itself in art.</p>
-
-<p>We have to divide the history of the
-Venetian School into three parts. The first
-extends from the primitives to the end of
-Giovanni Bellini’s life. He forms a link
-between the first and second periods. The
-second begins with Giorgione and ends with
-Tintoretto and Bassano, and is the Venetian
-School proper. Thirdly, we have the eighteenth-century
-revival, in which Tiepolo is the most
-conspicuous figure, and which is in an equal
-degree the expression of the life of its time.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>PRIMITIVE ART IN VENICE</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>The school of Byzantium, so widespread in its
-influence, was particularly strong in Venice,
-where mosaics adorned the cathedral of Torcello
-from the ninth century and St. Mark’s became
-a splendid storehouse of Byzantine art. The
-earliest mosaic on the façade of St. Mark’s was
-executed about the year 1250, those in the
-Baptistery date during the reign of Andrea
-Dandolo, who was Doge from 1342 to 1354.
-Yet though the life of Giotto lies between these
-two dates, and his frescoes at Padua were within
-a few hours’ journey, there is no sign that the
-great revolution in painting, which was making
-itself felt in every principal centre of Italy, had
-touched the richest and most peaceful of all her
-States.</p>
-
-<p>Yet local art in Venice was no outcome of
-Byzantinism. It rose as that of the mosaicists
-fell, but its rise differs from that of Florence
-and Siena in being for long almost imperceptible.
-Artists were looked upon merely as artisans in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
-all the cities of Italy, but in Venice before any
-other city they had been placed among the
-craftsmen. The statute of the Guild of Siena
-was not formulated till 1355; that of Venice is
-the earliest of which we have any record, and
-bears the date of 1272. There is scarcely a
-word to indicate that pictures in the modern
-sense of the term existed. Painters were
-employed on the adornment of arms and of
-household furniture. Leather helmets and
-shields were painted, and such banners as we
-see in Paolo Uccello’s battlepieces. Painted
-chests and <em>cassoni</em> were already in demand, dishes
-and plates for the table and the surface of the
-table itself were treated in a similar way.
-Special regulations dealt with all these, and it
-is only at the end of the list that anconæ are
-mentioned. The ancona was a gilded framework,
-having a compartment containing a
-picture of the Madonna and Child, and others
-with single figures of the saints, and these
-were the only pictures proper produced at this
-date. The demand for anconæ was, however,
-large, and they were very early placed, not only
-in the churches, but in the houses of patricians
-and burghers. Constant disputes arose between
-the painters and the gilders. Pictures were
-habitually painted upon a gold ground, but
-the painters were forbidden to gild the backgrounds
-themselves. “Gilding is the business
-of the gilder, painting that of the painter,”
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
-says a contemporary record. “Now the gilder
-contends that if a frame has to be gilt and
-then touched with colour, he is entitled to
-perform both operations, but the painter disputes
-this right, and maintains that the gilder should
-return it to him when the addition of painting
-is desired.” It was, however, finally decided by
-law that each should exercise both professions,
-when one or the other played a subordinate
-part in the finished work. Though the art
-of mosaic was falling into decay as painting
-began to emerge, yet the commercial manufactory
-of Byzantine Madonnas, which had been
-established as early as 600, went on, on the Rialto,
-without any variation of the traditional forms.</p>
-
-<p>Florence very early discarded the temptation
-to cling to material splendour, but as we pass
-into the Hall of the Primitives in the Venetian
-Academy, we see at once that Venetian art,
-in its earlier stages, has more to do with the gilder
-than the painter. The Holy Personages are
-merely accessories to the gorgeous framework,
-the embossed ornaments, the real jewels, which
-were in favour with the rich and magnificent
-patrons. There is no sign of any feeling for
-painting as painting, no craving after the study
-of form as the outcome of intellectual activity,
-no zest of discovery, such as made the painter’s
-life in Florence an excitement in which the
-public shared. What little Venice imbibes of
-these things is from outside influence, after due
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
-lapse of time. A prosperous, luxurious city of
-merchants and statesmen, she was too much
-bound up in the transactions and sensations of
-actual life to develop any abstract and thoughtful
-ideals.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the first painting we can discover
-which shows any sign of independent effort is the
-series which Paolo da Venezia painted on the back
-of the Pala d’ Oro, over the high altar of St. Mark,
-when it was restored in the fourteenth century.
-This reveals an artist with some pictorial aptitude
-and one alive to the subjects that surround him.
-It tells the story of St. Mark’s corpse transported
-to Venice. The first panel contains a group of
-cardinals of varying types and expressions; in
-another the disciple listening to St. Mark’s teaching,
-and crouching with his elbows on his knees,
-has a true, natural touch. The dramatic feeling
-here and there is considerable. The scene of the
-guards watching the imprisoned Saint through
-the window and seeing the shadow of two heads,
-as the Saviour visits him, imparts a distinct
-emotion; and there is force as well as feeling for
-decorative composition in the panel in which the
-Saint’s body lies at the feet of the sailors, while
-his vision appears shining upon the sails.</p>
-
-<p>Except for the exaggerated insistence on the
-gilded elaborations of the early ancona, there is
-not much to differentiate the early art of Venice
-from that of other centres; but we notice that it
-persevered longer in the material and mechanical
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
-art of the craftsman. Tuscan taste made little
-impression, and many years elapsed before work
-akin to that of Giotto attracted attention and was
-admired and imitated. A man like Antonio
-Veneziano met with the fate of the innovator in
-Venice. He had too much of the simplicity of
-the Tuscan and was compelled to carry his work
-to Pisa, where his naïf and humorous narratives
-still delight us in the Campo Santo. It was in
-1384 that he was employed to finish the frescoes
-of the life of S. Ranieri, which had been left uncompleted
-at Andrea da Firenze’s death, and the
-fondness for architecture and surroundings in the
-Florentine taste, which secured him a welcome,
-may, as Vasari says, be derived from Agnolo
-Gaddi, who had already visited Padua and
-Venice.</p>
-
-<p>In the last years of the fourteenth century
-tributary streams begin to feed the feeble main
-current. In 1365 Guariento, a Paduan, was
-employed by the State to paint a huge fresco of
-Paradise in the Hall of the Gran Consiglio of
-the Ducal Palace. This, which lay hid for
-centuries under the painting by Tintoretto, was
-uncovered in 1909 and found to be in fairly
-good preservation. It can now be seen in a side
-room. It tells us that Guariento had to some
-extent been influenced by Giotto. The thrones
-have long Gothic pendatives, the faces have more
-the Giottesque than the Byzantine cast and show
-that the old traditions were crumbling.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
-When painting in Venice first begins to
-live a life of its own, Jacobello del Fiore stands
-out as the most conspicuous of the indigenous
-Venetians. His father had been president
-of the Painters’ Guild. Jacopo himself was
-president from 1415 to 1436. He was a rich
-and popular member of the State and a man
-of high character. His works, to judge by the
-specimens left, hardly attained the dignity of
-art, though in the banner of “Justice,” in the
-Academy, the space is filled in a monumental
-fashion and the figure of St. Gabriel with the
-lily has something grand and graceful. We
-trace the same treatment of flying banners and
-draperies and rippling hair in the fantastic but
-picturesque S. Grisogono in the left transept of
-San Trovaso. Jacobello’s will, executed in 1439
-in favour of his wife Lucia and his son, Ercole,
-with provision for a possible posthumous son,
-shows him to have been a man of considerable
-possessions. He owned a slave and had other
-servants, a house, money, and books. Among his
-fellow-workers who are represented in Venice
-are Niccolo Semitocolo, Niccolo di Pietro, and
-Lorenzo Veneziano. The important altarpiece
-by the last, in the Academy, has evidently
-been reconstructed; two Eternal Fathers hover
-over the Annunciation, and the Saints have
-been restored to the framework in such wise
-that the backs of many of them are turned
-on the momentous central event. In the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
-“Marriage of St. Catherine,” in the same
-gallery, Lorenzo gets more natural. The Child,
-in a light green dress with gold buttons, has a
-lively expression, and looks round at His Mother
-as if playing a game. The chapel of San Tarasio
-in San Zaccaria contains an ancona of which the
-central panel was only inserted in 1839, and is
-identical with Lorenzo’s other work. One of
-the finest and most elaborate of all the anconæ is
-in San Giovanni in Bragora, and is also the work
-of Lorenzo. In this, as well as in that of San
-Tarasio, the Mother offers the Child the apple,
-signifying the fruit of the Tree of Jesse and
-symbolical of the Incarnation. This incident,
-which is found thus early in art, was evidently
-felt to raise the group of the Mother and Child
-from a representation of a merely earthly relationship
-to a spiritual scene of the deepest meaning
-and the highest dignity.</p>
-
-<p>Niccolo di Pietro has several early works of
-the last decade of the fourteenth century, from
-which we gather that he began as a Byzantine,
-but that he imitated Guariento and was tentatively
-drawn to the Giottesque movement, but
-not, we may remember, before Giotto had been
-dead for some sixty years. Niccolo di Pietro has
-been confounded with Niccolo Semitocolo, but
-it is now realised that they were two distinct
-masters. The most important work of Michele
-Giambono which has come down to us is the
-signed ancona with five saints, now in the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
-Venetian Academy. It is unusual to find a saint
-in the central panel instead of the Madonna.
-The saint is on a larger scale than his companions,
-and has hitherto passed as the Redeemer,
-but Professor Venturi has identified him as
-St. James the Great. He has the gold scallop-shell
-and pilgrim’s staff. It is clear from his size
-and position that the ancona has been painted for
-an altar specially dedicated to this Apostle.</p>
-
-<p>The saints on the right are S. Michael and
-S. Louis of Toulouse. Between S. John the Evangelist
-and S. James is a monastic figure which
-has evidently changed places with S. John
-at some moment of restoration. If the two
-figures are transposed, their attitudes become intelligible.
-S. John is inculcating a message
-inscribed in his open book, while the monk is
-displaying his humble answer on his own page.
-The use in it of the term <em>servus</em> suggests that
-he is a Servite, though the want of the nimbus
-precludes the idea that he is one of the founders.
-It is probable that he is S. Filipo Benizzi, who,
-though considered as a saint from the time of
-his death, was not canonised for several centuries.</p>
-
-<p>The Mond Collection includes a glowing
-picture by Giambono; a seated figure clad in
-rich vestments and holding an orb, probably
-representing a “Throne,” one of the angelic
-orders of the celestial
-Hierarchy.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
-Works are still in existence which may be
-ascribed to one or other of these masters, or
-of which no attribution can be made, but we
-know nothing positive of any other artists of the
-time which preceded the influence of Gentile da
-Fabriano. Nothing leads us to suppose that
-the Venetian School in its origin had any pretension
-to be a school of colour, or that it could
-claim anything like real excellence at a time
-when the Republic first became alive to the
-movement which was going on in other parts of
-Italy, and decided to call in foreign talent.</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Paolo da Venezia.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">St. Mark’s: The Pala d’ Oro.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Death of the Virgin.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Lorenzo da Venezia.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Correr Museum: Saviour giving Keys to St. Peter.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Ancona.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Two Saints.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Nicoletto Semitocolo.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Biblioteca Archivescovo: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Stefano da Venezia.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Coronation of Virgin, with false signature of Semitocolo.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Jacobello del Fiore.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Justice.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Trovaso: S. Grisogono.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Niccolo di Pietro.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dei Miracoli: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Michele Giambono.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: St. James the Great and other Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: A “Throne.”</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>INFLUENCES OF UMBRIA AND VERONA</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Gentile da Fabriano, the Umbrian master,
-when he reached Venice in the early years of
-the fifteenth century, was already a man of note.
-He had received his art education in Florence,
-and he brought with him fresh and delicate
-devices for the enrichment of painting with
-gold, which, derived as it was from the Sienese
-assimilation of Byzantine methods, was very
-superior in fancy and refinement to anything
-that Venice had to show. He was a man of a
-gentle, mystic temperament, but he was accustomed
-to courts, and a finished master whose
-technique and artistic value was far beyond anything
-that the local painters were capable of.
-He spent some years in Venice, adorning the
-great hall with episodes from the legend of
-Barbarossa; one of these, which is specially
-cited, was of the battle between the Emperor and
-the Venetians. Gentile was working till about
-1414, and the walls, finished by Pisanello, were
-covered by 1416. After this Gentile remained
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
-some time in Bergamo and Brescia, and settled
-in Florence about 1422. The year after reaching
-Florence, he painted the famous “Adoration
-of the Magi,” now in the Florentine Academy.
-Even after leaving Venice his fame survived;
-pictures went from his workshop in the Popolo
-S. Trinità, and he sent back two portraits after
-he had returned to his native Fabriano.</p>
-
-<p>We have no positive record of Gentile and
-Vittore Pisano, commonly called Pisanello,
-having met in Venice, but there is every
-evidence in their work that they did so, and
-that one overlapped the other in the paintings
-for the Ducal Palace.</p>
-
-<p>The School of Verona already had an honourable
-record, and its Guild dates from 1303.
-The following are its rules, the document of
-which is still preserved, while that of Venice
-has been lost:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="smcap">Rules of the Veronese Guild</span> (<em>abridged</em>)</p>
-
-<p>1. No one to become a member who had not
-practised art for twelve years.</p>
-
-<p>2. Twelve artists to be elected members.</p>
-
-<p>3. The reception of a new member depends on his
-being a senior.</p>
-
-<p>4. The members are obliged in the winter season
-to take upon themselves the instruction of
-all the pupils in turn.</p>
-
-<p>5. A member is liable to be expelled for theft.</p>
-
-<p>6. Each member is bound to extend to another
-fraternal assistance in necessity.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
-7. To maintain general agreement in any controversies.</p>
-
-<p>8. To extend hospitality to strange artists.</p>
-
-<p>9. To offer to one another reciprocal comfort.</p>
-
-<p>10. To follow the funerals of members with
-torches.</p>
-
-<p>11. The President is to exercise reference authority.</p>
-
-<p>12. The member who has the longest membership
-to be President.</p></div>
-
-<p>There were also by-laws, which provided
-that no master should accept a pupil for less
-than three years, and this acceptance had to
-be definitely registered by the public notary, a
-son, brother, grandson, or nephew being the
-only exceptions. No master might receive
-an apprentice who should have left another
-master before his time was out, unless with that
-master’s free consent. There were penalties for
-enticing away a pupil, and others to be enforced
-against pupils who broke the agreement. Severe
-restrictions existed with regard to the sale of
-pictures, no one but a member of the Guild
-being allowed to sell them. No one might
-bring a work from any foreign place for purposes
-of sale. It might not even be brought
-to the town without the special permission of
-the <em>Gastaldiones</em>, or trustees of the Guild, and
-those trustees were permitted to search for and
-destroy forged pictures. Every painter, therefore,
-had to subordinate his interests and inclinations
-to the local school. It helps us to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
-understand why the individual character of the
-different masters is so perceptible, and one of
-the primary causes of this must have been the
-careful training of the pupils in the master’s
-workshop.</p>
-
-<p>The fresco left by Altichiero, Pisanello’s first
-master, in the Church of S. Anastasia in Verona,
-shows how worthily a Veronese painter was at
-this early time following in the footsteps of
-Giotto. Three knights of the Cavalli family
-are presented by their patron saints to the
-Madonna. The composition has a large simplicity,
-a breadth of feeling which is carried
-into each gesture. The knights with their
-raised helmets, in the pattern of horses’ heads,
-are full of reality, the Madonna is sweet and
-dignified, and the saints are grand and stately.
-The picture has a delightful suavity and ease,
-and the colouring has evidently been lovely.
-The setting is in good proportion and more
-satisfactory than that of the Giottesques. From
-the series of frescoes in S. Antonio, Verona,
-we gather that while Venice was still limited
-to stiff anconæ, the Veronese masters were
-managing crowds of figures and rendering distances
-successfully. Altichiero puts in homely
-touches from everyday life with a freedom
-which shows he has not yet mastered the
-principles of selection or the dignified fitness
-which guided the great masters; as, for instance,
-in the case of the old woman, among the spectators
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
-of the Crucifixion, who shows her grief by blowing
-her nose. He lets himself be drawn off by all
-manner of trivial detail and of gay costume; but
-again in such frescoes as S. Lucia, or the “Beheading
-of St. George,” in the Paduan chapel of the
-Santo, he proves how well he understands the
-force of solid, simply-draped figures, direct in
-gesture and expression, while the decorative use
-he makes of lances against the background was
-long afterwards perhaps imitated, but hardly
-surpassed, by Tintoretto.</p>
-
-<p>Pisanello, who followed quickly upon
-Altichiero and his assistant, Avanzi, exhibits
-the same chivalresque and courtly inclinations
-which commended Gentile da Fabriano to the
-splendour-loving Venetians. Verona, under the
-peaceful but gallant government of the Scaligeri,
-had long been the home of all knightly
-lore, and the artists had been employed to
-decorate chapels for the families of the great
-nobles. Among these, Pisanello had attained a
-high place. Though very few of his paintings
-remain, they all show these influences, and his
-subtly modelled medals establish him as a
-master of the most finished type. A much
-destroyed fresco in S. Anastasia, Verona, portrays
-the history of St. George and the Dragon.
-In the St. George we probably see the portrait
-of the great personage in whose honour the
-fresco was painted. He is mounting his horse,
-which, seen from behind, reminds us of the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
-fore-shortened chargers of Paolo Uccello. The
-rescued princess, also a portrait, wears a magnificent
-dress and an elaborate headgear in the
-fashion of the day. Other horses, fiery and
-spirited, are grouped around, and in the band of
-cavaliers, beyond St. George, every head is
-individualised; one is beautiful, another brutal,
-and so on through the seven. A greyhound and
-spaniel in the foreground are superbly painted,
-the background is excellent, and a realistic touch
-is given by the corpses which dangle unheeded
-from the trees outside the castle-gate. A ruined,
-but fortunately not restored, “Annunciation” in
-S. Fermo, has a simple, slender figure of the
-Virgin sitting by her white bed, and the angel,
-with great sweeping, rushing wings and bowed,
-child-like head with fair hair, is a most sweet
-and keen figure, thrilling and convincing, in
-contrast to all the dead, over-worked frescoes
-round the church. All these paintings are too
-small to be the least effective at the height at
-which they are placed, and can only be seen
-with a good glass. Pisanello’s art is not well
-adapted to wide, frescoed walls, and he seems to
-have enjoyed painting miniature panels, such as
-the two we possess. In these he is full of
-originality, and shows his love for the knightly
-life, the life of courts, in the armed <em>cap-à-pied</em>
-figure of St. George, whose point-device armour
-is crowned by a wide Tuscan hat and feather.
-The artist’s knowledge and love of animals and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
-wild nature comes out in them, and his interest
-in beauty and chivalry as opposed to the outworn
-conventionalities of ecclesiastic demands.</p>
-
-<p>We shall be able to trace the influence of
-both the Umbrian and the Veronese painter
-on men like Antonio di Murano and Jacopo
-Bellini, and it is important to note the likeness
-of the two to one another. In Gentile’s
-“Adoration” we have on the one hand the
-Holy Family and the gay pageant of the kings,
-of which we could find the prototype in
-many an Umbrian panel. On the other we see
-those contrasting elements which were struggling
-in Pisanello; the delight in flowers and animals,
-in gaily apparelled figures, in dogs and horses.
-The two have no lasting effect, but though they
-created no actual school, they gave a stimulus to
-Venetian art, and started it on a new tack,
-enabling it to open its channels to fresh ideas.
-During the time they were in Venice, Jacobello
-del Fiore shows some signs of adapting the new
-fashion to his early style, and the horse of
-S. Grisogono is very like that of Gentile in
-the “Adoration,” or like Pisano’s horses.
-Michele Giambono is actually found in collaboration,
-in the chapel of the Madonna da
-Mascoli in St. Mark’s, with such a virile
-painter as the Florentine, Andrea del Castagno,
-who is evidently responsible for God the Father
-and two of the Apostles; but Castagno must
-have been thoroughly antipathetic to the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
-Venetians, and though he may have taught
-them the way to draw, he has not left any
-traces of a following.</p>
-
-<p>Facio, writing in 1455, speaks of Gentile’s
-work in the Ducal Palace as already decaying,
-while Pisanello’s was painted out by Alvise
-Vivarini and Bellini.</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Gentile da Fabriano.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Adoration of the Magi.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Altichiero.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Capella S. Felice, S. Antonio: Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Capella S. Giorgio, S. Anastasia: The Cavalli Family.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pisanello.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">S. Anastasia: St. George and the Dragon.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">S. Fermo: Annunciation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. George and S. Jerome; S. Eustace and the Stag.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>THE SCHOOL OF MURANO</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>The important little town of Murano, a satellite
-of Venice, lies upon an island, some ten minutes’
-row from the mother State, distinct from which
-it preserved separate interests and regulations.
-Its glass manufacture was safeguarded by the
-most stringent decrees, which forbade members
-of the Guild to leave the islet under pain of
-death. Its mosaics, stone work, and architecture
-speak of an early artistic existence, and we
-recognise the justice of the claim of Muranese
-painters to be the first to strike out into a more
-emancipated type than that of the primitives.
-The painter Giovanni of Murano, called
-Giovanni Alemanus or d’ Alemagna, names
-between which Venetian jealousy for a time
-drew an imaginary distinction, had certainly
-received his early education in Germany, and
-betrays it by his heavier ornamentation and more
-Gothic style; but he was a fellow-worker with
-Antonio of Murano, the founder of the great
-Vivarini family, and the Academy contains several
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
-large altarpieces in which they collaborated.
-“Christ and the Virgin in Glory” was painted
-for a church in Venice in 1440, and has an
-inscription with both names on a banderol across
-the foreground. The Eternal Father, with His
-hands on the shoulders of the Mother and Son,
-makes a group of which we find the origin in
-Gentile da Fabriano’s altarpiece in the Brera,
-and it is probable that one if not both masters
-had been studying with the Umbrian and
-absorbing the principles he had brought to
-Venice. It is easy to trace the influence of
-Giovanni d’ Alemagna, though not always
-easy to pick out which part of a picture
-belongs to him and which to Antonio working
-under his influence. In S. Pantaleone is
-a “Coronation of the Virgin,” with Gothic
-ornaments such as are not found in purely
-Italian art at this period, but the example in
-which both masters can be most closely followed
-is the great picture in the Academy, the
-“Madonna enthroned,” where she sits under
-a baldaquin surrounded by saints. Here the
-Gothic surroundings become very florid, and
-have a gingerbread-cake effect, which Italian
-taste would hardly have tolerated. Many
-features are characteristic of the German; the
-huge crown worn by the Mother, the floriated
-ornament of the quadrangle, the almost baroque
-appearance of the throne. Through it all,
-heavily repainted as it is, shines the dawn of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
-the tender expression which came into Venetian
-art with Gentile.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img050.jpg" width="550" height="358" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Antonio da Murano.</em> ADORATION OF THE
-MAGI. <em>Berlin.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Hanfstängl.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>Giovanni d’ Alemagna and Antonio da Murano
-were no doubt widely employed, and when the
-former died Antonio founded and carried on a
-real school in Venice. In 1446 he was living in
-the parish of S. Maria Formosa with his wife,
-who was the daughter of a fruit merchant, and
-the wills of both are still preserved in the parish
-archives. Gentile da Fabriano had set the
-example for gorgeous processions with gay dresses
-and strange animals; winding paths in the background
-and foreshortened limbs prove that attention
-had been drawn to Paolo Uccello’s studies
-in perspective, while many figures and horses
-recall Pisanello. A striking proof of the sojourn
-of Gentile and Pisanello in Venice is found in
-an “Adoration of Magi,” now ascribed to
-Antonio da Murano, in which the central group,
-the oldest king kissing the Child’s foot, is very
-like that in Gentile’s “Adoration,” but the foreshortened
-horses and the attendants argue the
-painter’s knowledge of Pisanello’s work. A comparison
-of the architecture in the background
-with that in the “St. George” in S. Anastasia
-shows the same derivation, and the dainty cavalier,
-who holds a flag and is in attendance on the
-youngest king, is reminiscent of St. George and
-St. Eustace in Pisanello’s paintings in the National
-Gallery, so that in this one picture the influences
-of the two artists are combined.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
-Antonio took his younger brother, Bartolommeo,
-into partnership, and the title of da
-Murano was presently dropped for the more
-modern designation of Vivarini. Both brothers
-are fine and delicate in work, but from the outset
-of their collaboration the younger man is
-more advanced and more full of the spirit of the
-innovator. In his altarpiece in the first hall of
-the Academy the Nativity has already a new
-realism; Joseph leans his head upon his hand,
-crushing up his cheek. The saints are particularly
-vivid in expression, especially the old hermit
-holding the bell, whose face is brimming with
-ardent feeling.</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Giovanni d’ Alemanus and Antonio da Murano.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Christ and the Virgin in Glory; Virgin enthroned, with Saints.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonio da Murano.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Adoration of Magi.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>THE PADUAN INFLUENCE</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>And now into this dawning school, employed
-chiefly in the service of the Church, with its
-tentative and languid essays to understand
-Florentine composition, resulting in what is
-scarcely more than a mindless imitation, and
-with its rather more intelligent perception of the
-Humanist qualities of Pisanello’s work, there
-enters a new factor; or rather a new agency
-makes a slightly more successful attempt than
-Gentile and Castagno had done to help the
-Venetians to realise the supreme importance of
-the human figure, its power in relation to other
-objects to determine space, its modelling and
-the significance of its attitude in conveying
-movement. Giotto had been able to present all
-these qualities in the human form, but he had
-done so by the light of genius, and had never
-formulated any sufficient rules for his followers’
-guidance. In Ghiberti’s school, at the beginning
-of the fifteenth century, the fascination of the
-antique in art was making itself felt, but
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Donatello had escaped from the artificial trammels
-it threatened to exercise, and had carried
-the Florentine school with him in his profound
-researches into the human form itself.
-Donatello had been working in Padua for ten
-years before Pisanello’s death, and in an indirect
-way the Venetians were experiencing some after-results
-of the systematising and formulating of the
-new pictorial elements. Though the intellectual
-life had met with little encouragement among
-the positive, practical inhabitants of Venice, in
-Padua, which had been subject to her since 1405,
-speculative thought and ideal studies were in
-full swing. There was no re-birth in Venice,
-whose tradition was unbroken and where “men
-were too genuinely pagan to care about the echo
-of a paganism in the remote past.” St. Mark
-was the deity of Venice, and “the other twelve
-Apostles” were only obscurely connected with
-her religious life, which was strong and orthodox,
-but untroubled by metaphysical enthusiasms and
-inconvenient heresies. Padua, on the other hand,
-was absorbed in questions of learning and
-religion. A university had been established here
-for two centuries. The abstract study of the
-antique was carried on with fervour, and the
-memory of Livy threw a lustre over the city
-which had never quite died out. It seemed
-perfectly right and respectable to the Venetians
-that the <em>savants</em>, lying safely removed from the
-busy stream of commercial life, should cultivate
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>inquiries into theology and the classics, which
-would only have been a hindrance to their own
-practical business; but such, as it was well known,
-were of absorbing interest in the circles which
-gathered round the Medici in Florence. The
-school of art, which was now arising in Padua,
-was fed from such sources as these. The love of
-the antique was becoming a fashion and a guiding
-principle, and influenced the art of painting more
-formally than it could succeed in doing among
-the independent and original Florentines.</p>
-
-<p>Francesco Squarcione, though, as Vasari says,
-he may not have been the best of painters, has
-left work (now at Berlin) which is accepted as
-genuine and which shows that he was more
-than the mere organiser he is sometimes called.
-He had travelled in Greece, and was apparently
-a dealer, supplying the demand for classic fragments,
-which was becoming widespread. When
-he founded his school in Padua he evidently
-was its leading spirit and a powerful artistic influence.
-His pupils, even the greatest, were
-long in breaking away from his convention,
-and few of them threw it off entirely, even in
-after life. That convention was carried with
-undeviating thoroughness into every detail.
-Draperies are arranged in statuesque folds,
-designed to display every turn of the form
-beneath; the figures are moulded with all the
-precision and limitations of statuary. The very
-landscape becomes sculpturesque, and rocks of a
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>volcanic character are constructed with the
-regularity of masonry. The colour and technique
-are equally uncompromising, and the surface
-becomes a beautiful enamel, unyielding, definite
-in its lines, lacquer-like in its firmness of finish,
-while the Gothic forms, which had hitherto been
-so prevalent, were replaced by more or less
-pedantic adaptations from Roman bas-reliefs.
-This system of design was practised most
-determinedly in Padua itself, but it soon spread
-to Venice. Squarcione himself was employed
-there after 1440, and though Antonio da Murano
-clung to the old archaic style he saw the Paduan
-manner invading his kingdom, and his own
-brother became strongly Squarcionesque.</p>
-
-<p>The two brothers of Murano come most
-closely together in an altarpiece in the gallery of
-Bologna, where the framework is more simple
-than Alemanus’s German taste would have permitted,
-and the Madonna and Child have some
-natural ease, and the delicacy of feeling of primitive
-art. Bartolommeo, when he breaks away and
-sets out to paint by himself, is crude and strong, but
-full of vital force. In his altarpiece of 1464, in
-the Academy, he gives his saints reality by taking
-them off their pedestals and making them stand
-upon the ground, and though they are still
-isolated from one another in the partitions of an
-ancona, their sparkling eyes, individual features,
-and curly beards give them a look of life. The
-draperies, thin and clinging, with little rucked
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>folds, which display the forms, and the drawing
-of the bony structure, exaggerated in the arms
-and legs, are Squarcionesque. The rocks and
-stones, too, show the Paduan convention. In
-several of his other altarpieces, Bartolommeo
-introduces rich ornaments and swags of fruit,
-such as Donatello had first brought to Padua,
-or which Paduan artists delighted to copy from
-classic columns. Antonio’s manner to the end
-is the local Venetian manner, infused as it was
-with the soft and charming influence of Gentile
-da Fabriano and Pisanello, but Bartolommeo
-adopts the new and more ambitious style.
-Though not a very good painter, and inclined
-to be puffy and shapeless in his flesh forms, he
-was the head of a crowd of artists, and works of
-his school, signed <em>Opus factum</em>, went all over
-Italy, and are found as far south as Bari. Works
-of his pupils are numerous; the “St. Mark enthroned”
-in the Frari is as good if not better
-than the master’s own work, and the triptych in
-the Correr Museum is a free imitation.</p>
-
-<p>Round this early school gathered such
-painters as Antonio da Negroponte and Quirizio
-da Murano, who were both working in 1450.
-Negroponte has left an enthroned Madonna in
-S. Francesco della Vigna, which is one of the
-most beautiful examples of colour and of the
-fanciful charm of the Renaissance that the early
-art of Venice has to show. The Mother and
-Child are placed in a marble shrine, adorned
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>with antique reliefs, rich wreaths of fruit swag
-above her head, a little Gothic loggia is full
-of flowers and fruit, and birds are perched on
-cornucopias. On either side, four badly drawn
-little angels, with ugly faces and awkwardly
-foreshortened forms, foreshadow the beautiful,
-music-making angels which became such a
-feature of North Italian art. The Divine
-Mother, adoring the Child lying across her
-knees, has an exquisite, pensive face, conceived
-with all the delicacy and simplicity of early art.
-It seems quite possible, as Professor Leonello
-Venturi suggests, that we have here the early
-master of Crivelli, in whom we find the love
-of fruit garlands, of chains of beads and rich
-brocades carried to its farthest limits, who takes
-keen pleasure in introducing the ugly but lively
-little angels, and who gives the same pensive and
-almost mincing expression to his Madonnas.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonio da Murano and Bartolommeo Vivarini.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bologna.</td> <td class="td5">Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bartolommeo Vivarini.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Altarpiece, 1464; Two Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: Madonna and four Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Madonna and two Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Formosa: Triptych.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">S. Ambrose and Saints.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonio da Negroponte.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco della Vigna: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>JACOPO BELLINI</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>While Venice was assimilating the spirit of the
-school of Squarcione, which in the next few
-years was to be rendered famous by Mantegna,
-another influence was asserting itself, which was
-sufficient to counteract the hard formalism of
-Paduan methods.</p>
-
-<p>When Gentile da Fabriano left Venice, he
-carried with him, and presently established with
-him in Florence, a young man, Jacopo Bellini,
-who had already been working with him and
-Pisanello, and who was an ardent disciple of the
-new naturalistic and humanist movement. Both
-Gentile and his apprentice were subjected to annoyance
-from the time they arrived in Florence,
-where the strict regulations which governed the
-Guilds made it very difficult for any newcomer
-to practise his art. The records of a police case
-report that on the 11th of June 1423 some
-young men, among them, one, Bernabo di San
-Silvestri, the son of a notary, were observed
-throwing stones into the painter’s room. His
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>assistant, Jacopo Bellini, came out and drove the
-assailants away with blows, but Bernabo, accusing
-Jacopo of assault, the latter was committed to
-prison in default of payment. After six months’
-imprisonment, a compromise of the fine and a
-penitential declaration set him at liberty. The
-accounts declare that Gentile took no steps to
-be of service to his follower; but Jacopo soon
-after married a girl from Pesaro, and his first
-son was christened after his old master, which
-does not look as though they were on unfriendly
-terms. Jacopo travelled in the Romagna, and
-was much esteemed by the Estes of Ferrara,
-but he was back in Venice in 1430. He has
-left us only three signed works, and one or two
-more have lately been attributed to him, but
-they give very little idea of what an important
-master he was.</p>
-
-<p><a name="agony" id="agony"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;">
-<img src="images/img062.jpg" width="428" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Jacopo Bellini.</em> AGONY IN GARDEN—DRAWING. <em>British Museum.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>His Madonna in the Academy has a round,
-simple type of face, and in the Louvre Madonna,
-which is attributed but not signed, it is easy to
-recognise the same arched eyebrows and half-shut,
-curved eyelids. In this picture, where the
-Madonna blesses the kneeling Leonello d’ Este, we
-see how Pisanello acted on Jacopo and, through
-him, on Venetian art. The connection between
-the two masters has been established in a very
-interesting way by Professor Antonio Venturi’s
-discovery of a sonnet, written in 1441, which
-recounts how they painted rival portraits of
-Leonello, and how Bellini made so lively a likeness
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>that he was adjudged the first place. The
-landscape in the Louvre picture is advanced in
-treatment, and with its gilded mountain-tops, its
-stag and its town upon the hill-side, is full of
-reminiscences of Pisanello, especially of the “St.
-George” in S. Anastasia. We come upon such
-traces, too, in Jacopo’s drawings, and it is by
-his two sketch-books that we can best judge of
-his greatness. One of these is in the British
-Museum; the other, in the Louvre, was discovered
-not many years ago in the granary of a
-castle in Guyenne. These drawings reveal Jacopo
-as one of the greatest masters of his day. He is
-larger, simpler, and more natural than Pisanello,
-and he apparently cares less for the human figure
-than for elaborate backgrounds and surroundings.
-Many of his designs we shall refer to again when
-we come to speak of his two sons. His “Supper
-of Herod” reminds us of Masolino’s fresco at
-Castiglione d’ Olona. He sketches designs for
-numbers of religious scenes, treated in an original
-and interesting manner. A “Crucifixion” has
-bands of soldiers ranged on either side, an
-“Adoration of the Magi” has a string of camels
-coming down the hill, the executioners in a
-“Scourging” wear Eastern head-dresses. In a
-sketch for a “Baptism of Christ” tall angels
-hold the garments in the early traditional way;
-on one side two play the lute and the violin,
-while the two on the other side have a trumpet
-and an organ. He has sketches for the Ascension,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>Resurrection, Circumcision, and Entombment,
-repeated over and over again with variations,
-and one of S. Bernardino preaching in Venice
-(where he was in 1427). Jacopo delights even
-more in fanciful and mythological than in sacred
-subjects. A tournament with spectators, a Faun
-riding a lion, a “Triumph of Bacchus” with
-panthers, are among such essays. The fauns
-pipe, the wine-god bears a vase of fruit. His
-love of animals is equal to that of Pisanello,
-and S. Hubert and the stag with the crucifix
-between its horns is directly reminiscent of the
-Veronese. His horses, of which there are
-immense numbers, sometimes look as if copied
-from ancient bas-reliefs. His treatment of
-single nude figures is often poor and weak
-enough, and his rocks have the flat-topped,
-geological formation of the Paduan School, but
-no one who so drank in every description of
-lively scene about him could have been in any
-danger of becoming a mere archeological type,
-and it was from this pitfall that he rescued
-Mantegna. To judge by his drawings, Jacopo
-did not overlook any source of art open to him;
-he delights in the rich research of the Paduans as
-much as in the varieties of wild nature and all
-the incidents of contemporary life first annexed
-by Pisanello. He is often very like Gentile da
-Fabriano, he makes raids into Uccello’s domains
-of perspective, he is frankly mundane and draws
-a revel of satyrs and centaurs with a real interpretation
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>of the lyrical and pagan spirit of the
-Greeks, and he has an idealism of the soul,
-which found its full expression in his son,
-Giovanni. We cannot call Jacopo Bellini the
-founder of the Venetian School, for its makings
-existed already, but it was his influence on
-his sons which, above all, was accountable for
-the development of early excellence. His long,
-flowing lines have a sweep and a fanciful grace
-which form an absolute antidote to the definite,
-geometrical Paduan convention. In Jacopo we
-see the thorough assimilation of those foreign
-elements which were in sympathy with the
-Venetian atmosphere, and while up to now
-Venice had only imbibed influences, she was
-soon to create for herself an artistic <em>milieu</em>
-and to become the leader of the movement of
-painting in the north of Italy.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Jacopo Bellini.</em></p>
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Annunciation and Predelle.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Christ on Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Crucifixion.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">British Museum: Sketch-book.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Leonello d’ Este: Sketch-book.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>CARLO CRIVELLI</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>We must turn aside from the main stream when
-we come to speak of Carlo Crivelli, who,
-important master as he was, occupies a place
-by himself. A pupil of the Vivarini and perhaps,
-as we have noted, of Antonio Negroponte,
-Crivelli was profoundly influenced by the
-Paduans, from whom he learned that metallic,
-finished quality of paint which he carried to
-perfection. Crivelli shows intellect, individuality,
-even genius, in the way in which he grapples
-with his medium and produces his own reading,
-and the circumstances of his life were such as to
-throw him in upon himself and to preserve his
-originality. His little early “Madonna and
-Child” at Verona is linked with that of Negroponte
-by the elaborate festoons, strings of beads,
-and large-patterned brocades used in the surroundings,
-and has those ugly, foreshortened
-little <em>putti</em>, holding the instruments of the
-Passion, of the type elaborated by Squarcione
-and Marco Zoppo, and which, in their improved
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>state, we are accustomed to think of as
-Mantegnesque.</p>
-
-<p>When Crivelli was thirty-eight years old, he
-was condemned to six months’ imprisonment and
-to a fine of two hundred lire for an outrage on
-a neighbour’s wife. Perhaps it was to escape
-from an unenviable reputation that he left Venice
-soon after and set up painting in the Marches,
-where he lived from 1468 to 1473. He then
-went on to Camerino in Umbria, where his great
-triptych, now in the Brera, was painted, and a
-few years later he was in Ascoli, with a commission
-for an Annunciation in the Cathedral.
-This is the picture now in the National Gallery,
-in which the Bishop holds a model of the
-Duomo. After 1490 he worked in little towns
-in the Marches, and is not mentioned after 1493.
-He does not seem ever to have come back to
-Venice.</p>
-
-<p>Shut up in the Marches, where there was
-little strong local talent, and where he could not
-keep up with the progress that was taking place
-in Venice, he was obliged himself to supply the
-artistic movement. He kept the Squarcionesque
-traditions to the end, but moulded them by his
-own love of rich and exuberant decoration. Moreover,
-he was of a very intense religious bias, and
-this finds a deeply touching and mystical expression,
-more especially in his Pietàs. The love
-of gilded patterns and fanciful detail was deep-seated
-in all the Umbrian country. His altarpieces
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>were intended as sumptuous additions to
-rich churches, and were consequently arranged,
-with many divisions, in the old Muranese manner.
-His great ancona, in the National Gallery, is a
-marvel of elaborate ornament and enamel-like
-painting. The Madonna is delicate, almost
-affected in her refinement. Her long fingers
-hold the Child’s garment with the extreme of
-dainty precision, the croziers and rings of the
-saints and bishops are embossed with gold and
-real jewels. The flowers in the panel of “The
-Immaculate Conception,” which hangs beside it,
-are twisted into heads of mythological beasts and
-grotesques or cherubs; but Crivelli has plenty
-of strength, and his male saints have vigorous,
-bony limbs and fierce fanatical eyes. It is, however,
-in his colour that he charms us most, and
-though he does not touch the real fount, he
-is of all the earlier school the most remarkable
-for subtle tender tones and lovely harmonies of
-olive-greens and faded rose and cream embossed
-with gold.</p>
-
-<p>Crivelli continued executing one great ancona
-after another, limiting his progress to perfecting
-his technique, and his influence was most deeply
-felt by such Umbrian painters as Lorenzo di San
-Severino and Niccola Alunno. The honours paid
-him testify to the reputation he acquired. He
-was created a knight and presented with a golden
-laurel wreath. But though he never, that we can
-hear of, revisited his native State, he always adds
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span><em>Venetus</em> to the signature on his paintings, a fact
-which tells us that far from Venice and in
-provincial districts, her prestige was felt and
-gave his work an enhanced commercial value.
-He had no after-influence upon the Venetian
-School, and in this respect is interesting as
-an example of the tenacity exercised by the
-Squarcionesque methods, when, unchecked by
-any counter-attraction, they came to act upon a
-very different temperament; for in his love of
-grace and beauty and of rich effects, and especially
-in his intensity of mystic feeling, Crivelli is a
-true Venetian and has no natural affinity with
-the classic spirit of the Paduans.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">SS. Jerome and Augustine.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Ascoli.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Altarpiece and Pietà.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and six Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà; The Blessed Ferretti; Madonna and Saints; Annunciation; Ancona in thirteen compartments; The Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson: Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sir Francis Cook: Madonna enthroned.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: SS. Peter and Paul.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lord Northbrook: Madonna; Resurrection; Saints; Crucifixion; Madonna; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: SS. James, Bernardino, and Pellegrino; SS. Anthony Abbot, Jerome, and Andrew.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Poldi-Pezzoli: S. Francis in Adoration.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Vatican: Pietà.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>GENTILE BELLINI AND ANTONELLO DA MESSINA</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>What, then, is the position which art has
-achieved in Venice a decade after the middle of
-the fourteenth century, and how does she compare
-with the Florentine School? The Florentines,
-Fra Angelico, Andrea del Castagno, and
-Pesellino were lately dead. Antonio Pollaiuolo
-was in his prime, Fra Lippo was fifty-four,
-Paolo Uccello was sixty-three. But though the
-progress in the north had been slower, art both
-in Padua and Venice was now in vigorous progress.
-Bartolommeo Vivarini was still painting
-and gathering round him a numerous band of
-followers; Mantegna was thirty, had just completed
-the frescoes in the Eremitani Chapel and
-the famous altarpiece in S. Zeno; and Gentile
-and Giovanni Bellini were two and four years
-his seniors.</p>
-
-<p>Francesco Negro, writing in the early years
-of the sixteenth century, speaks of Gentile as the
-elder son of Jacopo Bellini. Giovanni is thought
-to have been an illegitimate son, as Jacopo’s
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>widow only mentions Gentile and another son,
-Niccolo, in her will. There is every reason to
-believe that, as was natural, the two brothers were
-the pupils and assistants of their father. A
-“Madonna” in the Mond Collection, the
-earliest known of Gentile’s works, shows him
-imitating his father’s style; but when his sister,
-Niccolosia, married Mantegna in 1453, it is not
-surprising to find him following Mantegna’s
-methods for a time, and a fresco of St. Mark
-in the Scuola di San Marco, an important commission
-which he received in 1466, is taken
-direct from Mantegna’s fresco at Padua.</p>
-
-<p>As the Bellini matured, they abandoned the
-Squarcionesque tradition and evolved a style of
-their own; Gentile as much as his even more
-famous brother. Gentile is the first chronicler
-of the men and manners of his time. In 1460 he
-settled in Venice, and was appointed to paint the
-organ doors in St. Mark’s. These large saints,
-especially the St. Mark, still recall the Paduan
-period. They have festoons of grapes and apples
-hung from the architectural ornaments, and the
-cast of drapery, showing the form beneath,
-reminds us of Mantegna’s figures. But Gentile
-soon becomes an illustrator and portrait painter.
-Much of his work was done in the Scuola of
-St. Mark, where his father had painted, and this
-was destroyed by fire in 1485. Early, too, is the
-fine austere portrait of Lorenzo Giustiniani, in
-the Academy. In 1479 an emissary from the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>Sultan Mehemet arrived in Venice and requested
-the Signoria to recommend a good painter and
-a man clever at portraits. Gentile was chosen,
-and departed in September for Constantinople.
-He painted many subjects for the private apartments
-of the Sultan, as well as the famous
-portrait now in the possession of Lady Layard.
-It would be difficult for a historic portrait to
-show more insight into character. The face is
-cold, weary, and sensual, with all the over-refined
-look of an old race and a long civilisation,
-and has a melancholy note in its distant
-and satiated gaze. The Sultan showed Gentile
-every mark of favour, loaded him with presents,
-and bestowed on him the title of Bey. He
-returned home in 1493, bringing with him
-many sketches of Eastern personages and the
-picture, now in the Louvre, representing the
-reception of a Venetian Embassy by the Grand
-Vizier. Some five years before Gentile’s commission
-to Constantinople Antonello da Messina
-had arrived in Venice, and the spread and
-popularisation of oil-painting had hastened the
-casting off of outworn ecclesiastical methods and
-brought the painters nearer to the truth of life.
-Antonello did not actually introduce oils to the
-notice of Venetian painters, for Bartolommeo
-Vivarini was already using them in 1473, but
-he was well known by reputation before he
-arrived, and having probably come into contact
-with Flemish painters in Naples, he had had
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>better opportunities of seizing upon the new
-technique, and was able to establish it both in
-Milan and in Venice. A large number of
-Venetians were at this time resident in Messina:
-the families of Lombardo, Gradenigo, Contarini,
-Bembo, Morosini, and Foscarini were among those
-who had members settled there. Many of these
-were patrons of art, and probably paved the way
-to Antonello’s reception in Venice. At first all
-the traits of Antonello’s early work are Flemish:
-the full mantles, white linen caps and tuckers, the
-straight sharp folds and long wings of the angels
-have much of Van Eyck, but when he gets to
-Venice in 1475, its colour and life fascinate him,
-and a great change comes over his work. His
-portraits show that he grasped a new intensity
-of life, and let us into the character of the men
-he saw around him. His “Condottiere,” in the
-Louvre, declares the artist’s recognition of that
-truculent and formidable being, full of aristocratic
-disdain, the product of a daring, unscrupulous
-life. The “Portrait of a Humanist,” in
-the Castello in Milan, is classic in its deepest
-sense; and in the Trivulzio College at Milan an
-older man looks at us out of sly, expressive eyes,
-with characteristic eyebrows and kindly, half-cynical
-mouth. It was not wonderful that these
-portraits, combined with the new medium,
-worked upon Gentile’s imagination and determined
-his bent.</p>
-
-<p>The first examples of great canvases, illustrating
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>and celebrating their own pageants, must
-have mightily pleased the Venetians. Scenes in
-the style of the reception of the Venetian
-ambassadors were called for on all hands, and
-when the excellence of Gentile’s portraits was
-recognised, he became the model for all Venice.
-When his own and his father’s and brother’s
-paintings perished by fire in 1485, he offered
-to replace them “quicker than was humanly
-possible” and at a very low price. Giovanni,
-who had been engaged on the external decorations,
-was ill at the time, but the Signoria was
-so pleased with the offer that it was decided to
-let no one touch the work till the two brothers
-were able to finish it. Gentile still painted
-religious altarpieces with the Virgin and Child
-enthroned with saints, but most of his time was
-devoted to the production of his great canvases.
-Some of these have disappeared, but the “Procession”
-and “Miracle of the Cross,” commissioned
-by the school of S. Giovanni Evangelista,
-are now in the Academy, and the third canvas,
-executed for the same school, “St. Mark preaching
-at Alexandria,” which was unfinished at the
-time of his death, and was completed by his
-brother, is in the Brera.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img075.jpg" width="550" height="267" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Gentile Bellini.</em> PROCESSION OF THE HOLY CROSS. <em>Venice.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>These great compositions of crowds bring
-back for us the Venice of Gentile’s day as no
-verbal description can do. There is no especial
-richness of colour; the light is that of broad day
-in the Piazza and among the luminous waterways
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>of the city. We can see the scene any day
-now in the wide square, making allowance for
-the difference of costume. The groups are set
-about in the ample space, with the wonderful
-cathedral as a background. St. Mark’s has been
-painted hundreds of times, but no one has ever
-given such a good idea of it as Gentile—of its
-stateliness and beauty, of its wealth of detail; and
-he does so without detracting from the general
-effect, for St. Mark’s, though the keynote of the
-whole composition, is kept subservient, and is
-part of the stage on which the scene is enacted.
-The procession passes along, carrying the relics,
-attended by the waxlights and the banners.
-Behind the reliquary kneels the merchant,
-Jacopo Salò, petitioning for the recovery of his
-wounded son. Then come the musicians; the
-spectators crowd round, they strain forward to
-see the chief part of the cortège, as a crowd
-naturally does. Some watch with reverence,
-others smile or have a negligent air. The faces
-of the candle-bearers are very like those we
-may see to-day in a great Church procession:
-some absorbed in their task, or uplifted by inner
-thoughts; others looking curiously and sceptically
-at the crowd. Gentile tries in his crowds
-to bring together all the types of life in Venice,
-all the officials and the ecclesiastical world, the
-young and old. With a few strokes he creates
-the individual and also the type;—the careless
-rover; the responsible magistrate; the shrewd,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>practical man of business; the young men, full
-of their own plans, but pausing to look on at
-one of the great religious sights of their city.
-In the “Finding of the Cross” he produces the
-effect of the whole city <em>en fête</em>. It was a sight
-which often met his eyes. The Doge made no
-fewer than thirty-six processions annually to
-various churches of the city, and on fourteen of
-these occasions he was accompanied by the whole
-of the nobles dressed in their State robes. Every
-event of importance was seized on by the Venetian
-ladies as an opportunity for arraying themselves
-in the richest attire, cloth of gold and velvet,
-plumes and jewels. Gentile has massed the ladies
-of Queen Catherine Cornaro’s Court around their
-Queen upon the left side of the canal. The
-light from above streams upon the keeper of the
-School, who holds the sacred relic on high. All
-round are the old, irregular Venetian houses, and
-in the crowd he paints the variety of men he
-saw around him every day in Venice. Yet even
-in this animated scene he retains his old quattrocento
-calm. The groups are decorously assisting:
-only here and there he is drawn off to some
-small detail of reality, such as an oarsman
-dexterously turning his boat, or the maid letting
-the negro servant pass out to take a header into
-the canal. The spectators look on coolly at one
-more of the oft-seen, miraculous events. The
-committee, kneeling at the side, is a row of
-unforgettable portraits, grave, benign, sour, and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>austere, with bald head or flowing hair. In this
-composition he triumphs over all difficulties of
-perspective; our eye follows the canals, and the
-boats pass away under the bridge in atmospheric
-light. All the joy of Venice is in that play of
-light on broad brick surfaces, light which is
-cast up from the water and dances and shimmers
-on the marble façades.</p>
-
-<p>Gentile made his will in 1502, as well as
-others in 1505 and 1506. He left word that he
-was to be buried in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and
-begged his brother Giovanni to finish the work
-in the Scuola, in return for which he is to receive
-their father’s sketch-book. The unfinished piece
-is the “St. Mark preaching at Alexandria,” and
-it shows Gentile still developing his capacity as a
-painter. It is pale in colour but brilliant in sunlight.
-The mass of white given by the head-dresses
-of the Turkish women is cleverly subdued
-so as not to detract from the effect of the sunlight.
-The thronged effect of the great square is studied
-with more than his usual care, and the faces have
-all the old individuality. The foremost figures in
-the crowd have a colour and richness which we
-may attribute to Giovanni’s hand.</p>
-
-<p>Gentile was always fully employed, and the
-detailed paintings of functions became very
-popular; but he was a far less modern painter
-than his brother, and, in fact, they represent
-two distinct artistic generations, though Gentile’s
-work was so much the most elaborate and, as
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>the quattrocento would have thought, the most
-ambitious.</p>
-
-<p>Gentile is essentially the historic painter, yet
-his is a grave, sincere art, and he has an unerring
-instinct for the right incidents to include. He
-cuts out all unseemly trivialities, his actors are
-stern, powerful men, the treatment is historic
-and contemporary, but not gossipy. We realise
-the look of the Venice of his day, in all its tide
-of human nature, but we also feel that he never
-forgot that he was chronicling the doings of a
-city of strong men, and that he must paint them,
-even in their hours of relaxation and emotion, so
-as to convey the real dignity and power which
-underlay all the events of the Republic.</p>
-
-<p>We gather from his will and that of his wife
-that they had no children, which perhaps makes
-the more natural the affectionate terms upon
-which he remained all through his life with
-his brother. Their artistic sympathies must
-have differed widely. Gentile’s love for historical
-research, for costume and for pageants, found
-no echo in the deeper idealism of Giovanni—indeed,
-his offer of the famous sketch-book, as an
-inducement to the latter to finish his last great
-work, seems to hint that it was an exercise out
-of his brother’s line; but he knew that Giovanni
-was a great painter, and did not trust it, as we
-might have expected, to his assistants, Giovanni
-Mansueti and Girolamo da Santacroce.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Gentile Bellini.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. Peter Martyr; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Preaching of St. Mark.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Doge Lorenzo Giustiniani; Miracle of True Cross; Procession of True Cross; Healing by True Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard. Portrait of Sultan.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonello da Messina.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Antwerp.</td> <td class="td5">Crucifixion, 1475.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Three Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">The Saviour, 1465; Portrait; Crucifixion, 1477.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Messina.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints, 1473.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Condottiere.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Humanist.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Ecce Homo.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at the Column.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>ALVISE VIVARINI</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Contemporary with Giovanni Bellini were
-artists still firmly attached to the past, who were
-far from suspecting that he was to outstrip them.</p>
-
-<p>One of Antonio de Murano’s sons, Luigi or
-Alvise Vivarini, grew up to follow his father’s
-profession, and was enrolled in the school of his
-uncle, Bartolommeo. The latter being an enthusiastic
-follower of Squarcione, Alvise was at
-first trained in Paduan principles. Jacopo Bellini’s
-efforts had done something to counteract the
-hard, statuesque Paduan manner, and had rendered
-Mantegna’s art more human and less stony,
-but Jacopo could not prevent Squarcionesque
-painters from importing into Venice the style
-which he disliked so much. Bartolommeo threw
-in his lot with the Paduans, and his school, especially
-when reinforced by Alvise, maintained
-its reputation as long as it only had to compete
-with local talent. The Vivarinis had now been
-firmly established in Venice for two generations,
-and were the best-known and most popular of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>her painters. Albert Dürer, on his first visit,
-admired them more than the Bellini. When,
-however, Gentile and his brother set up in
-Venice, a hot rivalry arose between them and
-the old Muranese School. The Bellini had come
-with their father from Padua, with all its new
-and scientific fashions. They had all the prestige
-of relationship with Mantegna, and they shared
-the patronage of his powerful employers. The
-striking historical compositions of Gentile were
-at once in demand by the great confraternities.
-Bartolommeo had never been very successful in
-his dealing with oil-painting, though he had
-dabbled in it for some years before Antonello da
-Messina came his way, but the perception with
-which the Bellini at once grasped the new
-technique gave them the victory. We have
-only to compare the formless contours of much
-of Bartolommeo Vivarini’s work, the bladder-like
-flesh-painting of the Holy Child, with the
-clear luminous colour and firm delicate touch of
-Gentile, to see that the one man is leagues ahead
-of the other.</p>
-
-<p>Alvise Vivarini had more natural affinity
-with his father than with his uncle. He
-never becomes so exaggerated in his forms as
-Bartolommeo. The expression of his faces is
-much deeper and more inward, and he has something
-of the devotional sweetness of early art.
-His first known work is an ancona of 1475 at
-Montefiorentino, in a lonely Franciscan monastery
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>on the spurs of the Apennines. In the centre of
-the five panels the Madonna sits with her hands
-pressed palm to palm, in adoration of the Child
-asleep across her knees. The painter here follows
-the tradition of his father and uncle, especially
-in the Bologna altarpiece, in which they
-collaborated in 1450. Four saints stand on
-either side, framed in Gothic panels; it is all in
-the old way, and it is only by degrees that we
-see there is more sweetness in the expression,
-better modelling in the figures, and a slenderer,
-more graceful outline than the earlier anconæ
-can show. Only five years after this ancona at
-Montefiorentino, with its stiff rows of isolated
-saints, we have the altarpiece in the Academy
-“of 1480,” which was painted for a church in
-Treviso, and here a great change is immediately
-apparent. The antiquated division into panels
-has disappeared, nothing is left of the artificial,
-Squarcionesque decorations, the attitudes are
-simple, and the scene is a united one. The
-Madonna’s outstretched hand, the suggestion of
-“Ecce Agnus Dei,” makes an appeal which
-draws the attention of all the saints to one point,
-and it is made plain that the one idea pervades
-the entire assembly. The curtain, which
-symbolises the sanctuary, still hangs behind the
-throne, but the gold background is abandoned.
-Alvise has not indeed, as yet, imagined any landscape
-or constructed an interior, but he lightens
-the effect by two arched windows which let in the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>sky. The forms are characteristic of his idea of
-drawing the human figure; they have the long
-thighs with the knees low down, which we
-are accustomed to find, and he constructs a
-very fine and sharply contrasted scheme of light
-and shade. There is no trace of the statuesque
-Paduan draperies. The Virgin’s brocaded
-mantle is simply draped, and the robes of the
-saints hang in long straight folds. No doubt
-Alvise, though nominally the rival of the Bellini,
-has more affinity with them, particularly with
-Giovanni, than with the Paduan artists, and as
-time goes on it is evident that he paints with
-many glances at what they were doing. In the
-altarpiece in Berlin he constructs an elaborate
-cupola above the Virgin, such as Bellini was
-already using. His saints are full of movement.
-In the end he begins to attitudinise and to display
-those artificial graces which were presently
-accentuated by Lotto.</p>
-
-<p><a name="altar" id="altar"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img085.jpg" width="550" height="490" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Alvise Vivarini.</em> ALTARPIECE OF 1480. <em>Venice.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>In 1488 the two Bellini had for some time
-been employed in the Sala del Gran Consiglio
-by the Council of Ten. Alvise, with his busy
-school, had hoped, but hitherto in vain, to be
-invited to enter into competition with them.
-At length he wrote the following letter:—</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">To the Most Serene the Prince and the Most
-Excellent Signoria</span>—I am Alvise of Murano, a
-faithful servant of your Serenity and of this most
-illustrious State. I have long been anxious to exercise
-my skill before your Sublimity and prove that continued
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>study and labour on my part have not been useless.
-Therefore offer, as a humble subject, in honour and
-praise of that celebrated city, to devote myself, without
-return of payment or reward, to the duty of producing
-a canvas in the
-<ins class="translit" title="Possibly should be Sala del Gran Consiglio">Sala del Gran Consiio</ins>,
-according to the
-method at present in use by the two brothers Bellinii,
-and I ask no more for the said canvas than that I should
-be allowed the expenses of the cloth and colours as well
-as the wages of the journeymen, in the manner that has
-been granted to the said Bellinii. When I have done I
-shall leave to your Serenity of his goodness to give me in
-his wisdom the price which shall be adjudged to be just,
-honest, and appropriate, in return for the labour, which
-I shall be enabled, I trust, to continue to the universal
-satisfaction of your Serenity and of all the excellent
-Government, to the grace of which I most heartily
-commend myself.</p></div>
-
-<p>The “method at present in use” was presumably
-the oil-painting established by Antonello,
-which was now being made use of to replace
-the decorations in fresco and tempera which
-Guariento, Pisanello, and Gentile da Fabriano
-had executed, and which were constantly decaying
-and suffering from the sea air and the dampness
-of the climate. The Council accepted
-Alvise’s offer with little delay, and he was told to
-paint a picture for a space hitherto occupied by
-one of Pisanello’s, and was given a salary of sixty
-ducats a year, something less than that drawn
-by Giovanni Bellini. Unfortunately his work,
-scenes from the history of Barbarossa, perished
-in the great fire of 1577.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>Venice is rich in works which show us what
-sort of painter was at the head of the Muranese
-School at the time when it rivalled that of the
-Bellini. Alvise has two reading saints on either
-side of the altarpiece of 1480, and of these the
-Baptist is one of his best figures, “admirably
-expressive of tension and of brooding thought.”
-It is large and free in stroke, and particularly
-advanced in the treatment of the foliage. Close
-by hangs a character-study of St. Clare; type
-of a strenuous, fanatical old woman, one which
-belongs not only to the period, but will be
-recognised by every student of human nature.
-Formidable and even cruel is her unflinching
-gaze; she is such a figure as might have stood
-for Scott’s Prioress, and looks as little likely to
-show mercy to an erring member of her order.
-In contrast, there is the exquisite little “Madonna
-and Child” with the two baby angels, still
-shown as a Bellini in the sacristy of the
-Church of the Redentore. It is the most
-absolutely simple and direct picture of the kind
-painted in Venice. The baby life is more perfect
-than anything that Gian. Bellini produced,
-and if much less intellectual than his Madonnas,
-there is all the tender charm of the primitives,
-combined with a freedom of drapery and a
-softness of form which could not be surpassed.
-The two little angels are more mundane in
-spirit than those of the school of Bellini; they
-have nothing of the mystical quality, though
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>we are reminded of Bellini, and the painting
-is an exercise in his manner. In the sacristy
-of San Giobbe is an early Annunciation, which
-is now definitely assigned to Alvise. It has the
-old tender sentiment, and the carnations of its
-draperies are of a lovely tint. The priests of
-S. Giovanni in Bragora were great patrons of
-the school of the Vivarini, for here, besides
-several works by Bartolommeo and his assistants,
-is a little Madonna in a side chapel, which may
-be compared with the Redentore picture. The
-Mother sits inside a room, with the Child lying
-across her knees in the same pose. The two
-arched openings in the background of the 1480
-altarpiece have become windows, through which
-we look out on a charming landscape of lake and
-mountain. In the same church a “Resurrection”
-is not to be overlooked. It was executed in
-1498, and some of the grace and beauty of the
-sixteenth century has crept into it. Against the
-pink flush of dawn stands the swaying figure of
-the risen Christ, and below appear the heads of
-the two guards, looking up, surprised and joyful.
-It is perhaps the very earliest example of that
-soft and sensuous feeling, that rhapsody of
-sensation which was presently to sweep like a
-flood over the art of Venice. “What a time
-must the dawn of the sixteenth century have been
-when a man of seventy, and not the most vigorous
-and advanced of his age, had the freshness and
-youthful courage to greet it; nay, actually to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>depict its magic and glamour as Alvise does in
-the ‘Resurrection’! Giorgione is here anticipated
-in the roundness and softness of the figures,
-and in the effect of light. Titian’s Assunta is
-foreshadowed in the fervour of the guards’
-expressions.” Alvise, if he never thoroughly
-mastered the structure of the nude, and if his
-forms keep throughout some touch of the
-archaic, some awkwardness in the thickness
-of the figures, with their round heads, long
-thighs, and uncertain proportions, is yet extraordinarily
-refined and tender in sentiment, his
-line has a natural flow and beauty, and the
-heads of his Madonnas and saints cannot be
-surpassed in loveliness.</p>
-
-<p>His death came when the noble altarpiece to
-St. Ambrogio in the Frari was still unfinished,
-and it was completed by his assistant, Marco
-Basaiti. The execution is heavy and probably
-of Basaiti, but the venerable doctor is a grand
-figure, and the two young soldier saints on his
-right and left hand are striking examples of
-the beauty we claim for him. The architectural
-plan is very elaborate, but altogether successful.
-The group is set beneath an arched vault
-supported by columns and cornices. Overhead,
-behind a balustrade, is placed a coronation of
-the Virgin. The many figures are grouped so
-as not to interfere with each other, and the
-sword of St. George, the crozier of St. Gregory,
-and the crook of St. Ambrose break up the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>composition and give length and line. The
-faces of the saints are extremely beautiful,
-and the two angels making music below
-compare well with those of the Bellinesque
-School.</p>
-
-<p>The portraits Alvise has left add to his
-reputation, and remind us of those of Antonello
-da Messina, particularly in the vital expression
-of the eyes, though they are without Antonello’s
-intense force. The “Bernardo di Salla” and the
-“Man feeding a Hawk,” though some critics
-still ascribe them to Savoldo, have features which
-make their attribution to Alvise almost certainly
-correct. Indeed, the resemblance of
-Bernardo to the Madonna in the 1480 altarpiece
-cannot escape the most unscientific observer.
-There is the same inflated nostril, the peculiarly
-curved mouth, and vivacious eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Among the followers of Alvise, Marco
-Basaiti, Bartolommeo Montagna, and Lorenzo
-Lotto are the most distinguished. Others less
-direct are Giovanni Buonconsiglio and Francesco
-Bonsignori, while Cima da Conegliano was for
-a short time his greatest pupil. We shall return
-to these later.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna enthroned, with six Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Youth.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Bonomi-Cereda Collection: Portrait of a Man.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Francis and Bernardino.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Bernardo di Salla.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Seven panels of single Saints; Madonna and six Saints, 1480.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: S. Ambrose enthroned.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Madonna adoring Child; Resurrection and Predelle.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Redentore: Sacristy: Madonna and Child, with Angels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Windsor.</td> <td class="td5">Man feeding a Hawk.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>CARPACCIO</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Vittore Carpaccio was Gentile Bellini’s most
-faithful pupil. He and his master stand apart
-in having, before the arrival of the Venetian
-School proper, captured an aspect and a charm
-inspired by the natural beauty of the City of
-the Sea. Gentile, as we have seen, paints her
-historic appearance, and Carpaccio gives us
-something of the delight we feel to-day in her
-translucent waters and her ample, sea-washed
-spaces flooded with limpid light. While
-others were absorbed in assimilating extraneous
-influences, he goes on his own way, painting,
-indeed, the scenes that were asked for, but
-painting them in his own manner and with his
-own enjoyment.</p>
-
-<p>Pageant-pictures had been the demand of the
-Venetian State from very early days. The
-first use of painting had been that made by the
-Church to glorify religion, and very soon the
-State had followed, using it to enhance the love
-which Venetians bore to their city, and to bring
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>home to them the consciousness of its greatness
-and glory. Pageants and processions were an
-integral part of Venetian life. The people
-looked on at them, often as they occurred, with
-more pride and sense of proprietorship than a
-Londoner does at a coronation procession or at
-the King going in state to open Parliament. The
-Venetian loved splendour and beauty and the
-story of the city’s great achievements, and
-nothing provided so welcome a subject for the
-decoration of the great public halls as portrayals
-of the events which had made Venice famous.
-Artists had been employed to produce these as
-early as the end of the fourteenth century, and
-those of the Bellini and Alvise Vivarini (which
-perished in the great fire) were a rendering on
-modern lines of the same subjects, satisfying the
-more advanced feeling for truth and beauty.</p>
-
-<p>Besides the Church and the public Government,
-we have already seen the “Schools,” as
-they were called, becoming important employers.
-These schools were the great organised confraternities
-in the cause of charity and mutual
-help, which sprang up in Venice in the fifteenth
-century. That of St. Mark was naturally the
-foremost, but others were banded each under
-their patron saint. Each attracted numbers of
-rich patrons, for it was the fashion to belong
-to the confraternities. Riches and endowments
-rolled in, and halls for meeting and for transacting
-business were built, and were adorned
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>with pictures setting forth the legends of their
-patron saints. We have already seen Gentile
-Bellini employed in the schools of San Marco
-and San Giovanni, and now the schools of St.
-Ursula and St. George gave commissions to
-Carpaccio, or perhaps it would be more correct
-to say that Gentile, having become pre-eminent
-in this art, provided employment for his pupil
-and assistant, and that by degrees Carpaccio
-became a <em>maestro</em> on his own account.</p>
-
-<p>A host of second-rate painters were plying
-side by side, disciples first of one master, then
-drawn off to become followers of a second;
-assimilating the influence first of one workshop
-and then of another. Carpaccio has been lately
-identified as a pupil of Lazzaro Bastiani, who
-had a school in Venice, and the recent attribution
-to this painter of the “Doge before the
-Madonna,” in the National Gallery, gives some
-countenance to the contention that he was held
-to be of great excellence in his time.</p>
-
-<p>Though some historians advance the suggestion
-that Carpaccio was a native of Capo
-d’Istria, there is little proof that he was not,
-like his father Pietro, born a Venetian. He
-seems to have worked in Venice all his life,
-his first work being dated 1490 and his last
-1520. In 1527 his wife, Laura, declared herself
-a widow.</p>
-
-<p>The narrative art needed by the confraternities
-was supplied in perfection by Carpaccio,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>and one of his earliest independent commissions
-was the important one of decorating the School
-of St. Ursula. Devotion to St. Ursula was a
-monopoly of the school. No one else had
-a right to collect offerings in her name or to
-put up an image to her. The legend afforded
-an opportunity for painting varied and dramatic
-scenes, of which Carpaccio takes full advantage,
-and the cycle is one of the freshest and most
-characteristic things that has come down to us
-from the quattrocento. Problems are not conspicuous.
-The mediocre masters who have
-educated the painter have made little impression
-on him. He is entirely occupied in delight in
-his subject and in telling his story. The story
-of St. Ursula, told briefly, is that she was the
-daughter of the King of Brittany. The King
-of England sends his ambassadors to beg her
-hand for his son, Hereo. Ursula discusses the
-proposal with her father, and makes the conditions
-that Hereo, who is a heathen, shall be
-baptized, and that the betrothed couple must
-before marriage visit the Pope and the sacred
-shrines. After taking leave of their parents, the
-Prince and Princess depart on their expedition,
-but Ursula has had a vision in her sleep in
-which an angel has announced her martyrdom.
-She is accompanied on her journey by 11,000
-virgins, and they are received by Pope Cyriacus
-in Rome. The Pope then makes the return
-journey with them as far as Cologne, where,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
-however, they are assaulted and massacred by
-the Huns, after which Ursula is accorded a
-splendid funeral, and is canonised. The thirteen
-scenes in which the story is told are arranged
-on nine canvases, and the painter has not executed
-them in the chronological order, some
-of the latest events being the least complete in
-artistic skill. Professor Leonello Venturi assigns
-the following dates to the list:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>1. The ambassadors of the King of England meet
-those of the King of Brittany to ask for the hand of
-Ursula. Probably painted from 1496-98.</p>
-
-<p>2. (On same canvas) Ursula discusses the proposal
-with her father. 1496-98.</p>
-
-<p>3. The King of Brittany dismisses the ambassadors.
-1496-98.</p>
-
-<p>4. The ambassadors return to the King of England.
-1496-98.</p>
-
-<p>5. An angel appears to Ursula in her sleep. 1492.</p>
-
-<p>6, 7, 8. The betrothed couple take leave of their
-respective parents, and the Prince meets Ursula. 1495.</p>
-
-<p>9. The betrothed couple and the 11,000 virgins
-meet the Pope. 1492.</p>
-
-<p>10. They arrive at Cologne. 1490.</p>
-
-<p>11, 12. The massacre by the Huns. The Funeral.
-1495.</p>
-
-<p>13. The saint appears in glory, with the palm of
-martyrdom, venerated by the 11,000 virgins and received
-in heaven by the Eternal Father. 1491.</p></div>
-
-<p>No. 10 is a small canvas, such as might
-naturally have been chosen for a first experiment.
-The heads are large with coarse features, and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>the proportions of the figures are poor. The
-face of the saint in glory (No. 13), plump and
-without much expression, is of the type of
-Bastiani’s saints. It may be assumed that such
-a great scheme of decoration would not have
-been entrusted to any one who was not already
-well known as an independent master, but
-perhaps Carpaccio, who would have been about
-thirty when the work was begun, was still principally
-engrossed with the conventional, ecclesiastical
-subject. The heads of the virgins pressing
-round the saint appear to be portraits, and were
-very possibly those of the wives and daughters
-of members of the confraternity.</p>
-
-<p>The improvement that takes place is so rapid
-that we can guess how congenial the painter
-found the task and how quickly he adapted his
-already trained talent. In No. 5 he takes
-delight in the opportunity for painting a little
-domestic scene,—the bedroom of a young
-Venetian girl, perhaps a sister of his own.
-The comfortable bed, the dainty furniture,
-are carefully drawn. The clear morning light
-streams into the room. The saint lies peacefully
-asleep, her hand under her head, her long
-eyelashes resting upon her cheek: the whole is
-an idyll, full of insight into girlish life. The
-tiny slippers made, no doubt, one of the details
-that caught his eye. The crown lying on the
-ledge of the bed is an arbitrary introduction,
-as naïf as the angel. In the funeral scene the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>luminous light is diffused over all, the young
-saint lies upon her bier and is followed by priest
-and deacon, the crowd is composed with truth
-to nature, the draperies and garments are brought
-into harmony with the sky and background, and
-in all those that follow we find this quality of
-light. The landscape behind the massacre has
-gained in natural character, the city is at some
-distance, houses and churches are half buried in
-woods; the setting is much more natural than are
-the quaint and elegant pages who occupy it, and
-who are drawing their crossbows and attacking
-the martyrs with leisurely nonchalance. The
-panel in which the betrothed couple meet shows
-a great advance, and this and the succeeding ones
-of the ambassadors, which were painted between
-1495 and 1498, must have crowned Carpaccio’s
-reputation. He paints Venice in its most fascinating
-aspect; the enamelled beauty of its marbles,
-its sky and sea, its palaces and ships, the rich
-and picturesque dresses men wore in the streets,
-the barge glowing with rich velvets. He evinces
-a fairy-tale spirit which we may compare with
-the work of Pintoricchio. His Prince, kneeling
-in a white and gold dress, with long fair
-curls, is a real fairy prince; Ursula, in her red
-dress and puffed sleeves, her rippling, flaxen hair
-and strings of pearls, is a princess of story.
-Carpaccio’s art is simple and garrulous in feeling,
-his conception is as unpassionate as the fancies
-of a child, but he has a true love for these gay
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>crowds; Venice going upon her gallant way—her
-solid, worthy citizens, men of substance,
-shrewd and valuable, taking their pleasure
-seriously with a sense of responsibility. They
-throng the streets and cross over the bridges,
-every figure is full of freedom and vitality.
-The arrival and dismissal of the ambassadors
-are the best of all the scenes. In the middle
-of the great stage King Maurus of Brittany sits
-upon a Venetian terrace. In the colonnade to
-the left is gathered a group of Venetian personages,
-members of the Loredano family, which
-was a special patron of St. Ursula’s Guild, and
-gave this panel. The types are all vividly
-realised and differentiated: the courtier looking
-critically at the arrivals; the frankly curious
-bourgeoisie; the man of fashion passing with
-his nose in the air, disdaining to stare too
-closely; the fop with his dogs and their dwarf
-keeper. Far beyond stretch the lagoons; the
-sea and air of Venice clear and fresh. What
-is noticeable even now in an Italian crowd, the
-absence of women, was then most true to life, for
-except on special occasions they were not seen
-in the streets, but were kept in almost Oriental
-seclusion. The dismissal of the ambassadors
-affords the opportunity for drawing an interior
-with the street visible through a doorway. A
-group at the side, of a man dictating a letter
-and the scribe taking down his words, writing
-laboriously, with his shoulders hunched and his
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>head on one side, is excellent in its quiet reality.
-The same life-like vivacity is displayed in Ursula’s
-consultation with her father. The old nurse
-crouched upon the steps is introduced to break
-the line and to throw back the main group.
-Carpaccio has already used such a figure in the
-funeral scene, and Titian himself adopts his
-suggestion.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img102.jpg" width="550" height="263" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Carpaccio.</em> ARRIVAL OF THE AMBASSADORS. <em>Venice.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>Carpaccio is not a very great painter, but a
-charming one. His treatment of light and
-water, of distant hills and trees, shows a sense
-of peace and poetry, and though he is influenced
-by Gentile’s splendid realistic heads, the
-type which appeals to him is gentler and more
-idealised. His fancy is caught by Oriental
-details, to which Gentile would naturally have
-directed his attention, and of which there was
-no lack in Venice at this time. All his episodes
-are very clearly illustrated, and his popular brush
-was kept busily employed. He took a share with
-other assistants in the series which Gentile was
-painting in S. Giovanni Evangelista. In 1502
-the Dalmatians inhabiting Venice resolved to
-decorate their school, which had been founded
-fifty years earlier, for the relief of destitute
-Dalmatian seamen in Venice. The subjects
-were to be selected from the lives of the Saviour
-and the patron saints of Dalmatia and Albania,
-St. Jerome, St. George of the Sclavonians, and St.
-Tryphonius. The nine panels and an altarpiece
-which Carpaccio delivered between 1502 and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>1508 still adorn the small but dignified Hall of
-the school. His “Jerome in his Study” has
-nothing ascetic, but shows a prosperous Venetian
-ecclesiastic seated in his well-furnished library
-among his books and writings. He is less
-successful in his scenes from the life of Christ;
-the Gethsemane is an obvious imitation of
-Mantegna; but when he leaves his own style he
-is weak and poor, and imaginary scenes are quite
-beyond him. In the death and interment of St.
-Jerome he gives a delightful impression of the
-peace of the old convent garden, and in the scene
-where the lion introduced by the saint scatters
-the terrified monks he lets a sense of humour
-have free play. The monks in their long
-garments, escaping in all directions, are really
-comical, and in conjunction with the ingratiating
-smile of the lion, the scene passes into the region
-of broad farce. We divine the same sense of the
-comic in the scene in St. Ursula’s history, where
-the 11,000 virgins are hurrying in single file
-along a winding road which disappears out of
-the picture. In the principal scene in the life
-of St. George, Carpaccio again achieves a masterpiece.
-The force and vivacity of the saint in
-armour charging the dragon, lingers long in the
-memory. The long, decorative lines of lance
-and war-horse and dragon throw back the whole
-landscape. The details show an almost childish
-delight in the realisation of ghoulish horrors.
-He rather injures his “Triumph of St. George”
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>by his anxiety to bring in the Temple of Solomon
-at Jerusalem; the flying flags distract the eye,
-and the whole scene is one of confusion, broken
-up into different parts, while the dragon is
-reduced to very unterrifying insignificance. His
-series for the school of the Albanians dealt with
-the life of the Virgin, who was their special
-patron. Its remains are at Bergamo, Milan, and
-in the Academy. The single figures in the
-“Presentation,” the priest and maiden, are
-excellent. A child at the side of the steps,
-leading a unicorn, emblem of chastity, shows
-once more what a hold this use of a figure had
-taken of him. In the “Visitation” the figures
-are too much scattered, and the fantastic buildings
-attract more attention than the women. He
-still produced altarpieces, and the Presentation
-of the Infant Christ in the Temple, which he
-was called upon to paint for San Giobbe, where
-one of Bellini’s most famous altarpieces stood,
-challenged him to put forth all his strength. He
-never produced anything more simple and noble
-or more worthy of the cinque-cento than this
-altarpiece (now in the Academy). It surpasses
-Bellini’s arrangement in the way in which the
-personages are raised upon a step, while the dome
-overhead and the angel musicians below give
-them height and dignity. The contrast between
-the infant and the youthful woman and the
-old men is purposely marked. Such a contrast
-between youth and age is a very favourite one.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Bellini, in the same church, draws it between
-SS. Sebastian and Job, and Alvise Vivarini, in his
-last painting, balances a very youthful Sebastian
-with St. Jerome. This is the most grandiose,
-the least of a <em>genre</em> picture of all Carpaccio’s
-creations, although he does make Simeon into a
-pontiff with attendant cardinals bearing his train.
-One of his last works is the S. Vitale over the
-high altar of the church of that name, where
-we forgive the wooden appearance of the horse
-which the saint rides for the sake of the simple
-dignity of the rider and the airy effect given by
-the balcony overhead. Nor must we forget that
-study of the “Two Courtesans” in the Museo
-Civico, full of the sarcasm of a deep realism.
-It conveys to us the matter-of-fact monotony of
-the long, hot days, and the women and the animals
-with which they are beguiling their idle hours
-are painted with the greatest intelligence. It
-carries us back to another phase of life in
-Carpaccio’s Venice, seen through his observant,
-humorous eyes, and if there is nothing in his
-colour distinctive of the impending Venetian
-richness, it is still arresting in its brilliant
-limpidity; it seems drawn straight from the
-transparent canals and radiant lagoons.</p>
-
-<p>We apprehend the difference at once in
-Bastiani and in Mansueti, who essay the same
-sort of compositions. They studied grouping
-carefully, and it must have seemed easy enough
-to paint their careful architecture and to place
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>citizens in costume with appropriate action in a
-“Miracle of the Cross,” or the “Preaching of St.
-Mark”; but these pictures are dry and crowded,
-they give no illusion of truth, there is none of
-the careless realism of Carpaccio’s crowds,—of
-incidents taking place which are not essential to
-the story, and, as in life, are only half seen, but
-which have their share in producing a full and
-varied illusion. The scenes want the air and
-depth in which Carpaccio’s pictures are enveloped.
-We are not stimulated and charmed, taken into
-the outer air and refreshed by these heavy personages,
-standing in rows, painted in hot, dry
-colour, and carrying no conviction in their
-glance and action.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Consecration of Stephen.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Ferrara.</td> <td class="td5">Death of Virgin.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Presentation of Virgin; Marriage of Virgin; St. Stephen disputing.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">St. Stephen preaching.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Stuttgart.</td> <td class="td5">Martyrdom of St. Stephen.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: The History of St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins; Presentation in the Temple.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Visitation; Two Courtesans.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio degli Schiavone: History of SS. George and
- Tryphonius; Agony in the Garden; Christ in the House of
- the Pharisee; History of St. Jerome.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Vitale: Altarpiece to S. Vitale.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard. Death of the Virgin; St. Ursula taking leave of her Father.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Christ adored by Angels.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>GIOVANNI BELLINI</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>The difference between Gian. Bellini and his
-accomplished brother, that which makes us so
-conscious that the first was the greater of the
-two and which sets him in a later artistic generation
-than Gentile, is a difference of mind. Such
-pageant-pictures as we hear that Giovanni was
-engaged upon have all been destroyed. We may
-suspect that their composition was not particularly
-congenial to him, and that the strictly
-religious pictures and the small allegorical
-studies, by which we must judge him, were
-more after his heart. It is his poetic and ideal
-feeling which adds so strongly to his claim to be
-a great artist; it was this which drew all men
-to him and enabled him so powerfully to influence
-the art of his day in Venice.</p>
-
-<p>Jacopo’s wife, Anna, in a will of 1429, leaves
-everything to her two sons, Gentile and Niccolo.
-Giovanni was evidently not her son, but Vasari
-speaks of him as the elder of the two, so that it
-is very possible that he was an illegitimate child,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>brought up, after the fashion that so often
-obtained, in the full privileges of his father’s
-house. Documents show that Jacopo Bellini
-was living in Venice in 1437, first near the
-Piazza, and afterwards in the parish of San Lio.
-He was a member of S. Giovanni Evangelista,
-and probably one of the leading artists of the
-city. His two sons helped him in his great
-decorative works, and also went with him to
-Padua, where he painted the Gattamalata Chapel.
-Their relative position is suggested by a document
-of 1457, which records that the father
-received twenty-one ducats for “three figures,
-done on cloth, put in the Great Hall of the
-Patriarch,” only two of which were to go to
-the son. In 1459 Gian. Bellini’s signature first
-appears on a document, and at about this time
-we may suppose that he and his brother began to
-execute small commissions on their own account.
-On these visits to Padua the intimacy must
-have sprung up, which led to Mantegna’s
-marriage in 1453 with Jacopo’s daughter. At
-Padua, too, Bellini, in company with Mantegna,
-drank in the inspiration left there by Donatello,
-the greatest master that either of
-them encountered. It was the humanistic and
-naturalistic side of Donatello which touched
-Giovanni Bellini, more than all his classic lore.
-It chimed in, too, with his father’s graceful and
-fanciful quality, and there is no doubt that the
-Venetian painters soon exercised a marked influence
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>on Mantegna. They “fought for him with
-Squarcione,” and even in the Eremitani frescoes
-he begins to lose his purely statuesque type and
-to become frankly Renaissance. In the later
-scenes of the series a pergola with grapes, a
-Venetian campanile and doorway replace his
-classic towers and arches of triumph. In the
-“Martyrdom of St. James” the couple walking by
-and paying no attention whatever to the tragic
-event, are very like the people whom Gentile
-introduces in his backgrounds.</p>
-
-<p>There are few documents more interesting
-in the history of art than the two pictures of
-the “Agony in the Garden,” executed by the
-brothers-in-law, about 1455, from a design by
-Jacopo in the British Museum sketch-book.
-Jacopo draws the mound-like hill, Christ kneeling
-before the vision of the Chalice, the figures
-wrapt in slumber, and the distant town. In few
-pictures up to this time is the landscape conceived
-in such sympathy with the figures. As
-we look at this sketch and examine the two
-finished compositions, which it is so fortunate
-to find in juxtaposition in the National Gallery,
-we surmise that the two artists agreed to
-carry out the same idea and each to give his
-version of Jacopo’s suggestion, and very curious
-it is to see the rendering each has produced.</p>
-
-<p>Mantegna has made use of the most formal
-and Squarcionesque contours in his surroundings.
-The rocks are of an unnatural, geological structure.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>The towers of Jerusalem are defined in elaborate
-perspective, and a band of classic figures fills the
-middle distance. The sleeping forms of the
-disciples are laid about like so many draped
-statues taken from their pedestals. The choir
-of child angels is solid and leaves nothing to the
-imagination, and if it were not for the beautifully
-conceived Christ, the whole composition would
-leave us quite unmoved. On the other hand,
-we can never look at Bellini’s version without
-a fresh thrill. He, like Mantegna, has followed
-Jacopo’s scheme of winding roads and the city
-“set on a hill,” and has drawn the advancing
-band of soldiers; but, independent of all details,
-he gives us the vision of a poet. The still dawn
-is breaking over the broadly painted landscape,
-the rosy shafts of light are colouring the sky
-and casting their magic over every common
-object, and, lonely and absorbed, the Sacred
-Figure kneels, wrapt into the Heavenly Vision,
-which is hardly more definite than a stronger
-beam of light upon the radiance. One of the
-disciples, at least, is a successful and natural
-study of a tired-out man, whose head has fallen
-back and whose every limb has relaxed in sleep.
-Bellini is less assured, less accomplished than
-Mantegna, but he is able to touch us with the
-pathos of both natural and spiritual feeling.</p>
-
-<p>Even earlier than this picture, critics place
-the “Crucifixion” and “Transfiguration” of the
-Museo Correr and our own “Salvator Mundi.”
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>In 1443, when Giovanni was a young man of
-four or five and twenty, San Bernardino had
-held a great revival at Padua, and the whole of
-Venice had thronged to hear him. It is very
-possible, as Mr. Roger Fry suggests in his <em>Life
-of Bellini</em>, that Giovanni’s emotional temperament
-had been worked upon by the preacher’s
-eloquence, and the very poignant feelings of
-love and pity which his early art expresses were
-the deliberate consequence of his sympathy with
-the deep religious mysteries expounded.</p>
-
-<p>In the two pictures in the Correr, Bellini is
-still going with the Paduan current. In both we
-have the winding roads so characteristic of his
-father, but the rocks in the “Transfiguration”
-have the jointed, arbitrary character of Mantegna’s
-and the draperies are plastered to the forms
-beneath; yet the figures here have a beauty and
-a dignity which no reproduction seems able to
-convey. The feeling is already more imposing
-than the execution. Christ and the two prophets
-tower up against the belt of clouds, the central
-figure conveying a sense of pathetic isolation;
-while below, St. John’s attitude betrays a state of
-tension, the feet being drawn up and contorted.
-This picture prepares us for the overwhelming
-emotion we find in the “Redeemer” and the
-group of Pietàs. The treatment of the Christ
-was a development of the early <em>motif</em> of angels
-flying forward on either side of the Cross, but
-here the sacred blood pouring into the chalice
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>is also sacramental and connected with the intensified
-religious fervour which had led to the
-foundation of the Franciscan and Dominican
-orders, illustrations of which are met with in
-the miniatures and wood-engravings of fifteenth-century
-books of devotion. The accessories, the
-antique reliefs, the low wall, the distant buildings,
-have an allegorical meaning underlying each one,
-and common to trecento and, in a less degree, to
-quattrocento art. Paradise regained is signified
-by the paved court with the open door, in contradistinction
-to the Hortus Clausus, or enclosed
-court; the type of the old covenant. In one of
-the bas-reliefs Mucius Scaevola thrusts his hand
-into the fire, the ancient type of heroic readiness
-to suffer. The other represents a pagan sacrifice,
-foreshadowing the sacrifice upon the Cross.
-Figures in the background are leaving a ruined
-temple and making their way towards the new
-Christian city, fortified and crowned with a
-church tower, and in the midst of all this
-symbolism, Christ and the attendant angel are
-placed, vibrating with nervous feeling.</p>
-
-<p>During the next few years, Bellini devoted
-himself to two subjects of the highest devotional
-order. These are the Madonna and Child, the
-great exercise in every age for painters, and the
-Pietà, which he has made peculiarly his own.</p>
-
-<p><a name="pieta" id="pieta"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img116.jpg" width="550" height="428" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Giovanni Bellini.</em> PIETÀ. <em>Brera, Milan.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Brogi.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>Close by, at Padua, Giotto had left a rendering
-of the last subject, so full of passionate sorrow
-that it is hardly possible that it should not, if only
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>half consciously, have stimulated the artistic
-sensibilities of the most sensitive of painters; but
-Bellini’s pathos shrinks from all exaggeration.
-He conceives grief with the tenderest insight.
-His interest in the subject was so intense that he
-never left the execution to others, and though
-not a single one bears his signature, yet each is
-entirely by his own hand. Besides the Pietà at
-Milan, which is perhaps the best known, there is
-one in the Correr Museum, another in the Doge’s
-Palace, and yet others at Rimini and at Berlin.
-The version he adopts, which places the Body of
-Christ within the sarcophagus, was a favourite in
-North Italy. Donatello uses it in a bas-relief
-(now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), but
-whether he brought or found the suggestion in
-Padua nothing exists to show. Jacopo has left
-sketches in which the whole group is within the
-tomb, and this rendering is followed by Carpaccio,
-Crivelli, Marco Zoppo, and others. It is never
-found in trecento art, and is probably traceable
-to the Paduan impulse to make use of classic
-remains.</p>
-
-<p>Giovanni Bellini’s Pietàs fall into two groups.
-In one, the Christ is placed between the Virgin
-and St. John, who are embodiments of the agony
-of bereavement. In the other, the dead Redeemer
-is supported by angels, who express the
-amazement and grief of immortal beings who see
-their Lord suffering an indignity from which they
-are immune.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>Mary and St. John <em>inside</em> the sarcophagus
-shows that they are conceived mystically; Mary
-as the Church, and St. John as the personification
-of Christian Philosophy—a significance frequently
-attached to these figures. Such a picture was designed
-to hang over the altar, at which the mystical
-sacrifice of the Mass was perpetually offered.</p>
-
-<p>In his treatment of the Brera example Bellini
-has shaken off the Paduan tradition, and is forming
-his own style and giving free play to his own
-feeling. The winding roads and evening sky,
-barred with clouds, are the accessories he used in
-the “Agony in the Garden,” but the figures are
-treated much more boldly; the drapery falls in
-broad masses, and scarcely a trace is left of
-sculpturesque treatment. Careful as is the study
-of the nude, everything is subordinated to the
-emotion expressed by the three figures: the
-helpless, indifferent calm of the dead, the tender
-solicitude of the Mother, the wandering, dazed
-look of the despairing friend. Here there is
-nothing of beautiful or pathetic symbol; the
-group is intense with the common sorrow of all
-the world. Mary presses the corpse to her as if
-to impart her own life, and gazes with anguished
-yearning on the beloved face. Bellini seems to
-have passed to a more complex age in his analysis
-of suffering, yet here is none of the extravagance
-which the primitive masters share with the
-Caracci: his restraint is as admirable as his
-intensity.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p><p>In the Rimini version the tender concern
-and questioning surprise of the attendant angels
-contrast with the inert weight of the beautiful
-dead body they support. Their childish limbs
-and butterfly wings make a sinuous pattern
-against the lacquered black of the ground-work,
-and Mr. Roger Fry makes the interesting suggestion
-that the effect, reminiscent of Greek vase-painting,
-and the likeness of the Head of Christ
-to an old bronze, may, in a composition painted
-for Sigismondo Malatesta, be no mere accident,
-but a concession to the patron’s enthusiasm for
-classic art.</p>
-
-<p>In 1470 Bellini received his first commission
-in the Scuola di San Marco. Gentile had been
-employed there since 1466 on the history of the
-Israelites in the desert. Bellini agreed to paint
-“The Deluge and the Ark of Noah” with all its
-attendant circumstances, but of these, except
-from Vasari’s descriptions, we can form no idea.
-These great pageant-pictures had become identified
-with the Bellini and their following, while
-the production of altarpieces was peculiarly the
-province of the Vivarini. Here Bellini effected
-a change, for sacred subjects best suited the restrained
-and simple perfection of his style, and
-afforded the most sympathetic opening for his
-idealistic spirit. For the next twenty years or
-more, however, he was unavoidably absorbed in
-public work, for we hear of his being given the
-direction of that which Gentile left unfinished
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>in the Ducal Palace when he went to the East in
-1479. In 1492, Giovanni being ill, Gentile superintended
-the work for him, and in that year he
-was appointed to paint in the Hall of the Grand
-Council, at an annual salary of sixty ducats.
-Other commissions were turned out of the <em>bottega</em>
-he had set up with his brother in 1471, and
-between that year and 1480 he went to Pesaro
-to paint the important altarpiece that still holds
-its place there. It is in some ways the greatest
-and most powerful thing that Bellini ever accomplished.
-The central figures and the attendant
-saints have a large gravity and carefully studied
-individuality. St. Jerome, absorbed in his theological
-books, an ascetic recluse, is admirably
-contrasted with the sympathetic, cultured St.
-Paul. The landscape, set in a marble frame,
-is a gem of beauty, and proves what an appeal
-nature was making to the painter. The predella,
-illustrating the principal scenes in the lives of
-the saints around the altar, is full of Oriental
-costumes. The horses are small Eastern horses,
-very unlike the ponderous Italian war-horse,
-and the whole is evidently inspired by the
-sketches which Gentile brought back on his
-return from Constantinople in 1481.</p>
-
-<p>Looking from one to another of the cycle of
-Madonna pictures which Bellini produced, and
-of which so many hang side by side in the
-Academy, we are able to note how his conception
-varied. In one of the earliest the Child
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>lies across its Mother’s knee, in the attitude
-borrowed from his father and the Vivarini, from
-whom, too, he takes the uplifted hands, placed
-palm to palm. The earlier pictures are of the
-gentle and adoring type, but his later Madonnas
-are stately Venetian ladies. He gives us a
-queenly woman, with full throat and stately
-poise, in the Madonna degli Alberi, in which
-the two little trees are symbols of the Old and
-New Testament; or, again, he paints a lovely
-intellectual face with chiselled and refined
-features, and sad dark eyes, and contrasts it
-dramatically with the bluff St. George in
-armour; and there is another Madonna between
-St. Francis and St. Catherine, a picture which
-has a curious effect of artificial light.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>GIOVANNI BELLINI</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p>
-
-
-<p>In 1497 the Maggior Consiglio of the Venetian
-Republic appointed Bellini superintendent of the
-Great Hall, and conferred on him the honourable
-title of State Painter. In this capacity he was
-the overseer of all public works of painting, and
-was expected to devote a part of his time to the
-decoration of the Hall. Sansovino enumerates
-nine of his historical paintings, which had been
-painted before the State appointment, all having
-reference to the visit of Pope Alexander; but
-though he must have been much engrossed, he
-seems to have suspended the work from time to
-time, for between 1485 and 1488 he painted the
-large altarpiece in the Frari, that at San Pietro
-in Murano, and the one in the Academy, which
-was painted for San Giobbe. Of these three, the
-last shows the greatest advance and is fullest of
-experiment. The Madonna is a grand ecclesiastical
-figure. It has been said with truth
-that it is a picture which must have afforded
-great support and dignity to the Church. The
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>Infant has an expression of omniscience, and the
-Mother gazes out of the picture, extending
-invitation and encouragement to the advancing
-worshippers. The religious feeling is less profound;
-the artist has been more absorbed
-in the contrast between the beautiful, youthful
-body of St. Sebastian and that of St. Giobbe,
-older but not emaciated, and with the exquisite
-surface that his now complete mastery of oil-painting
-enabled him to produce. This technique
-has evidently been a great delight, and
-is here carried to perfection; the skin of St.
-Sebastian gleams with a gloss like the coat of
-a horse in high condition. Everything that
-architecture, sculpture, and rich material can
-supply is borrowed to enhance the grandeur of
-the group; but the line of sight is still close to
-the bottom of the picture, and if it were not for
-the exquisite grace with which the angels are
-placed, the Madonna would have a broad,
-clumsy effect. The Madonna of the Frari is
-the most splendid in colour of all his works.
-As he paints the rich light of a golden interior
-and the fused and splendid colours, he seems to
-pass out of his own time and gives a foretaste
-of the glory that is to follow. The Murano
-altarpiece is quite a different conception; instead
-of the seclusion of the sanctuary, it is a smiling,
-<em>plein air</em> scene: the Mother benign, the Child
-soft and playful, the old Doge Barbarigo and the
-patron saints kneeling among bright birds, and a
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>garden and mediæval townlet filling up the
-background, for which, by the way, he uses the
-same sketch as in the Pesaro picture. It says
-much for his versatility that he could within a
-short time produce three such different versions.</p>
-
-<p>Among Bellini’s most fascinating achievements
-in the last years of the fifteenth century are
-his allegorical paintings, known to us by the
-“Pélerinage de l’Âme” in the Uffizi and the
-little series in the Academy. The meaning of
-the first has been unravelled by Dr. Ludwig
-from a mediæval poem by Guillaume de
-Guilleville, a Cistercian monk who wrote about
-1335, and it is interesting to see the hold it has
-taken on Bellini’s mystic spirit. The paved
-space, set within the marble rail, signifies, as in
-the “Salvator Mundi,” the Paradise where souls
-await the Resurrection. The new-born souls
-cluster round the Tree of Life and shake its
-boughs. The poem says:</p>
-
-<p style="margin-left: 2em;">
-There is no pilgrim who is not sometimes sad<br />
-Who has not those who wound his heart,<br />
-And to whom it is not often necessary<br />
-To play and be solaced<br />
-And be soothed like a child<br />
-With something comforting.<br />
-Know that those playing<br />
-There in order to allay their sorrow<br />
-Have found beneath that tree<br />
-An apple that great comfort gives<br />
-To those that play with it.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
-</p><p> </p>
-
-<p><a name="allegory" id="allegory"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img125.jpg" width="550" height="341" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Giovanni Bellini.</em> AN ALLEGORY. <em>Florence.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p><p>This may be an allusion to sacramental comfort.
-St. Peter and St. Paul guard the door,
-beside which the Madonna and a saint sit in holy
-conversation. A very beautiful figure on the
-left, wrapped in a black shawl, requires explanation,
-and it has been suggested that it is the
-donor, a woman who may have lost husband and
-children, and who, still in life, is introduced,
-watching the happiness of the souls in Paradise.
-SS. Giobbe and Sebastian, who might have
-stepped out of the San Giobbe altarpiece, are
-obviously the patron saints of the family, and St.
-Catherine, at the Virgin’s side, may be the donor’s
-own saint. This picture, with its delicious
-landscape bathed in atmospheric light, is a
-forerunner of those Giorgionesque compositions
-of “pure and unquestioning delight in the
-sensuous charm of rare and beautiful things”
-in which the artistic nature is even more engrossed
-than with the intellectual conception,
-and within its small space Bellini seems to have
-enshrined all his artistic creed. The allegories
-in the Academy are also full of meaning. They
-are decorative works, and were probably painted
-for some small cabinet. They seem too small
-for a cassone. They are ruined by over-painting,
-but still full of grace and fancy. The figure in
-the classic chariot, bearing fruit, in the encounter
-between Luxury and Industry, is drawn from
-Jacopo’s triumphant Bacchus. Fortune floats in
-her barque, holding the globe, and the souls
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>who gather round her are some full of triumphant
-success, others clinging to her for comfort, while
-several are sinking, overwhelmed in the dark
-waters. “Prudence,” the only example of a
-female nude in Bellini’s works, holds a looking-glass.
-Hypocrisy or Calumny is torn writhing
-from his refuge. The Summa Virtus is an ugly
-representation of all the virtues; a waddling
-deformity with eyes bound holds the scales of
-justice; the pitcher in its hand means prudence,
-and the gold upon its feet symbolises charity.
-The landscape, both of this and of the “Fortune,”
-resembles that which he was painting in his
-larger works at the end of the century. Soon
-after 1501 Bellini entered into relations with
-Isabela d’Este, Marchioness of Gonzaga. That
-distinguished collector and connoisseur writes
-through her agent to get the promise of a
-picture, “a story or fable of antiquity,” to be
-placed in position with the allegories which
-Mantegna had contributed to her “Paradiso.”
-Bellini agreed to supply this, and received twenty-five
-ducats on account. He seems, however, to
-have felt that he would be at a disadvantage in
-competing with Mantegna on his own ground,
-and asks to be allowed to choose his subject.
-Isabela was unwillingly obliged to content herself
-with a sacred picture, and a “Nativity” was
-selected. She is at once full of suggestions,
-desiring to add a St. John Baptist, whom Bellini
-demurs at introducing except as a child, but in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>April 1504 the commission is still unaccomplished,
-and Isabela angrily demands the return
-of her money. This brings a letter of humble
-apology from Bellini, and presently the picture
-is forwarded. Lorenzo of Pavia writes that it is
-quite beautiful, and that “though Giovanni has
-behaved as badly as possible, yet the bad must
-be taken with the good.” The joy of its
-acquisition appeased Isabela, who at once began
-to lay plans to get a further work out of Bellini,
-and in 1505 Bembo wrote to her that he would
-take a fresh commission always providing he
-might fix the subject. From the catalogue of
-her Mantovan pictures we gather that the picture
-“sul asse” (on panel) represented the “B.V.,
-il Putto, S. Giovanni Battista, S. Giovanni
-Evangelista, S. Girolamo, and Santa Caterina.”</p>
-
-<p>The great altarpieces which remain strike us
-less by their research, their preoccupation with
-new problems of paint or grouping, than by
-their intense delight in beauty. Bellini was
-now nearly eighty years old, and in 1504 the
-young Giorgione had proclaimed a revolution
-in art with his Castelfranco Madonna. In
-composition and detail the Madonna of San
-Zaccaria is in some degree a protest against the
-Arcadian, innovating fashion of approaching a
-religious scene, of which the Church had long
-since decided on the treatment, yet Bellini
-cannot escape the indirect suggestion of the
-new manner. The same leaven was at work
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>in him which was transforming the men of a
-younger generation. In this altarpiece, in the
-Baptism at Vicenza, in others, perhaps, which
-have perished, and above all in the hermit saint
-in S. Giovanni Crisostomo he is linked in feeling
-and in treatment with the later Venetian School.</p>
-
-<p>The new device, which he adopts quite
-naturally, of raising the line of sight, sets the
-figures in increased depth. For the first time
-he gives height and majesty to the young
-Mother by carrying the draperies down over the
-steps. He realises to the full the contrast
-between the young, fragile heads of his girl-saints
-and the dark, venerable countenances of
-the old men. The head of S. Lucy, detaching
-itself like a flower upon its stem, reminds us of
-the type which we saw in his Watcher in the
-sacred allegory of the Uffizi. The arched,
-dome-like niche opens on a distance bathed in
-golden light. Bellini keeps the traditions of
-the old hieratic art, but he has grasped a new
-perfection of feeling and atmosphere. Who the
-saints are matters little; it is the collective
-enjoyment of a company of congenial people
-that pleases us so much. The “Baptism” in
-S. Corona, at Vicenza, painted sixteen years later
-than Cima’s in S. Giovanni in Bragora, is in
-frank imitation of the younger man. Christ and
-the Baptist, traditional figures, are drawn without
-much zest, in a weak, conventional way,
-but the artist’s true interest comes out in the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>beauty of face and gesture of the group of
-women holding the garments, and above all in
-the sombre gloom of the distance, which replaces
-Cima’s charming landscape, and which keys the
-whole picture to the significance of a portent.
-In the enthronement of the old hermit, S.
-Chrysostom himself, painted in 1513, Bellini
-keeps his love for the golden dome, but he lets
-us look through its arch, at rolling mountain
-solitudes, with mists rising between their folds.
-The geranium robe of the saint, an exquisite,
-vivid bit of colouring, is caught by the golden
-sunset rays, the fine ascetic head stands out
-against the evening sky, and in the faces of the
-two saints who stand on either side of the aged
-visionary Bellini has gone back to all his old
-intensity of religious feeling, a feeling which
-he seemed for a time to have exchanged for a
-more pagan tone.</p>
-
-<p>In 1507, at Gentile’s death, Giovanni undertook,
-at his brother’s dying request, to finish
-the “Preaching of St. Mark,” receiving as a
-recompense that coveted sketch-book of his
-father’s, from which he had adopted so many
-suggestions, and which, though he was the
-eldest, had been inherited by the legitimate son.</p>
-
-<p>In the preceding year Albert Dürer had
-visited Venice for the second time, and Bellini
-had received him with great cordiality. Dürer
-writes, “Bellini is very old, but is still the best
-painter in Venice”; and adds, “The things I
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>admired on my last visit, I now do not value at
-all.” Implying that he was able now to see
-how superior Bellini was to the hitherto more
-highly esteemed Vivarini.</p>
-
-<p>At the very end of Bellini’s life, in 1514,
-the Duke of Ferrara paid him eighty-five ducats
-for a painting of “Bacchanals,” now at Alnwick
-Castle; which may be looked upon as an
-open confession by one who had always considered
-himself as a painter of distinctively
-religious works, that such a gay scene of feasting
-afforded opportunities which he could not resist,
-for beauty of attitude and colour; but the gods,
-sitting at their banquet in a sunny glade, are
-almost fully draped, and there is little of the
-<em>abandon</em> which was affected by later painters.
-The picture was left unfinished, and was later
-given to Titian to complete. In his capacity as
-State Painter to the Republic, it was Bellini’s
-duty to execute the official portraits of the
-Doges. During his long life he saw eleven
-reigns, and during four he held the State
-appointment. Besides the official, he painted
-private portraits of the Doges, and that of
-Doge Loredano, in the National Gallery, is one of
-the most perfect presentments of the quattrocento.
-This portrait, painted by one old man of another,
-shows no weakening in touch or characterisation.
-It is as brilliant and vigorous as it is direct and
-simple. The face is quiet and unexaggerated;
-there is no unnatural fire and feeling, but an air
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>of accustomed dignity and thought, while the
-technique has all the perfection of the painter’s
-prime.</p>
-
-<p>In 1516 Giovanni was buried in the Church
-of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, by the side of his
-brother Gentile. To the last he was popular
-and famous, overwhelmed with attentions from
-the most distinguished personages of the city.
-Though he had begun life when art showed
-such a different aspect, he was by nature so
-imbued with that temperament, which at the
-time of his death was beginning to assert itself
-in the younger school, that he was able to
-assimilate a really astonishing share of the new
-manner. He is guided by feeling more than
-by intellect. All the time he is working out
-problems, he is dominated by the emotion of
-his subject, but his emotion, his pathos, are
-invariably tempered and restrained by the calm
-moderation of the quattrocento. The golden
-mean still has command of Bellini, and never
-allows his feelings, however poignant, to degenerate
-into sentimentality or violence.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Morelli: Two Madonnas.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà (L.); Dead Christ.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Allegory; The Souls in Paradise (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Doge (L.); Madonna (L.); Agony in Garden (E.); Salvator Mundi (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Pietà (E.); Madonna; Madonna, 1510.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Mond Collection.</td> <td class="td5">Dead Christ; Madonna (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Murano.</td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro: Madonna with Saints and Doge Barbarigo, 1488.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Sala Grande: Transfiguration.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Pesaro.</td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rimini.</td> <td class="td5">Dead Christ (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Three Madonnas; Five small allegorical paintings (L.);
- Madonna with SS. Catherine and Magdalene; Madonna with
- SS. Paul and George; Madonna with five Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Crucifixion (E.); Transfiguration (E.); Dead Christ; Dead Christ with Angels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale, Sala di Tre: Pietà (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: Triptych; Madonna and Saints, 1488.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Crisostomo: S. Chrysostom with SS. Jerome and Augustine, 1513.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dell’ Orto: Madonna (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Zaccaria: Madonna and Saints, 1505.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">S. Corona: Baptism, 1510.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>CIMA DA CONEGLIANO AND OTHER FOLLOWERS
-OF BELLINI</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>The rising tide of feeling, the growing sense
-of the joy of life and the apprehension of pure
-beauty, which was strengthening in the people
-and leading up to the great period of Venetian
-art, flooded round Bellini and recognised its expression
-in him. He was more popular and had a
-larger following among the artists of his day than
-either Gentile or Carpaccio with their frankly
-mundane talent. Whatever Giovanni’s State works
-may have been, his religious paintings are the
-ones which are copied and adapted and studied
-by the younger band of artists, and this because
-of their beauty and notwithstanding their conventional
-subjects. Gentile’s pageant-pictures
-have still something cold and colourless, with a
-touch of the archaic, while Giovanni’s religious
-altarpieces evince a new freedom of handling, a
-modern conception of beautiful women, a use of
-that colour which was soon to reign triumphant.
-As far as it went indeed, its triumph was already
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>assured; as Giovanni advanced towards old age,
-it was no longer of any use for the young
-masters of the day to paint in any way save
-the one he had made popular, and one artist
-after another who had begun in the school of
-Alvise Vivarini ended as the disciple of Giovanni
-Bellini.</p>
-
-<p>It was the habit of Bellini to trust much to
-his assistants, and as everything that went out of
-his workshop was signed by his name, even if it
-only represented the use of one of his designs, or
-a few words of advice, and was “passed” by the
-master, it is no wonder that European collections
-were flooded with works, among which only
-lately the names of Catena, Previtali, Pennacchi,
-Marco Belli, Bissolo, Basaiti, Rondinelli, and
-others begin to be disentangled.</p>
-
-<p>Only one of his followers stands out as a
-strong and original master, not quite of the first
-class, but developing his own individuality while
-he draws in much of what both Alvise and
-Bellini had to give. Cima da Conegliano,
-whose real name was Giovanni Battista, always
-signs himself <em>Coneglianensis</em>: the title of Cima,
-“the Rock,” by which he is now so widely
-known, having first been mentioned in the
-seventeenth century by Boschini, and perhaps
-given him by that writer himself. He was a
-son of the mountains, who, though he came early
-to Venice, and lived there most of his life, never
-loses something of their wild freshness, and to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>the end delights in bringing them into his
-backgrounds. He lived with his mother at
-Conegliano, the beautiful town of the Trevisan
-marches, until 1484, when he was twenty-five,
-and then came down to Vicenza, where he fell
-under the tuition of Bartolommeo Montagna, a
-Vicentine painter, who had been studying both
-with Alvise and Bellini. Cima’s “Madonna
-with Saints,” painted for the Church of St.
-Bartolommeo, Vicenza, in 1489, shows him still
-using the old method of tempera, in a careful,
-cold, painstaking style, yet already showing his
-own taste. The composition has something of
-Alvise, yet that something has been learned
-through the agency of Montagna, for the figures
-have the latter’s severity and austere character
-and the colour is clearer and more crude than
-Alvise’s. It is no light resemblance, and he
-must have been long with Montagna. In the
-type of the Christ in Montagna’s Pietà at
-Monte Berico, in the fondness for airy porticoes,
-in the architecture and main features of his
-“Madonna enthroned” in the Museo Civico at
-Vicenza, we see characteristics which Cima
-followed, though he interpreted them in his
-own way. He turns the heavy arches and
-domes that Alvise loved, into airy pergolas,
-decked with vines. He gives increasing importance
-to high skies and to atmospheric distances.
-When he got to Venice in 1492, he began to
-paint in oils, and undertook the panel of S. John
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>Baptist with attendant saints, still in the Church
-of S. Madonna dell’ Orto. The work of this is
-rather angular and tentative, but true and fresh,
-and he comes to his best soon after, in the
-“Baptism” in S. Giovanni in Bragora, which
-Bellini, sixteen years later, paid him the compliment
-of copying. It was quite unusual to choose
-such a subject for the High Altar, and could
-only be justified by devotion to the Baptist,
-who was Cima’s own name-saint as well as
-that of the Church. Cima is here at his very
-highest; the composition is not derived from
-any one else, but is all the conception of an
-ingenuous soul, full of intuition and insight.
-The Christ is particularly fine and simple,
-unexaggerated in pose and type; the arm of the
-Baptist is too long, but the very fault serves to
-give him a refined, tentative look, which makes
-a sympathetic appeal. The attendant angels look
-on with an air of sweet interest. The distant
-mountains, the undulating country, the little
-town of Conegliano, identified by the castle on
-its great rock, or <em>Cima</em>, are Arcadian in their
-sunny beauty. The clouds, as a critic has pointed
-out, are full of sun, not of rain. The landscape
-has not the sombre mystery of Titian’s, but is
-bright with the joyous delight of a lover of
-outdoor life. As Cima masters the new medium
-he becomes larger and simpler, and his forms
-lose much of their early angularity. A confraternity
-of his native town ordered the grand
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>altarpiece which is still in the Cathedral there,
-and in this he shows his connection with Venice;
-the architecture is partly taken from St. Mark’s,
-the lovely Madonna head recalls Bellini, and a
-group of Bellinesque angels play instruments at
-the foot of the throne. Cima is, however, never
-merged in Bellini. He keeps his own clearly
-defined, angular type; his peculiar, twisted curls
-are not the curls of Bellini’s saints, his treatment
-of surface is refined, enamel-like, perfectly
-finished, but it has nothing of the rich, broken
-treatment which Bellini’s natural feeling for
-colour was beginning to dictate. Cima’s pale
-golden figures have an almost metallic sharpness
-and precision, and though they are full of
-charm and refinement, they may be thought
-lacking in spontaneity and passion. To 1501
-belongs the “Incredulity of St. Thomas,” now
-in the Academy, but painted for the Guild of
-Masons. It is a picture full of expression and
-dignity, broad in treatment if a little cold in its
-self-restraint. Cima seems to have not quite
-enough intellect, and not quite enough strong
-feeling. However, the little altarpiece of the
-Nativity, in the Church of the Carmine in
-Venice, has a richer, fuller touch, and this
-foreshadows the work he did when he went to
-Parma, where his transparent shadows grow
-broader and stronger, and his figures gain in
-ease and freedom. He never loses the delicate
-radiance of his lights, and his types and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>his architecture alike convey something of a
-peculiarly refined, brilliant elegance.</p>
-
-<p>Like all these men of great energy and
-prolific genius, Cima produced an astonishing
-number of panels and altarpieces, and no doubt
-had pupils on his own account, for a goodly list
-could be made of pictures in his style, but not
-by his own hand, which have been carried by
-collectors into widely-scattered places. His
-exquisite surface and finish and his marked
-originality make him a difficult master to imitate
-with any success. His latest work is dated
-1508, but Ridolfi says he lived till 1517, and it
-seems probable that he returned to his beloved
-Conegliano and there passed his last years.</p>
-
-<p>If Cima possessed originality, Vincenzo of
-Treviso, called Catena, gained an immense reputation
-by his industry and his power of imitating
-and adopting the manner of Bellini’s School. In
-those days men did not trouble themselves much
-as to whether they were original or not. They
-worked away on traditional compositions, frankly
-introducing figures from their master’s cartoons,
-modifying a type here, making some little experiment
-or arrangement there, and, as a French critic
-puts it, leaving their own personality to “hatch
-out” in due time, if it existed, and when it was
-sufficiently ripened by real mastery of their art. It
-is here that Catena fails; beginning as a journeyman
-in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, at a salary
-of three ducats a month, he for long failed to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>acquire the absolute mastery of drawing which
-was possessed by the better disciples of the
-schools. But he is painstaking, determined to
-get on, and eager to satisfy the continually
-increasing demand for work. His draperies are
-confused and unmeaning, his faces round, with
-small features, inexpressive button mouths, and
-weak chins, and his flesh tints have little of
-the glow which is later the prerogative of every
-second-rate painter. Yet Catena succeeds, like
-many another careful mediocre man, in securing
-patronage, and as the sixteenth century opened
-he gained the distinction from Doge Loredano
-of a commission to paint the altarpiece for the
-Pregadi Chapel of the Sala di Tre, in the Ducal
-Palace. He adapts his group from that of
-Bellini in the Cathedral of Murano, bringing
-in a profile portrait of the kneeling Doge, of
-which he afterwards made numerous copies, one
-of which was for long assigned to Gentile and
-one to Giovanni Bellini.</p>
-
-<p>That Catena is not without charm, we discern
-in such a composition as his “Martyrdom of St.
-Cristina,” in S. Maria Mater Domini, in which
-the saint, a solid, Bellinesque figure, kneels
-upon the water, in which she met her death,
-and is surrounded by little angels, holding up
-the millstone tied round her neck, and laden
-with other instruments of her martyrdom.
-Catena borrows right and left, and tries to
-follow every new indication of contemporary
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>taste. For instance, he remarks the growing
-admiration for colour, and hopes by painting
-gay, flat tints, in bright contrast, to produce the
-desired effect.</p>
-
-<p>It is evident that he made many friends
-among the rich connoisseurs of the time, and
-that his importance was out of proportion to
-his real merit. Marcantonio Michele, writing
-an account of Raphael’s last days to a friend in
-Venice, and touching on Michelangelo’s illness,
-begs him to see that Catena takes care of
-himself, “as the times are unfavourable to great
-painters.” Catena had acquired and inherited
-considerable wealth; he came of a family of
-merchants, and resided in his own house in San
-Bartolommeo del Rialto. He lived in unmarried
-relations with Dona Maria Fustana, the daughter
-of a furrier, to whom he bequeaths in his will
-300 ducats and all his personal effects. As a
-careful portrait-painter, with a talent for catching
-a likeness, he was in constant demand, and in
-some of his heads—that of a canon dressed in
-blue and red, at Vienna, and especially in one of
-a member of the Fugger family, now at Dresden—he
-attains real distinction. And in his last
-phase he does at length prove the power that
-lies behind long industry and perseverance.
-Suddenly the Giorgionesque influence strikes
-him, and turning to imbibe this new element,
-he produces that masterpiece which throws a
-glamour over all his mediocre performances;
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>his “Warrior adoring the Infant Christ,” in
-the National Gallery, is a picture full of charm,
-rich and romantic in tone and spirit. The
-Virgin and the Child upon her knee are of his
-dull round-eyed type, the form and colours of
-her draperies are still unsatisfactory, but the
-knight in armour with his Eastern turban, the
-romantic young page, holding his horse, are
-pure Giorgionesque figures. Beautiful in themselves,
-set in a beautiful landscape glowing
-with light and air, the whole picture exemplifies
-what surprising excellence could be
-suddenly attained by even very inferior artists,
-who were constantly associating with greater
-men, at a moment when the whole air was, as
-it were, vibrating with genius.</p>
-
-<p>Catena was very much addicted to making
-his will, and at least five testaments or codicils
-exist, one of them devising a sum of money
-for the benefit of the School of Painters in
-Venice, and another leaving to his executor, Prior
-Ignatius, the picture of a “St. Jerome in his
-Cell,” which may be the one in our national
-collection, which remained in Venice till
-1862. It is painted in his gay tones, imitating
-Basaiti and Lotto, and brings in the partridge of
-which he made a sort of sign manual.</p>
-
-<p>Cardinal Bembo writes in 1525 to Pietro
-Lippomano, to announce that, at his request, he
-is continuing his patronage of Catena:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>Though I had done all that lay in my power for
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>Vincenzo Catena before I received your Lordship’s
-warm recommendation in his favour, I did not hesitate,
-on receipt of your letter, to add something to the first
-piece I had from him, and I did so because of my love
-and reverence for you, and I trust that he will return
-appropriate thanks to you for having remembered that
-you could command me.</p></div>
-
-<p>Marco Basaiti was alternately a journeyman
-in different workshops and a master on his own
-account. For long the assistant and follower of
-Alvise Vivarini, we may judge that he was also
-his most trusted confidant, for to him was left
-the task of completing the splendid altarpiece to
-S. Ambrogio, in the Frari. His heavy hand is
-apparent in the execution, and the two saints,
-Sebastian and Jerome, in the foreground, have
-probably been added by him, for they have the
-air of interlopers, and do not come up to the rest
-of the company in form and conception. The
-Sebastian, with his hands behind his back and
-his loin cloth smartly tied, is quite sufficiently
-reminiscent of Bellini’s figure of 1473 to make
-us believe that Basaiti was at once transferring
-his allegiance to that reigning master. In his
-earlier phase he has the round heads and the
-dry precise manner of the Muranese. In his
-large picture in the Academy, the “Calling of
-the Sons of Zebedee,” he produces a large,
-important set piece, cold and lifeless, without
-one figure which arrests us, or lingers in
-the memory. “The Christ on the Mount”
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>is more interesting as having been painted for
-San Giobbe, where Bellini’s great altarpiece
-was already hanging, and coming into competition
-with Bellini’s early rendering of the same
-scene. Painted some thirty years later, it is
-interesting to see what it has gained in
-“modernness.” The landscape and trees are
-well drawn and in good colour, and the saints,
-standing on either side of a high portico, have
-dignity. In the “Dead Christ,” in the Academy,
-he is following Bellini very closely in the flesh-tints
-and the <em>putti</em>. The <em>putti</em>, looking thoughtfully
-at the dead, is a <em>motif</em> beloved of Bellini,
-but Basaiti cannot give them Bellini’s pathos
-and significance; they are merely childish and
-seem to be amused.</p>
-
-<p>In 1515 Basaiti has entered upon a new
-phase. He has felt Giorgione’s influence, and
-is beginning to try what he can do, while still
-keeping close to Bellini, to develop a fuller touch,
-more animated figures, and a brilliant effect of
-landscape. He runs a film of vaporous colour
-over his hard outlines and makes his figures
-bright and misty, and though underneath they
-are still empty and monotonous, it is not surprising
-that many of his works for a time passed
-as those of Bellini. Though he is a clever
-imitator, “his figures are designed with less
-mastery, his drawing is a little less correct,
-his drapery less adapted to the under form.
-Light and shade are not so cleverly balanced,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>colours have the brightness, but not the true
-contrast required. In landscape he proceeds
-from a bleak aridity to extreme gaiety; he does
-not dwell on detail, but his masses have neither
-the sober tint nor the mysterious richness
-conspicuous in his teacher ... he is a clever
-instrument.” Both Previtali and Rondinelli
-were workers with Basaiti in Bellini’s studio.
-Previtali occasionally signed himself Andrea
-Cordeliaghi or Cordella, and has left many
-unsigned pictures. He copies Catena and
-Lotto, Palma and Montagna; but for a time his
-work went forth from Bellini’s workshop signed
-with Bellini’s name. In 1515, in a great altarpiece
-in San Spirito at Bergamo, he first takes
-the title of Previtali, compiling it in the
-cartello with the monogram already used as
-Cordeliaghi. There are traces of many other
-minor artists at this period, all essaying the
-same manner, copying one or other of the
-masters, taking hints from each other. The
-Venetian love of splendour was turning to the
-collection of works of art, and the work of
-second-class artists was evidently much in
-demand and obtained its meed of admiration.
-Bissolo was a fellow-labourer with Catena in the
-Hall of the Ducal Palace in 1492; he is soft
-and nerveless, but he copies Bellini, and has
-imbibed something of his tenderness of spirit.</p>
-
-<p>It will be seen from this list how difficult it
-is to unravel the tale of the false Bellinis. The
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>master’s own works speak for themselves with
-no uncertain voice, but away from these it is
-very difficult to pronounce as to whether he had
-given a design, or a few touches, or advice, and
-still more difficult to decide whether these were
-bestowed on Basaiti in his later manner, or on
-Previtali or Bissolo, or if the teaching was handed
-on by them in a still more diluted form to
-the lesser men who clustered round, much of
-whose work has survived and has been masquerading
-for centuries under more distinguished
-names. It is sometimes affirmed that the loss
-of originality in the endeavour to paint like
-greater men has been a symptom of decay in
-every school in the past. It is interesting to
-notice, therefore, that in every great age of
-painting there has always been an undercurrent
-of imitation, which has helped to form a stream
-of tradition, and which, as far as we can see, has
-done no harm to the stronger spirits of the time.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Cima.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with four Saints; Two Madonnas.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Conegliano.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Madonna and Saints, 1493.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">The Saviour; Presentation of Virgin.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Two Madonnas; Incredulity of S. Thomas; S. Jerome.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Six pictures of Saints; Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Parma.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints; Another; Endymion; Apollo and Marsyas.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Madonna with SS. John and Paul; Pietà; Madonna
- with six Saints; Incredulity of S. Thomas; Tobias and the Angel.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Carmine: Adoration of the Shepherds.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Baptism, 1494; SS. Helen and Constantine; Three Predelle; Finding of True Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Giovanni and Paolo: Coronation of the Virgin.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dell’ Orto: S. John Baptist and SS. Paul, Jerome, Mark, and Peter.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard. Madonna with SS. Francis and Paul; Madonna with SS. Nicholas of Bari and John Baptist.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Jerome and John, 1489.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Vincenzo Catena.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Christ at Emmaus.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Fugger; Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Warrior adoring Infant Christ (L.); S. Jerome in his Study (L.); Adoration of Magi (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson: Holy Family.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lord Brownlow: Nativity.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: Madonna, Saints, and Donors (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Venetian Ambassadors at Cairo.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Madonna, Saints, and Doge Loredan (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli Palace: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Mater Domini: S. Cristina.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Trovaso: Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Canon.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Marco Basaiti.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">The Saviour, 1517; Two Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà; Altarpiece; S. Sebastian; Madonna (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. Jerome; Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Ambrosiana: Risen Christ.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Murano.</td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro: Assumption.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait, 1521; Madonna with SS. Liberale and Peter.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Saints; Dead Christ; Christ in the Garden, 1510; Calling of Children of Zebedee, 1510.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Madonna and Donor; Christ and Angels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Salute: S. Sebastian.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Calling of Children of Zebedee, 1515.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Andrea Previtali.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Pentecost; Marriage of S. Catherine; Altarpiece; Madonna, 1514; Madonna with Saints and Donors.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna and Saint.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Count Moroni: Madonna and Saints; Family Group.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Alessandro in Croce: Crucifixion, 1524.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Spirito: S. John Baptist and Saints, 1515; Madonna and four Female Saints, 1525.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Marriage of S. Catherine.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Donor (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Christ in Garden, 1512.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Oxford.</td> <td class="td5">Christchurch Library: Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Christ in Limbo; Crossing of the Red Sea.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Redentore: Nativity; Crucifixion.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Stoning of Stephen; Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>N. Rondinelli.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna with four Saints and three Angels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Ravenna.</td> <td class="td5">Two Madonnas with Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Domenico: Organ Shutters; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Madonna; Madonna with Saints and Donors.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli Palace: Two Madonnas.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bissolo.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Dead Christ; Madonna and Saints; Presentation in Temple.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Triptych.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Redentore: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Mater Domini: Transfiguration.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
-<h2>PART II</h2>
-
-<p> </p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>GIORGIONE</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>When we enter a gallery of Florentine paintings,
-we find our admiration and criticism expressing
-themselves naturally in certain terms; we are
-struck by grace of line, by strenuous study of
-form, by the evidence of knowledge, by the
-display of thought and intellectual feeling. The
-Florentine gestures and attitudes are expressive,
-nervous, fervent, or, as in Michelangelo and
-Signorelli, alive with superhuman energy. But
-when looking at pictures of the Venetian School
-we unconsciously use quite another sort of
-language; epithets like “dark” and “rich”
-come most freely to our lips; a golden glow,
-a slumberous velvety depth, seem to engulf
-and absorb all details. We are carried into the
-land of romance, and are fascinated and soothed,
-rather than stimulated and aroused. So it is with
-portraits; before the “Mona Lisa” our intelligence
-is all awake, but the men and women of
-Venetian canvases have a grave, indolent serenity,
-which accords well with the slumber of thought.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>Up to the beginning of the sixteenth century
-the painters of Venice had not differed very
-materially from those of other schools; they
-had gradually worked out or learned the technicalities
-of drawing, perspective and anatomy.
-They had been painting in oils for twenty-five
-years, and they betrayed a greater fondness for
-pageant-pictures than was felt in other States of
-Italy. Florence appoints Michelangelo and Leonardo
-to decorate her public palace, but no great
-store is set by their splendid achievements; their
-work is not even completed. The students fall
-upon the cartoons, which are allowed to perish,
-instead of being treasured by the nation. Gentile
-Bellini and Carpaccio and the band of State
-painters are appreciated and well rewarded.
-These men have reproduced something of the
-lucent transparency, the natural colour of Venice,
-but it is as if unconsciously; they are not fully
-aiming at any special effect. Year after year
-the Venetian masters assimilate more or less
-languidly the influences which reach them
-from the mainland. They welcome Guariento
-and Gentile da Fabriano, they set themselves to
-learn from Veronese or Florentine, the Paduans
-contribute their chiselled drawing, their learned
-perspective, their archeological curiosity. Yet
-even early in the day the Venetians escape from
-that hard and learned art which is so alien
-to their easy, voluptuous temperament. Jacopo
-Bellini cannot conform to it, and his greatest son
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>is ready to follow feeling and emotion, and in
-his old age is quick to discover the first flavour
-of the new wine. If Venetian art had gone
-on upon the lines we have been tracing up
-to now, there would have been nothing very
-distinctive about it, for, however interesting and
-charming Alvise and Carpaccio, Cima and the
-Bellini may be, it is not of them we think when
-we speak of the Venetian School and when we
-rank it beside that of Florence, while Giovanni
-Bellini alone, in his later works, is not strong
-enough to bear the burden.</p>
-
-<p>The change which now comes over painting
-is not so much a technical one as a change of
-temper, a new tendency in human thought, and
-we link it with Giorgione because he was the
-channel through which the deep impulse first
-burst into the light. We have tried to trace the
-growth of the early Venetian School, but it does
-not develop logically like that of Florence; it
-is not the result of long endeavour, adding one
-acquisition and discovery to another. Venetian
-art was peculiarly the outcome of personalities,
-and it did not know its own mind till the
-sixteenth century. Then, like a hidden spring,
-it bubbles irresistibly to the surface, and the spot
-where it does so is called by the name of a man.</p>
-
-<p>There are beings in most great creative
-epochs who, with peculiar facility, seem to
-embody the purpose of their age and to yield
-themselves as ready instruments to its design.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>When time is ripe they appear, and are able,
-with perfect ease, to carry out and give voice
-to the desires and tendencies which have been
-straining for expression. These desires may owe
-their origin to national life and temperament;
-it may have taken generations to bring them to
-fruition, but they become audible through the
-agency of an individual genius. A genius is
-inevitably moulded by his age. Rome, in the
-seventeenth century, drew to her in Bernini a
-man who could with real power illustrate her
-determination to be grandiose and ostentatious,
-and, at the height of the Renaissance, Venice
-draws into her service a man whose sensuous
-feeling was instilled, accentuated, and welcomed
-by every element around him.</p>
-
-<p>More conclusively than ever, at this time,
-Venice, the world’s great sea-power, was in her
-full glory as the centre of the world’s commerce
-and its art and culture. Vasco da Gama had
-discovered the sea route to India in 1498, but
-the stupendous effect which this was to exert
-on the whole current of power did not become
-apparent all at once. Venice was still the
-great emporium of the East, linked to it by a
-thousand ties, Oriental in her love of Eastern
-richness.</p>
-
-<p>It would be exaggerating to say that the
-Venetians of the sixteenth century could not
-draw. As there were Tuscans who understood
-beautiful harmonies of colour, so there were
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>Venetians who knew a good deal about form;
-but the other Italians looked upon colour as a
-charming adjunct, almost, one might say, as
-an amiable weakness: they never would have
-allowed that it might legitimately become the
-end and aim in painting, and in the same way
-form, though respected and considered, was
-never the principal object of the Venetians.
-Up to this time Venice had fed her emotional
-instincts by pageants and gold and velvets and
-brocades, but with Giorgione she discovered
-that there was a deeper emotional vehicle than
-these superficial glories,—glowing depths of
-colour enveloped in the mysterious richness of
-chiaroscuro which obliterated form, and hid
-and suggested more than it revealed.</p>
-
-<p>Giorgione no longer described “in drawing’s
-learned tongue”; he carried all before him
-by giving his direct impression in colour. He
-conceives in colour. The Florentines cared little
-if their finely drawn draperies were blue or
-red, but Giorgione images purple clouds, their
-dark velvet glowing towards a rose and orange
-horizon. He hardly knows what attitudes his
-characters take, but their chestnut hair, their
-deep-hued draperies, their amber flesh, make a
-moving harmony in which the importance of
-exact modelling is lost sight of. His scenes are
-not composed methodically and according to
-the old rules, but are the direct impress of the
-painter’s joy in life. It was a new and audacious
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>style in painting, and its keynote, and absolutely
-inevitable consequence, was to substitute for
-form and for gay, simple tints laid upon it, the
-quality of chiaroscuro. We all know how
-the shades of evening are able to transform
-the most commonplace scene; the dull road
-becomes a mysterious avenue, the colourless
-foliage develops luscious depths, the drab and
-arid plain glows with mellow light, purple
-shadows clothe and soften every harsh and ugly
-object, all detail dies, and our apprehension of
-it dies also. Our mood changes; instead of
-observing and criticising, we become soothed,
-contemplative, dreamy. It is the carrying of
-this profound feeling into a colour-scheme by
-means of chiaroscuro, so that it is no longer
-learned and explanatory, but deeply sensuous
-and emotional, that is the gift to art which
-found full voice with Giorgione, and which
-in one moment was recognised and welcomed
-to the exclusion of the older manner, because
-it touched the chord which vibrated through
-the whole Venetian temperament.</p>
-
-<p>And the immediate result was the picture of
-<em>no subject</em>. Giorgione creates for us idle figures
-with radiant flesh, or robed in rich costumes,
-surrounded by lovely country, and we do not ask
-or care why they are gathered together. We
-have all had dreams of Elysian fields, “where
-falls not any rain, nor ever wind blows
-loudly,” where all is rest and freedom, where
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>music blends with the plash of fountains, and
-fruits ripen, and lovers dream away the days, and
-no one asks what went before or what follows
-after. The Golden Age, the haunt of fauns and
-nymphs: there never has been such a day, or
-such a land: it is a mood, a vision: it has
-danced before the eyes of poets, from David to
-Keats and Tennyson: it has rocked the tired
-hearts of men in all ages: the vision of a resting-place
-which makes no demands and where the
-dwellers are exempt from the cares and weakness
-of mortality. Needless to say, it is an ideal born
-of the East; it is the Eastern dream of Paradise,
-and it speaks to that strain in the temperament
-which recognises that life cannot be all thought,
-but also needs feeling and emotion. And for the
-first time in all the world the painter of Castelfranco
-sets that vague dream before men’s eyes.
-The world, with its wistful yearnings and questionings,
-such as Leonardo or Botticelli embodied,
-said little to his audience. Here was their natural
-atmosphere, though they had never known it
-before. These deep, solemn tones, these fused
-and golden lights are what Giorgione grasps
-from the material world, and as he steeps his
-senses in them the subject counts but little in
-the deep enjoyment they communicate. We,
-who have seen his manner repeated and developed
-through thousands of pictures, find it difficult to
-realise that there had been nothing like it before,
-that it was a unique departure, that when Bellini
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>and Titian looked at his first creations they must
-have experienced a shock of revelation. The
-old definite style must have seemed suddenly
-hard and meagre, and every time they looked on
-the glorious world, the deep glow of sunset, the
-mysterious shades of falling night, they must
-have felt they were endowed with a sense to
-which they had hitherto been strangers, but
-which, it was at once apparent, was their true
-heritage. They had found themselves, and in
-them Venice found her real expression, and
-with Giorgione and those who felt his impetus
-began the true Venetian School, set apart from
-all other forms of art by its way of using and
-diffusing and intensifying colour.</p>
-
-<p>When Giorgione, the son of a member of
-the house of Barbarelli and a peasant girl of
-Vedelago, came down to Venice, we gather
-that he had nothing of the provincial. Vasari,
-who must often have heard of him from Titian,
-describes him as handsome, engaging, of distinguished
-appearance, beloved by his friends, a
-favourite with women, fond of dress and amusement,
-an admirable musician, and a welcome guest
-in the houses of the great. He was evidently
-no peasant-bred lad, but probably, though
-there is no record of the fact, was brought up,
-like many illegitimate children, in the paternal
-mansion. His home was not far from the
-lagoons, in one of the most beautiful places it is
-possible to imagine, on a lovely and fertile plain
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>running up to the Asolean hills and with the
-Julian Alps lying behind. We guess that he
-received his education in the school of Bellini,
-for when that master sold his allegory of the
-“Souls in Paradise” to one of the Medici, to
-adorn the summer villa of Poggio Imperiale,
-there went with it the two small canvases now
-in the Uffizi, the “Ordeal of Moses” and the
-“Judgment of Solomon,” delightful little
-paintings in Giorgione’s rich and distinctive style,
-but less accomplished than Bellini’s picture, and
-with imperfections in the drawing of drapery
-and figures which suggest that they are the
-work of a very young man. The love of the
-Venetians for decorating the exterior of their
-palaces with fresco led to Giorgione being largely
-employed on work which was unhappily a
-grievous waste of time and talent, as far as
-posterity is concerned. We have a record of
-façades covered with spirited compositions and
-heraldic devices, of friezes with Bacchus and
-Mars, Venus and Mercury. Zanetti, in his
-seventeenth-century prints, has preserved a noble
-figure of “Fortitude” grasping an axe, but beyond
-a few fragments nothing has survived. Before
-he was thirty Giorgione was entrusted with the
-important commission of decorating the Fondaco
-dei Tedeschi. This building, which we hear of
-so often in connection with the artists of Venice,
-was the trading-house for German, Hungarian,
-and Polish merchants. The Venetian Government
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>surrounded these merchants with the most
-jealous restrictions. Every assistant and servant
-connected with them was by law a Venetian, and,
-in fact, a spy of the Republic. All transactions
-of buying and selling were carried out by Venetian
-brokers, of whom some thirty were appointed.
-As time went on, some of these brokerships must
-have resolved themselves into sinecure offices,
-for we find Bellini holding one, and certainly
-without discharging any of the original duties,
-and they seem to have become some sort of State
-retainerships. In 1505 the old Fondaco had been
-burnt to the ground, and the present building
-was rising when Giorgione and Titian were boys.
-A decree went forth that no marble, carving, or
-gilding were to be used, so that painting the outside
-was the only alternative. The roof was on in
-1507, and from that date Giorgione, Titian, and
-Morto da Feltre were employed in the adornment
-of the façade. Vasari is very much exercised
-over Giorgione’s share in these decorations. “One
-does not find one subject carefully arranged,”
-he complains, “or which follows correctly the
-history or actions of ancients or moderns. As for
-me, I have never been able to understand the
-meaning of these compositions, or have met
-any one able to explain them to me. Here one
-sees a man with a lion’s head, beside a woman.
-Close by one comes upon an angel or a Love:
-it is all an inexplicable medley.” Yet he is
-delighted with the brilliancy of the colour and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>the splendid execution, and adds, “Colour gives
-more pleasure in Venice than anywhere else.”</p>
-
-<p>Among other early work was the little
-“Adoration of the Magi,” in the National
-Gallery, and the so-called “Philosophers” at
-Vienna. According to the latest reading, this
-last illustrates Virgil’s legend that when the
-Trojan Æneas arrived in Italy, Evander pointed
-out the future site of Rome to the ancient seer
-and his son. Giorgione, in painting the scene,
-is absorbed in the beauty of nature. It is his
-first great landscape, and all accessories have been
-sacrificed to intensity of effect. He revels in
-the glory of the setting sun, the broad tranquil
-masses of foliage, the long evening shadows,
-and the effect of dark forms silhouetted against
-the radiant light.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>GIORGIONE</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p>
-
-
-<p>When Giorgione was twenty-six he went back
-to Castelfranco, and painted an altarpiece for the
-Church of San Liberale. In the sixteenth
-century Tuzio Costanza, a well-known captain
-of Free Companions, who had made his fortune
-in the wars, where he had been attached to
-Catherine Cornaro, followed the dethroned queen
-from Cyprus, and when she retired to Asolo,
-settled near her at Castelfranco. His son,
-Matteo, entered the service of the Venetian
-Republic, and became a leader of fifty lances; but
-Matteo was killed at the battle of Ravenna in
-1504, and Costanza had his son’s body embalmed
-and buried in the family chapel.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing is known of the details of this
-commission, but we are not straining the bounds
-of probability by assuming that in a little town
-like Castelfranco, hardly more than a village,
-the two youths must have been well known to
-each other, and that this acquaintance and the
-familiarity of the one with the appearance of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>the other may have been the determining cause
-which led the bereaved father to give the commission
-to the young painter, while the tragic
-circumstances were such as would appeal to an
-ardent, enthusiastic nature. A treasure of our
-National Gallery is a study made by Giorgione
-for the figure of San Liberale, who is represented
-as a young man with bare head and crisp, golden
-locks, dressed in silver armour, copied from the
-suit in which Matteo Costanza is dressed in
-the stone effigy which is still preserved in the
-cemetery at Castelfranco. At the side of the
-stone figure lies a helmet, resembling that on the
-head of the saint in the altarpiece.</p>
-
-<p>In Giorgione’s group the Mother and Child
-are enthroned on high, with St. Francis and St.
-Liberale on either hand. The Child’s glance is
-turned upon the soldier-saint, a gallant figure
-with his lance at rest, his dagger on his hip,
-his gloves in his hand, young, high-bred, with
-features of almost feminine beauty. The picture
-is conceived in a new spirit of simplicity of
-design, and shows a new feeling for restraint in
-matters of detail. It is the work of a man who
-has observed that early morning, like late evening,
-has a marvellous power of eliminating all
-unessential accessories and of enveloping every
-object in a delicious scheme of light. Repainted,
-cleaned, restored as the canvas is, it is still full of
-an atmosphere of calm serenity. It is not the
-ecstatic, devotional reverie of Perugino’s saints.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>The painter of Castelfranco has not steeped his
-whole soul in religious imagination, like the
-painter of Umbria; he is an exemplar of the
-lyric feeling; his work is a poem in praise of
-youth and beauty, and dreams in air and sunshine.
-He uses atmosphere to enhance the mood, but
-Giorgione carries his unison of landscape with
-human feeling much further than Perugino; he
-observes the delicate effects of light, and limpid
-air circulates in his distance. The sun rising
-over the sea throws a glamour and purity of
-early morning over a scene meant to glorify
-the memory of a young life. The painter
-shows his connection with his master by using
-the figure of the St. Francis in Bellini’s San
-Giobbe altarpiece. What Bellini owed to
-Giorgione is still a matter for speculation. The
-San Zaccaria altarpiece was, as we have seen,
-painted in the year following that of Castelfranco.
-Something has incited the old painter to fresh
-efforts; out of his own evolution, or stimulated
-by his pupil’s splendid experiments, he is drawn
-into the golden atmosphere of the Venetian
-cinque-cento.</p>
-
-<p>The Venetian painters were distinguished
-by their love for the kindred art of music.
-Giorgione himself was an admirable musician,
-and linked with all that is akin to music in his
-work, is his love for painting groups of people
-knit together by this bond. He uses it as a
-pastime to bring them into company, and the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>rich chords of colour seem permeated with the
-chords of sound. Not always, however, does he
-need even this excuse; his “conversation-pieces”
-are often merely composed of persons placed with
-indescribable grace in exquisite surroundings,
-governed by a mood which communicates itself
-to the beholder.</p>
-
-<p>With the Florentines, the cartoon was carefully
-drawn upon the wall and flat tints were
-superimposed. They knew beforehand what the
-effect was to be; but the Venetians from this
-time gradually worked up the picture, imbedding
-tints, intensifying effects, one touch suggesting
-another, till the whole rich harmony was gradually
-evoked. With the Florentines, too, the figures
-supply the main interest; the background is an
-arbitrary addition, placed behind them at the
-painter’s leisure, but Giorgione’s and Titian’s <em>fêtes
-champêtres</em> and concerts could not <em>be</em> at all in any
-other environment. The amber flesh-tints and
-the glowing garments are so blended with the
-deep tones of the landscape, that one would not
-instil the mood the artist desires without the
-other. Piero di Cosimo and Pintoricchio can
-place delightful nymphs and fairy princesses in
-idyllic scenes, and they stir no emotion in us
-beyond an observant pleasure, a detached amusement;
-but Giorgione’s gloomy blues, his figures
-shining through the warm dusk of a summer
-evening, waken we hardly know what of vague
-yearning and brooding memory.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p><p>In the “Fête Champêtre” of the Louvre he
-acquires a frankly sensuous charm. He becomes
-riper, richer in feeling, and displays great exuberance
-of style. The woman filling her pitcher
-at the fountain is exquisite in line and curve and
-amber colour. She seems to listen lazily to the
-liquid fall of the water mingling with the half-heard
-music of the pipes. The beautiful idyll
-in the Giovanelli Palace is full of art of composition.
-It is built up with uprights; pillars are
-formed by the groups of trees and figures, cut
-boldly across by the horizontal line of the bridge,
-but the figures themselves are put in without
-any attention to subject, though an unconscious
-humorist has discovered in them the domestic
-circle of the painter. The man in Venetian dress
-is there to assist the left-hand columnar group,
-placed at the edge of the picture after the
-manner of Leonardo. The woman and child
-lighten the mass of foliage on the right and
-make a beautiful pattern. The white town of
-Castelfranco sings against the threatening sky,
-the winds bluster through the space, the trees
-shiver with the coming storm. Here and there
-leafy boughs are struck in with a slight, crisp
-touch, in which we can follow readily the
-painter’s quick impression.</p>
-
-<p>The “Knight of Malta” is a grand magisterial
-figure, majestic, yet full of ardent warmth
-lying behind the grave, indifferent nobility. The
-face is bisected with shadow, in the way which
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto affected, and
-the cone-shaped head with parted hair is of
-the type which seems particularly to have
-pleased the painter. To Giorgione, too, belongs
-the honour of having created a Venus as pure as
-the Aphrodite of Cnidos and as beautiful as a
-courtesan of Titian.</p>
-
-<p><a name="champ" id="champ"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img169.jpg" width="550" height="436" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Giorgione.</em> FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE. <em>Louvre.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Alinari.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>The death of Giorgione from plague in 1511
-is registered by all the oldest authorities. His
-body was conveyed to Castelfranco by members
-of the Barbarelli family and buried in the Church
-of San Liberale. In 1638 an epitaph was placed
-over his tomb by Matteo and Ercole Barbarelli.</p>
-
-<p>Allowing that he was hardly more than
-twenty when his new manner began to gain a
-following, he had only some twelve years in
-which to establish his deep and lasting influence.
-We divine that he was a man of strong personality,
-such a one as warms and stimulates his
-companions. Even his nickname tells us something,—Great
-George, the Chief, the George of
-Georges,—it seems to express him as a leader.
-And we have no lack of proof that he was
-admired and looked up to. His style became
-the only one that found favour in Venice, and
-the painters of the day did their best to conform
-to it. Few authentic examples are left from his
-own hand, but out of his conscious and devoted
-and more or less successful imitators, there grew
-up a school, “out of all those fascinating works,
-rightly or wrongly attributed to him; out of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>many copies from, or variations on him, by
-unknown or uncertain workmen, whose drawings
-and designs were, for various reasons, prized as
-his; out of the immediate impression he made
-upon his contemporaries and with which he
-continued in men’s minds; out of many traditions
-of subject and treatment which really
-descend from him to our own time, and by
-retracing which we fill out the original image.”</p>
-
-<p>Summing up all these influences, he has left
-us the Giorgionesque; the art of choosing a
-moment in which the subject and the elements
-of colour and design are so perfectly fused and
-blended that we have no need to ask for any
-more articulate story; a moment into which
-all the significance, the fulness of existence has
-condensed itself, so that we are conscious of the
-very essence of life. Those idylls of beings
-wrapped into an ideal dreamland by music
-and the sound of water and the beauty of
-wood and mountain and velvet sward, need all
-our conscious apprehension of life if we are
-to drink in their full fascination. The dream
-of the Lotos-eaters can only come with force to
-those who can contrast it adequately with the
-experience, the complication, and the thousand
-distractions of an over-civilised world. Rest and
-relaxation, the power of the deeply tinted eventide,
-or of the fresh morning light, and the calm
-that drinks in the sensations they are able to
-afford, are among the precious things of life.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>The instinct upon which Giorgione’s work rests
-is the satisfying of the feeling as well as the
-thinking faculty, the life of the heart, as compared
-to the life of the intellect, the solution of
-life’s problems by love instead of by thought.
-It was the Eastern ideal, and its positive expression
-is conveyed by means of colour, deep,
-restful, satisfying, fused and controlled by
-chiaroscuro rather than by form.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Man.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Buda-Pesth.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Man.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Castelfranco.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Madonna with SS. Francis and Liberale.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Sleeping Venus.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Trial of Moses (E.); Judgment of Solomon (E.); Knight of Malta.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">A Shepherd.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Roch and Anthony of Padua.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Fête Champêtre.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Portrait of a Lady.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Seminario: Apollo and Daphne.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Giovanelli: Gipsy and Soldier.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">San Rocco: Christ bearing Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Boston.</td> <td class="td5">Mrs. Gardner: Christ bearing Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Sketch of a Knight; Adoration of Shepherds.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Viscount Allendale: Adoration of Shepherds.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Evander showing Æneas the Future Site of Rome.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>THE GIORGIONESQUE</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Giorgione had given the impulse, and all the
-painters round him felt his power. The Venetian
-painters that is, for it is remarkable, at a
-time when the men of one city observed and
-studied and took hints from those of every other,
-how faint are the signs that this particular
-manner attracted any great attention in other
-art centres. Leonardo da Vinci was a master of
-chiaroscuro, but he used it only to express his
-forms, and never sacrifices to it the delicacy
-and fineness of his design. It is the one quality
-Raphael never assimilates, except for a brief
-instant at the period when Sebastian del Piombo
-had arrived in Rome from Venice. It takes hold
-most strongly upon Andrea del Sarto, who seems,
-significantly enough, to have had no very pronounced
-intellectual capacity, but in Venice itself
-it now became the only way. The old Bellini
-finds in it his last and fullest ideal; Catena,
-Basaiti, Cariani do their best to acquire it, and so
-successfully was it acquired, so congenial was it
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>to Venetian art, that even second- and third-rate
-Venetian painters have usually something attractive
-which triumphs over superficial and doubtful
-drawing and grouping. It is easy to see how
-much to their taste was this fused and golden
-manner, this disregard of defined form, and this
-new play of chiaroscuro. The Venetian room
-in the National Gallery is full of such examples:
-the Nymphs and <em>Amoretti</em> of No. 1695, charming
-figures against melting vines and olives; “Venus
-and Adonis,” in which a bewitching Cupid
-chases a butterfly; Lovers in a landscape, roaming
-in the summer twilight; scenes in which
-neither person nor scenery is a pretext for the
-other, but each has its full share in arousing the
-desired emotion. Such pictures are ascribed to,
-or taken from Giorgione by succeeding critics,
-but have all laid hold of his charm, and have
-some share in his inspiration.</p>
-
-<p>One of the ablest of his followers, a man whose
-work is still confounded with the master’s, is
-Cariani, the Bergamasque, who at different times
-in his life also successfully imitated Palma and
-Lotto. In his Giorgionesque manner Cariani often
-creates charming figures and strong portraits,
-though he pushes his colour to a coarse, excessive
-tone. His family group in the Roncalli Collection
-at Bergamo is very close to Giorgione. Seven
-persons, three women and four men, are grouped
-together upon a terrace, and behind them
-stretches a calm landscape, half concealed by a
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>brocaded hanging. The effect of the whole is
-restful, though it lacks Giorgione’s concentration
-of sensation. Then, again, Cariani flies off to the
-gayer, more animated style of Lotto. Later on,
-when he tries to reproduce Giorgione’s pastoral
-reveries, his shepherds and nymphs become mere
-peasants, herdsmen, and country wenches, who
-have nothing of the idyllic distinction which
-Giorgione never failed to infuse. “The
-Adulteress before Christ” at Glasgow still bears
-the greater name, but its short, vulgar figures
-and faulty composition disclaim his authorship,
-while Cariani is fully capable of such failings,
-and the exaggerated, red-brown tone is quite
-characteristic of him.</p>
-
-<p>These painters are more than merely imitative;
-they are also typical. Giorgione’s new manner
-had appealed to some quality inherent and
-hereditary in their nature, and the essential traits
-they single out and dwell upon are the traits
-which appeal equally to the instincts of both.
-It is this which makes their efforts more sympathetic
-than those of other second-rate painters.
-Colour, or rather the peculiar way in which
-Giorgione used colour, made a natural appeal to
-them, and it is a medium which does make an
-immediate appeal and covers a multitude of shortcomings.</p>
-
-<p>But Giorgione was not to leave his message
-to the mercy of mere disciples and imitators,
-however apt. Growing up around him were
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>men to whom that message was an inspiration
-and a trumpet-call, men who were to develop and
-deepen it, endowing it with their own strength,
-recognising that the way which the young
-pioneer of Castelfranco had pointed out was the
-one into which they could unhesitatingly pour
-their whole inclination. The instinct for colour
-was in their very blood. They turned to it with
-the heart-whole delight with which a bird seeks
-the air or a fish the water, and foremost among
-them, to create and to consolidate, was the
-mighty Titian.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Cariani.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Woman and Shepherd; Portraits; Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Morelli: Madonna (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Roncalli Collection: Family Group.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Adoration of Shepherds (L.); Venus (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Death of S. Peter Martyr (L.); Madonna and Saints (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna and Saints (L.); Madonna (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ambrosiana: Way to Golgotha.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.); Holy Family and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Sleeping Venus; Madonna and S. Peter.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Christ bearing Cross; The “Bravo.”</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>School of Giorgione.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Unknown subject; Adoration of Shepherds; Venus and Adonis;
- Landscape, with Nymphs and Cupids; The Garden of Love.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson. Lovers and Pilgrim.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>TITIAN</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>The mountains of Cadore are not always visible
-from Venice, but there they lie, behind the mists,
-and in the clear shining after rain, in the golden
-eventide of autumn, and on steel-cold winter
-days they stand out, lapis-lazuli blue or deep
-purple, or, like Shelley’s enchanted peaks, in
-sharp-cut, beautiful shapes rising above billowy
-slopes. Cadore is a land of rich chestnut woods,
-of leaping streams, of gleams and glooms, sudden
-storms and bursts of sunshine. It is an order of
-scenery which enters deep into the affections of
-its sons, and we can form some idea of the hold
-its mingling of wild poetry and sensuous softness
-obtained over the mind of Titian from the fact
-that in after years, while he never exerts himself
-to paint the city in which he lived and in which
-all his greatest triumphs were gained, he is uniformly
-constant to his mountain home, enters
-into its spirit and interprets its charm with warm
-and penetrating insight.</p>
-
-<p>The district formed part of the dependencies
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>of the great republic, and relied upon Venice for
-its safety, its distinction, and in great measure
-for its employment. The small craftsmen and
-artists from all the country round looked forward
-to going down to seek their fortune at her hands.
-They tacked the name of their native town to
-their own name, and were drawn into the
-magnificent life of the city of the sea, and came
-back from time to time with stories of her art,
-her power, and beauty.</p>
-
-<p>The Vecelli had for generations held honourable
-posts in Cadore. The father and grandfather
-of the young Tiziano were influential
-men, and with his brother and sisters he must
-have been brought up in comfort. There are
-even traditions of noble birth, and it is evident
-that Titian was always a gentleman, though this
-did not prevent his being educated as a craftsman,
-and when he was only ten years old he
-was sent down to Venice to be apprenticed to
-a mosaicist.</p>
-
-<p>It was a changing Venice to which Titian
-came as a boy; changing in its life, its social
-and political conditions, and its art was faithfully
-registering its aspirations and tastes. More
-than at any previous time, it was calculated
-to impress a youth to whom it had been held up
-as the embodiment of splendid sovereignty, and
-the difference between the little hill-town set in
-the midst of its wild solitudes and the brilliant
-city of the sea must have been dazzling and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>bewildering. A new sense of intellectual luxury
-had awakened in the great commercial centre.
-The Venetian love of splendour was displaying
-itself by the encouragement and collection of
-objects of art, and both ancient and modern
-works were in increasing request. On Gentile
-Bellini’s and Carpaccio’s canvases we see the sort
-of people the Venetians were, shrewd, quiet,
-splendour-loving, but business-like, the young
-men fashionably dressed, fastidious connoisseurs,
-splendid patrons of art and of religion. Buyers
-were beginning to find out what a delightful
-decoration the small picture made, and that it
-was as much in place in their own halls as over
-the altar of a chapel. The portrait, too, was
-gaining in importance, and the idea of making it
-a pleasure-giving picture, even more than a faithful
-transcript, was gathering ground. The
-“Procession of the Relic” was still in Gentile’s
-studio, but the Frari “Madonna and Child”
-was just installed in its place. Carpaccio was
-beginning his long series of St. Ursula, and the
-Bellini and Vivarini were in keen rivalship.</p>
-
-<p>Titian is said to have passed from the <em>bottega</em>
-of Gentile to that of Giovanni Bellini, but
-nothing in his style reminds us of the former,
-and even his early work has very little that is
-really Bellinesque, whereas from the very first
-he reflects the new spirit which emanated from
-Giorgione. Titian was a year the elder, and
-we can divine the sympathy that arose between
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>the two when they came together in Bellini’s
-School. As soon as their apprenticeship was at
-an end they became partners. Fond of pleasure
-and gaiety, loving splendour, dress, and amusement,
-they were naturally congenial companions,
-and were drawn yet more closely together by
-their love for their art and by the aptitude with
-which Titian grasped Giorgione’s principles.</p>
-
-<p>And if we ask ourselves why we take for
-granted that of two young men so closely allied
-in age and circumstance we accept Giorgione
-as the leader and the creator of the new style,
-we may answer that Titian was a more complex
-character. He was intellectual, and carried his
-intellect into his art, but this was no new
-feature. The intellect had had and was having
-a large share in art. But in that part which was
-new, and which was launching art upon an
-untried course, Giorgione is more intense, more
-one-idea’d than Titian. What he does he does
-with a fervour and a spontaneity that marks him
-as one who pours out the language of the heart.</p>
-
-<p>The partnership between the two was probably
-arranged a few years before the end of the
-century, for we have seen that young painters
-usually started on their own account at about
-nineteen or twenty. For some years Titian, like
-Giorgione, was engrossed by the decorations of
-the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The groups of
-figures described by Zanetti in 1771 show us
-that while Giorgione made some attempt at
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>following classic figures, Titian broke entirely
-with Greek art and only thought of picturesque
-nature and contemporary costume.</p>
-
-<p>Vasari complains that he never knew what
-Titian’s “Judith” was meant to represent,
-“unless it was Germania,” but Zanetti, who had
-the benefit of Sebastiano Ricci’s taste, declares
-that from what he saw, both Giorgione and
-Titian gave proofs of remarkable skill. “While
-Giorgione showed a fervid and original spirit
-and opened up a new path, over which he shed
-a light that was to guide posterity, Titian was
-of a grander and more equable genius, leaning
-at first, indeed, upon Giorgione’s example, but
-expanding with such force and rapidity as to
-place him in advance of his companion, on an
-eminence to which no later craftsman was
-able to climb.... He moderated the fire of
-Giorgione, whose strength lay in fanciful movement
-and a mysterious artifice in disposing
-shadows, contrasted darkly with warm lights,
-blended, strengthened, blurred, so as to produce
-the semblance of exuberant life.” Certain works
-remain to link the two painters; even now
-critics are divided as to which of the two to
-attribute the “Concert” in the Pitti. The
-figures are Giorgionesque, but the technique
-establishes it as an early Titian, and it is doubtful
-whether Giorgione would be capable of the
-intellectual effort which produced the dreamy,
-passionate expression of the young monk, borne
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>far out of himself by his own melody, and half
-recalled to life by the touch on his shoulder.
-Titian, like Giorgione, was a musician, and the
-fascination of music is felt by many masters
-of the Italian schools. In one picture the player
-feels vaguely after the melody, in another we are
-asked to anticipate the song that is just about
-to begin, or the last chords of that just finished
-vibrate upon the ear, but nowhere else in all art
-has any one so seized the melody of an instant
-and kept its fulness and its passion sounding in
-our ears as this musician does.</p>
-
-<p>Though we cannot say that Titian was the
-pupil of any one master, the fifteen years, more
-or less, that he spent with Giorgione left an
-indelible impression upon him. We have only
-to look at such a picture as the “Madonna and
-Child with SS. John Baptist and Antony Abate,”
-in the Uffizi, an early work, to recollect that
-in 1503 Giorgione at Castelfranco had taken
-the Madonna from her niche in the sanctuary
-and had enthroned her on high in a bright
-and sunny landscape with S. Liberale standing
-sentinel at her feet, like a knight guarding his
-liege lady.</p>
-
-<p>Titian in this early group casts every convention
-aside; a beautiful woman and lovely
-children are placed in surroundings whose charm
-is devoid of hieratic and religious significance.
-The same easy unfettered treatment appears in
-the “Madonna with the Cherries” at Vienna,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>and the “Madonna with St. Bridget and S.
-Ulfus” at Madrid, and while it has been surmised
-that the example of the precise Albert
-Dürer, who paid his first visit to Venice in
-1506, was not without its effect in preserving
-Titian from falling into laxity of treatment and
-in inciting him to fine finish, it is interesting
-to find that Titian was, in fact, discarding
-the use of the carefully traced and transferred
-cartoon, and was sketching his design freely on
-panel or canvas with a brush dipped in brown
-pigment, and altering and modifying it as he
-went on.</p>
-
-<p>The last years of Titian’s first period in
-Venice must have been anxious ones. The
-Emperor Maximilian was attacking the Venetian
-possessions on the mainland, in anger at a refusal
-to grant his troops a free passage on their way
-to uphold German supremacy in Central Italy.
-Cadore was the first point of his invasion, and
-from 1507 Titian’s uncle and great-uncle were
-in the Councils of the State, his father held an
-important command, and his brother Francesco,
-who had already made some progress as an
-artist, threw down his brush and became a
-soldier. Titian was not one of those who took
-up arms, but his thoughts must have been full
-of the attack and defence in his mountain
-fastnesses, and he must have anxiously awaited
-news of his father’s troops and of the squadrons
-of Maso of Ferrara, under whose colours
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>Francesco was riding. Francesco made a reputation
-as a distinguished soldier, and was severely
-wounded, and when peace was made, Titian,
-“who loved him tenderly,” persuaded him to
-return to the pursuit of art.</p>
-
-<p>The ratification of the League of Cambray, in
-which Julius II., Maximilian, and Ferdinand of
-Naples combined against the power of Venice, was
-disastrous for a time to the city and to the artists
-who depended upon her prosperity. Craftsmen
-of all kinds first fled to her for shelter, then, as
-profits and orders fell off, they left to look elsewhere
-for commissions. An outbreak of plague,
-in which Giorgione perished, went further to
-make Venice an undesirable home, and at this
-time Sebastian del Piombo left for Rome, Lotto
-for the Romagna, and Titian for Padua.</p>
-
-<p>We may believe that Titian never felt
-perfectly satisfied with fresco-painting as a craft,
-for when he was given a commission to fresco
-the halls of the Santo, the confraternity of
-St. Anthony, patron-saint of Padua, he threw off
-beautifully composed and spirited drawings, but
-he left the execution of them chiefly to assistants,
-among whom the feeble Domenico Campagnola,
-a painter whom he probably picked up at Padua,
-is conspicuous. Even where the landscape is
-best, as in “S. Anthony restoring a Youth,” the
-drawing and composition only make us feel how
-enchanting the scene would have been in oils
-on one of Titian’s melting canvases. In those
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>frescoes which he executed himself while his
-interest was still fresh, the “Miracle which
-grants Speech to an Infant” is the most Giorgionesque.
-Up to this time he had preserved the
-straight-cut corsage and the actual dress of his
-contemporaries, after the practice of Giorgione;
-he keeps, too, to his companion’s plan of design,
-placing the most important figures upon one
-plane, close to the frame and behind a low wall
-or ledge which forms a sort of inner frame and
-with a distant horizon. In the Paduan frescoes
-he makes use of this plan, and the straight
-clouds, the spindly trees, and the youths in gay
-doublets are all reminiscent of his early comrade,
-but the group of women to the left in the
-“Miracle of the Child” shows that Titian is
-beginning more decidedly to enunciate his own
-type. The introduction of portraits proves that
-he was tending to rely largely upon nature, in
-contradistinction to Giorgione’s lyrically improvised
-figures. He fuses the influence of
-Giorgione and the influence of Antonello da
-Messina and the Bellini in a deeper knowledge
-of life and nature, and he is passing beyond
-Giorgione in grasp and completeness. When
-he was able to return to Venice, which he did in
-1512, a temporary peace having been concluded
-with Maximilian, he abandoned the uncongenial
-medium of fresco for good, and devoted himself
-to that which admitted of the afterthoughts,
-the enrichments, the gradual attainment of an
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>exquisite surface, and at this time his works are
-remarkable for their brilliant gloss and finish.</p>
-
-<p>During the next twelve years we may group
-a number of paintings which, taken in conjunction
-with those of Giorgione, show the
-true Venetian School at its most intense, idyllic
-moment. They are the works of a man in the
-pride of youth and strength, sane and healthy,
-an example of the confident, sanguine, joyous
-temper of his age, capable of embodying its
-dominant tendencies, of expressing its enjoyment
-of life, its worldly-mindedness, its love of
-pleasure, as well as its noble feeling and its
-grave and magnificent purpose.</p>
-
-<p>For absolute delight in colour let us turn to
-a picture like the “Noli me tangere” of the
-National Gallery. The golden light, the blues
-and olives of the landscape, the crimson of the
-Magdalen’s raiment, combine in a feast of
-emotional beauty, emphasising the feeling of
-the woman, whose soul is breathed out in the
-word “Master.” The colour unites with the
-light and shadow, is embedded in it; and we
-can see Titian’s delight in the ductile medium
-which had such power to give material sensation.
-In these liquid crimsons, these deep greens and
-shoaling blues, the velvety fulness and plenitudes
-of the brush become visible; we can look into
-their depths and see something quite unlike the
-smooth, opaque washes of the Florentines.</p>
-
-<p>In such a masterpiece as “Sacred and Profane
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>Love,” painted during these years for the Borghese,
-there are summed up all those artistic aims
-towards which the Venetian painters had been
-tending. The picture is still Giorgionesque in
-mood. It may represent, as Dr. Wickhoff
-suggests, Venus exhorting Medea to listen to the
-love-suit of Jason; but the subject is not forced
-upon us, and we are more occupied with the
-contrast between the two beautiful personalities,
-so harmoniously related to each other, yet so
-opposed in type. The gracious, self-absorbed
-lady, with her softly dressed hair, her loose glove,
-her silvery satin dress, is a contrast in look and
-spirit to the goddess whose free, simple attitude
-and outward gaze embody the nobler ideal. The
-sinuous and enchanting line of Venus’s figure
-against the crimson cloak has, I think, been the
-outcome of admiration for Giorgione’s “Sleeping
-Venus,” and has the same soft, unhurried curves.
-Titian’s two figures are perfectly spaced in a
-setting which breathes the very aroma of the
-early Renaissance. A bas-relief on the marble
-fountain represents nymphs whipping a sleeping
-Love to life, while a cupid teases the
-chaste unicorn. A delicious baby Love splashes
-in the water, fallen rose-leaves strew the
-mellow marble rim, around and away stretches
-a sunny country scene, in which people are
-placidly pursuing a life of ease and pleasure.
-What a revelation to Venice these pictures were
-which began with Giorgione’s conversaziones!
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>How little occupied the women are with the
-story. Venus does not argue, or check off reasons
-on her fingers, like S. Ursula. Medea is listening
-to her own thoughts, but the whole scene
-is bathed in the suggestion of the joy and
-happiness of love. The little censer burning
-away in the blue and breathless air might be a
-philtre diffusing sensuous dreams, and when the
-rays of the evening sun strike the picture,
-where it now hangs, and bring out each touch
-of its glowing radiance, it seems to palpitate
-with the joy of life and to thrill with the
-magic of summer in the days when the world
-was young.</p>
-
-<p>With the influence still lingering of Giorgione’s
-“Knight of Malta,” Titian produced some of his
-finest portraits in the decade that led to the
-middle of his life. The “Dr. Parma” at Vienna,
-the noble “Man in Black” and “Man with a
-Glove” of the Louvre, the “Young Englishman”
-of the Pitti, with his keen blue eyes, the
-portrait at Temple Newsam, which, with some
-critics, still passes as a Giorgione, are all examples
-in which he keeps the half-length, invented by
-Bellini and followed by Giorgione.</p>
-
-<p>After the visit to Padua he shows less preference
-for costume, and his women are generally
-clothed in a loose white chemise, rather than
-the square-cut bodice.</p>
-
-<p>We do not wonder that all the leading
-personages of Italy wished to be painted by
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>Titian. His are the portraits of a man of
-intellect. They show the subject at his best;
-grave, cultivated, stately, as he appeared and
-wished to appear; not taken off his guard in
-any way. What can be more sympathetic as a
-personality than the Ariosto of the National
-Gallery? We can enter into his mind and make
-a friend of him, and yet all the time he has
-himself in hand; he allows us to divine as much
-as he chooses, and draws a thin veil over all that
-he does not intend us to discover. The painter
-himself is impersonal and not over-sensitive; he
-does not paint in his own fancies about his
-sitter—probably he had none; he saw what he was
-meant to see. There was what Mr. Berenson
-calls “a certain happy insensibility” about him,
-which prevented him from taking fantastic
-flights, or from looking too deep below the
-surface.</p>
-
-<p><a name="aris" id="aris"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;">
-<img src="images/img191.jpg" width="428" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Titian.</em> ARIOSTO. <em>London.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Mansell and Co.</em>)</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>TITIAN</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p>
-
-
-<p>With the “Assumption,” finished in 1518 for
-the Church of the Frari, Titian rose to the
-very highest among Renaissance painters. The
-“Glorious S. Mary” was his theme, and he
-concentrated all his efforts on the realisation of
-that one idea. The central figure is, as it
-were, a collective rather than an individual
-type. Well proportioned and elastic as it is,
-it has the abundance of motherhood. Harmonious
-and serene, it combines dramatic force and
-profound feeling. Exultant Humanity, in its
-hour of triumph, rises with her, borne up lightly
-by that throbbing company of child angels and
-followed by full recognition and awestruck satisfaction
-in the adoring gaze of the throng below,
-yet Titian has contrived to keep some touch of
-the loving woman hurrying to meet her son.
-The flood of colour, the golden vault above, the
-garment of glowing blues and crimsons, have
-a more than common share in that spirit of
-confident joy and poured-out life which envelops
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>the whole canvas. In the worthy representation
-of a great event, the visible assumption of
-Humanity to the Throne of God, Titian puts
-forth all his powers and steeps us in that temper
-of sanguine emotion, of belief in life and confidence
-in the capacity of man, which was so
-characteristic of the ripe Renaissance. In looking
-at this splendid canvas, we must call to
-mind the position for which Titian painted it.
-Hung in the dusky recesses of the apse, it was
-tempered by and merged in its stately surroundings.
-The band of Apostles almost formed
-a part of the whispering crowd below, and the
-glorious Mother was beheld soaring upwards to
-the golden light and the mysterious vistas of
-the vaulted arches above.</p>
-
-<p>The patronage of courts had by this time
-altered the tenor of Titian’s life. In 1516
-Duke Alfonso d’Este had invited him to Ferrara,
-where he had finished Bellini’s “Bacchanals.”
-It bears the marks of Titian’s hand, and he has
-introduced a well-known point of view at Cadore
-into the background. In 1518 Alfonso writes
-to propose another painting, and Titian’s acceptance
-is contained in a very courtier-like letter,
-in which we divine a touch of irony. “The
-more I thought of it,” he ends, “the more I
-became convinced that the greatness of art
-among the ancients was due to the assistance
-they received from great princes, who were
-content to leave to the painter the credit and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>renown derived from their own ingenuity in
-bespeaking pictures.” Alfonso’s requirements
-for his new castle were frankly pagan. Mythological
-scenes were already popular. Mantegna
-had adorned Isabela d’Este’s “Paradiso” with
-revels of the gods, Botticelli had given his conception
-of classic myth in the Medici villa, already
-Bellini had essayed a Bacchanal, and Titian was
-to make designs for similar scenes to complete
-the decorations of the halls of Este. The same
-exuberant feeling he shows in the “Assumption”
-finds utterance in the “Garden of Loves” and
-the “Bacchanals,” both painted for Alfonso of
-Ferrara. The children in the former may be
-compared with the angels in the “Assumption.”
-Their blue wings match the heavenly blue sky,
-and they are painted with the most delicate finish.</p>
-
-<p>We can imagine the beauty of the great
-hall at Ferrara when hung with this brilliant
-series, which was completed in 1523 by the
-“Bacchus and Ariadne” of the National Gallery.
-The whole company of bacchanals is given up
-to wanton merrymaking. Above them broods
-the deep blue sky and great white clouds of a
-summer day. The deep greens of the foliage
-throw the creamy-white and burning colour of
-the draperies and the fair forms of the nymphs
-into glowing relief, while by a convention
-the satyrs are of a deep, tawny complexion.
-On a roll of music is stamped the rollicking
-device, “<em>Chi boit et ne reboit, ne sçeais que boir soit</em>.”
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>The purple fruit hangs ripened from the vines,
-its crimson juice shines like a jewel in crystal
-goblets and drips in streams over rosy limbs.
-The influence of such pictures as these was
-absorbed by Rubens, but though they hardly
-surpass him in colour, they are more idyllic and
-less coarse. The perfect taste of the Renaissance
-is never shown more victoriously than here,
-where indulgence ceases to be repulsive, and the
-actors are real flesh and blood, yet more Arcadian
-than revolting. In the “Bacchus and Ariadne,”
-Titian gives triumphant expression to a mood
-of wild rejoicing, so gay, so good-tempered, so
-simple, that we must smile in sympathy. The
-conqueror flinging himself from his golden
-chariot drawn by panthers, his deep red mantle
-fluttering on high, is so full of reckless life that
-our spirit bounds with him. His rioting band,
-marching with song and laughter, seems to
-people that golden country-side with fit inhabitants.
-The careless satyrs and little merry,
-goat-legged fauns shock us no more than a herd
-of forest ponies, tossing their manes and dashing
-along for love of life and movement.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Yet almost
-before this series was put in place Titian was
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>showing the diversity of his genius by the
-“Deposition,” now in the Louvre, which was
-painted at the instance of the Gonzaga, Marquis
-of Mantua and nephew of Alfonso d’Este. Here
-he makes a great step in the use of chiaroscuro.
-While it is satisfying in balance and sweeping
-rhythm, and by the way in which every line
-follows and intensifies the helpless, slackened
-lines of the dead Body, it escapes Raphael’s
-academic treatment of the same subject. Its
-splendid colours are not noisy; they merge into
-a scene of solemn pathos and tragedy. The
-scene has a simplicity and unity in its passion,
-and what above all gives it its intense power is
-the way in which the flaming hues are absorbed
-into the twilight shadows. The dark heads
-stand out against the dying sunset, the pallor
-of the dead is half veiled by the falling night.
-It is a picture which has the emotional beauty
-of a scene in nature, and makes a profound
-impression by its depth and mystery. This
-same solemnity and gravity temper the brilliant
-colouring of the great altarpiece painted for
-the Pesaro family in the Frari. Columns rise
-like great tree-trunks, light and air play through
-the clouds seen between them. The grouping
-is a new experiment, but the way in which
-the Mother and Child, though placed quite at
-one side of the picture, are focussed as the
-centre of interest, by the converging lines,
-diagonal on the one hand and straight on the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>other, crowns it with success. The scheme of
-colour brings the two figures into high relief,
-while St. Francis and the family of the donor
-are subordinated to rich, deep tints. Titian has
-abandoned, more completely than ever before,
-any attempt to invest the Child with supernatural
-majesty. He is a delightful, spoiled baby, fully
-aware of his sovereignty over his mother, pretending
-to take no notice of the kneeling suppliants,
-but occupying himself in making a tent
-over his head out of her veil. The “Madonna
-in Glory with six Saints” of the Vatican is
-another example of the rich and “smouldering”
-colour in which Titian was now creating his great
-altarpieces, kneading his pigments into a quality,
-a solidity, which gives reality without heaviness,
-and finishing with that fine-grained texture
-which makes his flesh look like marble endowed
-with life.</p>
-
-<p><a name="diana" id="diana"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img198.jpg" width="550" height="492" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Titian.</em> DIANA AND ACTAEON. <em>Earl Brownlow.</em><br />
-(<em>The Medici Society, Ltd.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>Venuses, altarpieces, and portraits all tell us
-how boldly his own style was established. His
-sacred persons are not different from his pagans
-and goddesses. Yet though he has gone far, he
-still reminds us of Giorgione. He has been
-constant to the earliest influences which
-surrounded him, and to that temperament which
-made him accept those influences so
-instantaneously—and this constancy and unity give
-him the untroubled ascendancy over art which
-is such a feature of his position.</p>
-
-<p>With Leonardo and with Titian, painters had
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>sprung to a recognised status in the great world
-of the Renaissance. They were no longer the
-patronised craftsmen. They had become the
-courted guests, the social equals. Titian, passing
-from the courts of Ferrara to those of Mantua
-and Urbino, attended by a band of assistants,
-was a magnificent personage, whose presence
-was looked upon as a favour, and who undertook
-a commission as one who conferred a coveted
-boon. Among those who clustered closest round
-the popular favourite, no one did more to
-enhance his position than Aretino, the brilliant
-unscrupulous debauchee, wit, bully, blackmailer,
-but a man who, with all his faults, had evidently
-his own power of fascination, and, the friend of
-princes, must have been himself the prince of
-good company. Aretino, as far as he could be
-said to be attached to any one, was consistent in
-his attachment to Titian from the time they
-first met at the court of the Gonzaga. He
-played the part of a chorus, calling attention to
-the great painter’s merits, jogging the memory
-of his employers as to payments, and never
-ceasing to flatter, amuse, and please him. Titian,
-for his part, shows himself equally devoted to
-Aretino’s interests, and has left various characteristic
-portraits of him, handsome and showy in
-his prime, sensual and depraved as age overtook
-him.</p>
-
-<p>In the spring of 1528 the confraternity of
-St. Peter Martyr invited artists to send in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>sketches for an altarpiece to their patron-saint,
-in SS. Giovanni and Paolo, to replace an old one
-by Jacobello del Fiore. Palma Vecchio and
-Pordenone also competed, but Titian carried off
-the prize. The picture was delivered in 1530,
-and during the autumn of 1529 Sebastian del
-Piombo had returned to Venice from Rome, and
-Michelangelo had sought refuge there from
-Florence and had stayed for some months. A
-quarrel with the monks over the price had delayed
-the picture, so that it may quite probably have
-only been begun after intercourse with the
-Roman visitors had given a fresh turn to Titian’s
-ideas; for though he never ceases to be himself,
-it certainly seems as if the genius of Michelangelo
-had had some effect. From what we
-know of the altarpiece, which perished by fire
-in 1867, but of which a good copy by Cigoli
-remains, Titian embarked suddenly upon forms
-of Herculean strength in violent action, but
-there his likeness to the Florentine ended;
-the figures were, indeed, drawn with a deep,
-though not altogether successful, attention to
-anatomy and foreshortening, but the picture
-obtained its effect and derived its impressiveness
-from the setting in which the figures were
-placed—the great trees, bending and straining,
-the hurrying clouds, as if nature were in
-portentous harmony with the sinister deed, and
-overhead the enchanting gleam of light which
-shot downward and irradiated the face of the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>martyr and the two lovely winged boys, bathed
-in a flood of blue æther, who held aloft the palm
-of victory. Many copies of it remain, and we
-only regret that one which Rubens executed is
-not preserved among them.</p>
-
-<p>When we look at the delicious “Madonna del
-Coniglio” in the Louvre and our own “Marriage
-of S. Catherine,” the first of which certainly, and
-the second probably, was painted about this time,
-we cannot doubt that the charm of the idea
-of motherhood had particularly arrested the
-painter. About 1525 his first son, Pomponio,
-was born, and was followed by another son and
-a daughter. In the S. Catherine he paints that
-passion of mother-love with an intensity and
-reality that can only be drawn from life, and
-on the wheel at her feet he has inscribed his
-name, Ticianus, F. His feeling for landscape is
-increasing, and the landscape in these pictures
-equals the figures in importance and has engrossed
-the painter quite as much. Every year
-Titian paid a visit to Cadore, and in the rich
-woodlands, the distant villages, the great white
-villa on the hill-side, and, above all, in the far-off
-blue mountains and the glooms and gleams of
-storm and sunshine, the sudden dart of rays
-through the summer clouds, which he has
-painted here, we see how constant was his study
-of his native country, and how profoundly he
-felt its poetry and its charm. He had married
-Cecilia, the daughter of a barber belonging to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>Perarolo, a little town near Cadore. In 1530
-she died, and he mourned her deeply. He
-went on working and planning for his children’s
-future, and his sister came from Cadore to take
-charge of the motherless household; but his
-friends’ letters speak of his being ill from melancholy,
-and he could not go on living in the
-old house at San Samuele, which had been his
-home for sixteen years. He took a new house
-on the north side of the city, in the parish of
-San Canciano. The Casa Grande, as it was
-called, was a building of importance, which the
-painter first hired and finally bought, letting off
-such apartments as he did not need. The first
-floor had a terrace, and was entered by a flight
-of steps from the garden, which overlooked the
-lagoons, and had a view of the Cadore mountains.
-It has been swept away by the building of the
-Fondamenta Nuove, but the documents of the
-leases are preserved, and the exact site is well
-established. Here his children grew up, and he
-worked for them unceasingly. Pomponio, his
-eldest son, was idle and extravagant, a constant
-source of trouble, and Aretino writes him reproachful
-letters, which he treats with much
-impertinence. Orazio took to his father’s profession,
-and was his constant companion, and often
-drew his cartoons; and his beautiful daughter,
-Lavinia, was his greatest joy and pride. In this
-house Titian showed constant hospitality, and
-there are records of the princely fashion in which
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>he entertained his friends and distinguished
-foreign visitors. Priscianese, a well-known
-Humanist and <em>savant</em> of the day, describes a
-Bacchanalian feast on the 1st of August, in a
-pleasant garden belonging to Messer Tiziano
-Vecellio. Aretino, Sansovino, and Jacopo Nardi
-were present. Till the sun set they stayed indoors,
-admiring the artist’s pictures. “As soon as
-it went down, the tables were spread, looking on
-the lagoons, which soon swarmed with gondolas
-full of beautiful women, and resounded with
-music of voices and instruments, which till
-midnight, accompanied our delightful supper.
-Titian gave the most delicate viands and precious
-wines, and the supper ended gaily.”</p>
-
-<p>In the year 1532 Titian for the first time
-sought other than Italian patronage. Charles V.,
-who was then at the height of his power, with
-all Italy at his feet, passed through Mantua,
-and among all the treasures that he saw was
-most struck by Titian’s portrait of Federigo
-Gonzaga. After much writing to and fro, it was
-arranged that Titian should meet the Emperor
-at Bologna, where he had just been crowned.
-He made his first sketch of him, from which he
-afterwards produced a finished full length. It
-was the first of many portraits, and Vasari declares
-that from that time forth Charles would never sit
-to any other master. He received a knighthood,
-and many commissions from members of the
-Emperor’s court. It was for one of his nobles,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>da Valos, Marquis of Vasto, that he painted the
-allegorical piece in the Louvre, in which Mary
-of Arragon, the lovely wife of da Valos, is
-parting with her husband, who is bound on one
-of the desperate expeditions against the terrible
-Turks. Da Valos is dressed in armour, and the
-couple are encircled by Hymen, Victory, and
-the God of Love. The composition was repeated
-more than once, but never with quite the same
-success. We again suspect the influence of
-Michelangelo in the altarpiece painted before
-Titian next left Venice, of St. John the Almsgiver,
-for the Church of that name, of which the Doge
-was patron. The figures are life-size, the types
-stern and rugged, daringly foreshortened, and
-the colours, though gorgeous, are softened and
-broken by broad effects of light and shade. It
-is painted in a solemn mood, a contrast to that
-in which about this time he produced a series of
-beautiful female portraits, nude or semi-nude,
-chiefly, it would appear, at the instance of the
-Duke of Urbino. The Duke at this time was
-the General-in-Chief of the Venetian forces, a
-position which took him often to Venice, and
-Titian’s relations with him lasted till the painter’s
-death. At least twenty-five of his works must
-have adorned the castles of Urbino and Pesaro.
-Among these were the Venus of the Uffizi, “La
-Bella di Tiziano,” in her gorgeous scheme of
-blue and amethyst, the “Girl in a Fur Cloak,”
-besides portraits of the Duke and Duchess. It
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>would be impossible to enumerate here the
-numbers of portraits which Titian was now
-supplying. The reputation he had acquired,
-not only in Italy, but in Spain, France, and
-Germany, was greater than had ever been attained
-by any painter, while his social position was
-established among the highest in every court.
-“He had rivals in Venice,” says Vasari,
-“but none that he did not crush by his
-excellence and knowledge of the world in
-converse with gentlemen.” There is not a
-writer of the day who does not acclaim his
-genius. Titian was undoubtedly very fond of
-money, and had amassed a good fortune. He
-was constantly asking for favours, and had
-pensions and allowances from royal patrons.
-Lavinia, when she married, brought her husband
-a dowry of 1400 ducats. He had painted the
-portraits of the Doges with tolerable regularity,
-but all through his life complaints were heard of
-his neglect of the work of the Hall of Grand
-Council. Occupied as he was with the work of his
-foreign patrons, he had systematically neglected
-the conditions enjoined by his possession of a
-Broker’s patent, and the Signoria suddenly called
-on him to refund the salary amounting to over
-100 ducats a year, for the twenty years during
-which he had drawn it without performing his
-promise, while they prepared to instal Pordenone,
-who had lately appeared as his bitter rival, in
-his stead. Though Titian must have been
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>making large sums of money at this time, his
-expenses were heavy, and he could not calmly face
-the obligation to repay such a sum as 2000 ducats
-at the same time that he lost the annual salary,
-nor was it pleasant to be ousted by a second-rate
-rival. His easy remedy was, however, in his
-own hands; he set to work and soon completed
-a great canvas of the “Battle of Cadore,” which,
-though it is only known to us from a contemporary
-print and a drawing by Rubens,
-evidently deserved Vasari’s verdict of being the
-finest battlepiece ever placed in the hall. The
-movement and stir he contrives to give with a
-small number of figures is astonishing. The
-fortress burns upon the hill-side, a regiment
-advancing with lances and pennons produces the
-illusion that it is the vanguard of a great army, the
-desperate conflict by the narrow bridge realises
-all the terrors of war. It was an atonement for
-his long period of neglect, but it was not till
-<ins class="translit" title="Pordenone died in 1539">1439</ins> that, Pordenone having suddenly died, the
-Signoria relented and reinstated Titian in his
-Broker’s patent. One of his later paintings for the
-State still keeps its place, “The Triumph of
-Faith,” in which Doge Grimani, a splendid, steel-clad
-form with flowing mantle, kneels before the
-angelic apparition of Faith, who holds a cross,
-which angels and cherubs help her to support.
-Beneath the clouds are seen the Venetian fleet, the
-Ducal Palace, and the Campanile. It is an allegory
-of Grimani’s life; his defeat and captivity
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>are symbolised by the cross and chalice, and the
-magnificent figure of St. Mark with the lion is
-introduced to show that the Doge believes himself
-to owe his freedom to the saint’s intercession.
-The prophet and standard-bearer at the sides
-were added by Marco Vecellio.</p>
-
-<p>Though the battlepiece perished in the fire
-of 1577, another masterpiece of this time marks
-a climax in Titian’s brilliantly coloured and
-highly finished style. The “Presentation of the
-Virgin” was painted for the refectory of the
-Confraternity of the Carità, which was housed in
-the building now used as the Academy, so that
-the picture remains in the place for which it
-was executed. It is one of the most vivid and
-life-like of all his works. The composition is
-the traditional one; the fifteen steps of the
-“Gospel of Mary,” the High Priest of the old
-dispensation welcoming the childish representative
-of the new. Below is a great crowd, but
-it is this little figure which first attracts the
-eye. The contrast between the mass of architecture
-and the free and glowing country beyond
-is not without meaning, and a broken Roman
-torso, lying neglected on the ground, symbolises
-the downfall of the Pagan Empire. The flight
-of steps, with the figure sitting below them, is an
-idea borrowed from Carpaccio, and perhaps taken
-by him from the sketch-book of Jacopo Bellini.
-The men on the left are portraits of members and
-patrons of the confraternity. Most Titianesque
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>are the beautiful women in rich dresses at the
-foot of the steps. In this stately composition
-we see what is often noticeable in Titian’s
-scenes; he brings in the bystanders after the
-manner of a Greek chorus. They all, with one
-accord, express the same sentiment. There is a
-certain acceptation of the obvious in Titian, a
-vein of simplicity flows through his nature. He
-has not the sensitive and subtle search after the
-motives of humanity which we find in Tintoretto
-or Lotto. He has great intellectual power, but
-not great imagination. It is a temper which
-helps to keep the unity, the monumental quality
-of his scenes undisturbed and adds to their effect.
-In the “Ecce Homo” Christ is shown to the
-populace by Pilate, who with dubious compliment
-is a portrait of Aretino, and the contrast of
-the lonely, broken-down man with the crowd
-which, with all its lower instincts let loose,
-thunders back the cry of “Crucify Him,” is the
-more dramatic because of the unanimous spirit
-which possesses the raging multitude. Other
-artists would have given more incidental byplay,
-and drawn off our attention from the main issue.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>TITIAN</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p>
-
-
-<p>While Titian was executing portraits of the
-Doges, of Aretino and of Isabella of Portugal,
-and of himself and his daughter Lavinia, he
-was also striking out a new line in the ceiling
-pictures for the Church of San Spirito, which
-have since been transferred to the Salute.
-Though painted before his journey to Rome,
-it may be suspected that he had Michelangelo’s
-work in the Sixtine Chapel in mind, and that
-he was setting himself the task of bold foreshortening
-and technical problems. The daring
-of the conception is great, yet we feel sure that
-this is not Titian’s element; his figures in violent
-movement give a vivid idea of strength and muscular
-force, but fail both in grace and drawing,
-and though the colour and light and shade distract
-our attention from defects of form, he does
-not possess that mastery over the flowing silhouette
-which Tintoretto attained.</p>
-
-<p>It was in 1543 that his relations with the
-Farnese, whose young cardinal he had been
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>painting, drew him at last to Rome. Leo X.
-had tried to attract him there without success,
-but now at sixty-eight he found himself as far
-on the road as Urbino. His son Orazio was
-with him, and Duke Guidobaldo was himself
-his escort, and sent him on with a band of
-men-at-arms from Pesaro. He was received in
-Rome by Cardinal Bembo; Paul III. gave him
-a cordial welcome and Vasari was appointed
-his cicerone. It is interesting to inquire what
-impression Rome, with its treasures of antique
-statuary and contemporary painting, made upon
-Titian. “He is filled with wonder and glad
-that he came,” writes Bembo. In a letter to
-Aretino he regrets that he had not come before.
-He stayed eight months in Rome, and was made
-a Roman citizen. He visits the Stanze of
-Raphael in company with Sebastian del Piombo,
-and Michelangelo comes to see him at his
-lodgings, and he receives a long letter from
-Aretino advising him to compare Michelangelo
-with Raphael, and Sansovino and Bramante with
-the sculptors and architects of antiquity. Titian
-was well established in his own style, and was
-received as the creator of acknowledged masterpieces,
-and he never painted a more magnificent
-portrait-piece than that of Paul III., the peevish
-old Pope, ailing and humorous, suspicious of the
-two nephews who are painted with him, and
-who he guessed to be conspiring against him.
-The characteristic attitude of the old man of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>eighty, bent down in his chair, his quick,
-irritable glance, the steady, determined gaze of
-the cardinal, the obsequious attitude and weak,
-wily face of Ottavio Farnese are all immortalised
-in a broader, more careless technique than Titian
-has hitherto used. Though he does not seem
-to have been directly influenced by all he saw in
-Rome, we undoubtedly find a change coming over
-his work between 1540 and 1550, which may
-be in part ascribed to a widening of his artistic
-horizon and a consciousness of what others were
-doing, both around him and abroad. In its
-whole handling and character his late is different
-from his early manner. It begins at this time
-to take on a blurred, soft, impressionist character.
-His delight in rich colouring seems to wane,
-and he aims at intensifying the power of light.
-He reaches that point in the Venetian School
-of painting which we may regard as its climax,
-when there is little strong local colour, but the
-canvas seems illumined from within. There
-are no clear-cut lines, but the shapes are
-suggested by sombre enveloping shades in
-which the radiant brightness is embedded. His
-landscapes alter too; they are no longer blue
-and smiling, filled with loving detail, but
-grander, more mysterious. In the “St. Jerome”
-in Paris the old Saint kneels in wild and lonely
-surroundings, and the moon, slowly rising behind
-the dark trees, sends a sharp, silver ray across
-the crucifix. The “Supper at Emmaus” has
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>the grandiose effect that is given by avoidance
-of detail and simplification of method.</p>
-
-<p>Titian painted several portraits of himself, and
-we know what sort of stately figure was presented
-by the old man of seventy who, at Christmas in
-1547, set forth to ride across the Alps in the
-depths of winter to obey Charles V.’s call to Augsburg.
-The excitement of the public was great at
-his departure, and Aretino describes how his house
-was besieged for the sketches and designs he left
-behind him. For nearly forty years Titian was
-employed by the House of Hapsburg. He had
-been working for Charles since 1530, and when
-the Emperor abdicated, his employment by Philip
-II. lasted till his death. The palace inventory of
-1686 contained seventy-six Titians, and though
-probably not all were genuine, yet an immense
-number were really by him, and the gallery,
-even now, is richer in his works than any other.</p>
-
-<p>The great hall of the Pardo must have been
-a wonderful sight, with Titian’s finest portrait
-of himself in the midst, and the magnificent
-portraits and sacred and allegorical pieces which
-he continued from this time forward to contribute
-to it. In this year, which was the
-last before Charles’s abdication, and during this
-visit to South Germany, he painted the great
-equestrian portrait of the Emperor on the field
-of Mühlberg, and two years later came the first
-of his many portraits of Philip II. The face,
-in the first sketch, is laid in with a sort of fury
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>of impressionism, and in the parade portrait the
-sitter is realised as a man of great distinction.
-Ugly and sensual as he is, we never tire of
-looking at Titian’s conception—a full length of
-distinguished mien rendered attractive by magnificent
-colour. Everything in it lives, and the
-slender, aristocratic hands are, as Morelli says, a
-whole biography in themselves.</p>
-
-<p>The splendid series of allegorical subjects
-which Titian contributed to the Pardo, while he
-was still supplying sacred pictures and altarpieces
-to Venice and the neighbouring mainland, are
-among his most mature and important works.
-Never has his gamut of tones been fuller and
-stronger than in the “Jupiter and Antiope,” or
-the “Venus of the Pardo” as it is sometimes
-called. The Venus herself has the attitude of
-Giorgione’s dreaming goddess, with her arm
-flung up above her head. It is, perhaps, the only
-time that Titian succeeds in giving anything
-ideal to one of his Venuses. The famous nudes
-of the Uffizi and the Louvre are splendid
-courtesans, far removed from Giorgione’s idyllic
-vision; but Antiope, slumbering on her couch
-of skins, and her woodland lover, gazing with
-adoring eyes on her beautiful face, have a whole
-world of sweet and joyful fancy. The whole
-scene is full of a <em>joie de vivre</em>, which carries us
-back to the Bacchanals painted so many years
-before, and in these Titian gives King Philip
-his most perfect work, every touch of which
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>is his own. This picture, now in the Louvre,
-was given to Charles I. by the King of Spain,
-and bought for Cardinal Mazarin in 1650.
-“Danaë,” “Venus and Adonis,” “Europa and
-the Bull,” and a “Last Supper” followed in
-quick succession, but Titian was now employing
-many assistants, and great parts of the canvases
-issuing from his workshop show weak, imitative
-hands, while replicas were made of other works.</p>
-
-<p>His later feeling for the religious in art is
-expressed in the now bedimmed paintings in
-San Salvatore in Venice. Vasari describes these
-in 1566. Painted when Titian was nearly ninety
-years old, the “Transfiguration” is remarkable
-for forcible, majestic movement, while in the
-“Annunciation” he invents quite a new treatment.
-Mary turns round and raises her veil,
-while she grasps the book as if she depended on
-it for stay and support. The four angels are
-full of life and gaiety, and the whole has much
-grace and colour, though it is dashed in, in
-the painter’s later style, in broad and sweeping
-planes without patience of detail. The old man
-has signed it “Titianus, fecit, fecit,” a contemptuous
-reply to some critics who complained
-of its want of finish. He knew well what it
-was in composition and execution, and that all
-that he had ever known or done lay within the
-careless strength of his last manner.</p>
-
-<p>A letter written to the King of Spain’s
-secretary in 1574 gives a list “in part” of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>fourteen pictures sent to Madrid during the
-last twenty-five years, “with many others which
-I do not remember.” On every hand we hear
-of lost pictures from the master’s brush, and the
-number produced even during the last ten years
-of his life must have been enormous, for till
-the end he was full of great undertakings and
-achievements. Very late in life he painted a
-“Shepherd and Nymph” (Vienna), which in
-its idyllic feeling, its slumberous delight, its
-mingling of clothed and nude figures, recalls the
-early days with Giorgione, yet the blurred and
-smouldering richness, the absolute negation of
-all sharp lines and lights is in his very latest
-style, and he has gone past Giorgione on his
-own ground. Then in strange contrast is the
-“Christ Crowned with Thorns,” at Vienna, a
-tragic figure stupefied with suffering. His last
-great work was the “Pietà” in the Academy,
-which, though unfinished, is nobly designed and
-very impressive. He places the Virgin supporting
-the Body in a great dome-shaped niche,
-which gives elevation. It is flanked by two
-calm, antique, stone figures, whose impassive air
-contrasts with the wild pain and grief below.
-The Magdalen steps out towards the spectator
-with the wailing cry of a Greek tragedy. It
-perhaps hardly moves us like the concentrated
-feeling of Bellini’s Madonna, or the hurried,
-trembling grief of Tintoretto’s Magdalen, but
-it is monumental in the sweeping grace of its
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>line, and full of nobility of feeling. It is
-sadly rubbed and darkened and has lost much
-of Titian’s colour, but is still beautiful in
-its deep greys mingled with a sombre golden
-glow, as of half-extinguished fires. These late
-paintings are of the true impressionist order;
-looked at closely they present a mass of scumbled
-touches, of incoherent dashes, but if we step
-farther away, to the right focus, light and dark
-arrange themselves, order shines through the
-whole, and we see what the great master meant
-us to see. “Titian’s later creations,” says
-Vasari, “are struck off rapidly, so that when
-close you cannot see them, but afar they look
-perfect, and this is the style which so many
-tried to imitate, to show that they were practised
-hands, but only produced absurdities.” Titian
-was preparing the picture for the Frari, in payment
-for the grant of a tomb for himself, when
-in August 1576 the plague broke out in Venice,
-and on the 27th the great painter died of it in
-his own house. The stringent regulations concerning
-infection were relaxed to do honour to
-one of the greatest sons of Venice, and he was
-laid to rest in the Frari, borne there in solemn
-procession, through a city stricken by terror and
-panic, and buried in the Chapel of the Crucified
-Saviour, for which his last work was ordered.
-The “Assumption” of his prime looked down
-upon him, and close at hand was the “Madonna
-of Casa Pesaro.” His son Orazio caught the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>plague and died immediately after, and the
-painter’s house was sacked by thieves and many
-precious things stolen.</p>
-
-<p>The great personality of Titian stands out
-as that which of all others established and
-consolidated the school of Venice. He is its
-central figure. The century of life, of which
-eighty years were passed in ceaseless industry of
-production, left its deep impression on the art of
-every civilised country of Europe. Every great
-man of the day who was a lover of art and
-culture fell under Titian’s spell. His influence
-on his contemporaries was enormous, and he had
-everything: genius, industry, personal distinction,
-character, social charm. He is, perhaps, of too
-intellectual a cast of mind to be quite typical of
-the Venetian spirit, in the way that Tintoretto
-is; it is conceivable that in another environment
-Titian might have developed on rather
-different lines, but this temper gave him greater
-domination. He was free from the eccentricities
-which beset genius. He possessed the saving
-salt of practical common sense, so that the
-golden mean of sanity and healthful joy in his
-works commended them to all men, and they are
-not difficult to understand. Yet while all can
-see the beauty of his poetic instinct for colour,
-his interesting and original technique, his grasp
-and scope, his mastery and certainty have gained
-for him the title of “the painter’s painter.”
-There is no one from whom men feel that they
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>can so safely learn so much, and the grand breadth
-and power of elimination of his later years is
-justified by the way in which in his earlier work
-he has carried exquisite finish and rich impasto
-to perfection.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Ancona.</td> <td class="td5">Crucifixion (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Domenico: Madonna with Saints and Donor, 1520.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Antwerp.</td> <td class="td5">Pope Alexander VI. presenting Jacopo Pesaro.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Infant Daughter of Strozzi, 1542; Portrait of Himself (L.); Lavinia bearing Charges.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">SS. Nazaro e Celso: Altarpiece, 1522.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints (E.); Tribute Money (E.); Lavinia as Bride, 1555; Lavinia as Matron (L.);
- Portrait, 1561; Lady with Vase (L.); Lady in Red Dress.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: La Bella; Aretino, 1545; Magdalen; The Young Englishman; The Concert (E.); Philip II.;
- Ippolito de Medici, 1533; Tomaso Mosti.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Eleanora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, 1537; Francesco della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, 1537;
- Flora; Venus, the head a portrait of Lavinia; Venus, the head a portrait of Eleanora Gonzaga; Madonna
- with S. Anthony Abbot.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family and Shepherd; Bacchus and Ariadne (E.); Noli me tangere (E.); Madonna with SS. John
- and Catherine.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Holy Family (E.); Venus of the Shell; Three Ages of Man; Diana and Actaeon,
- 1559; Callisto, 1559.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Earl Brownlow: Diana and Actaeon (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sir F. Cook: Portrait of Laura de Dianti.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Ulfus and Bridget (E.); Bacchanal; The Garden of Loves; Danaë, 1554; Venus and
- Youth playing Organ (L.); Salome (portrait of Lavinia); Trinity, 1554; Entombment, 1559;
- Prometheus; Religion succoured by Spain (L.); Sisyphus (L.); Alfonso of Ferrara; Charles V. at the
- Battle of Mühlberg, 1548; Charles V. and his Dog, 1533; Philip II., 1550; Philip II.; The Infant;
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
- Don Fernando and Victory; Portrait; Portrait of Himself; Duke of Alva; Venus and Adonis;
- Fall of Man; Empress Isabella.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Medole.</td> <td class="td5"> (near Brescia) Christ appearing to His Mother.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Vanitas; Portrait of Charles V., 1548; Madonna and Saints; Man with Baton.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Paul III. and Cardinals, 1545; Danaë.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Scuola del Santo: Frescoes; S. Anthony granting Speech to an Infant; The Youth who cut off his Leg; The
- Jealous Husband, 1511.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints (E.); La Vierge au Lapin; Madonna with S. Agnes; Christ at Emmaus (L.); Crowning
- with Thorns (L.); Entombment; S. Jerome (L.); Jupiter and Antiope (L.); Francis I.; Allegory;
- Marquis da Valos and Mary of Arragon; Alfonso of Ferrara and Laura Dianti; L’Homme
- au Gant (E.); Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Sacred and Profane Love (E.); St. Dominio (L.); Education of Cupid (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Capitol: Baptism (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Doria: Daughter of Herodias.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Vatican: Madonna in Glory and six Saints, 1523.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Annunciation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Urbino.</td> <td class="td5">Resurrection (L.); Last Supper (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Presentation of Virgin, 1540; S. John in the Desert; Assumption, 1518; Pietà, 1573.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale Staircase: S. Christopher, 1523.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala di Quattro Porte: Doge Giovanni before Faith, 1555.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: Pesaro Madonna, 1526.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Elemosinario: S. John the Almsgiver, 1523.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scuola di San Rocco: Annunciation (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Salute Sacristy: Descent of the Holy Spirit; St. Mark enthroned with Saints; David and Goliath; Sacrifice
- of Isaac; Cain and Abel.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Salvatore: Annunciation (L.); Transfiguration (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Assumption.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Gipsy Madonna (E.); Madonna of the Cherries (E.); Ecce Homo, 1543; Isabela d’Este, 1534;
- The Tambourine Player; Girl in Fur Cloak; Dr. Parma (E.); Shepherd and Nymph (L.); Portraits;
- Doge Andrea Gritti; Jacopo Strada; Diana and Callisto; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Wallace Collection.</td> <td class="td5">Perseus and Andromeda. (In collaboration with his nephew, Francesco Vecellio.)</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Louvre.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints. (The same by Francesco alone.)</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Glasgow.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>PALMA VECCHIO AND LORENZO LOTTO</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Among the many who clustered round Titian’s
-long career, Palma attained to a place beside him
-and Giorgione which his talent, which was not
-of the highest order, scarcely warranted. But
-he was classed with the greatest, and influenced
-contemporary art because his work chimed in
-so well with the Venetian spirit. A Bergamasque
-by birth, he came of Venetian parentage, and
-learnt the first elements of his art in Venice.
-He never really mastered the inner niceties of
-anatomy in its finest sense, and the broad
-generalisation of his forms may be meant
-to conceal uncertain drawing, but his large-bosomed,
-matronly women and plump children,
-his round, soft contours, his clean brilliancy, and
-the clear golden polish in which his pictures
-are steeped, made a great appeal to the public.
-His invention is the large Santa Conversazione,
-as compared with those in half-length of the
-earlier masters. The Virgin and saints and
-kneeling or bending donors are placed under
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>the spreading trees of a rich and picturesque
-landscape. It is Palma’s version of the Giorgionesque
-ideal, which he had his share in establishing
-and developing. The heavy tree-trunk and
-dark foliage, silhouetted almost black against
-the background, are characteristic of his compositions.
-As his life goes on, though he still
-clings to his full, ripe figures and to the same
-smooth fleshiness in his women, the features
-become delicate and chiselled, and the more
-refined type and subtler feeling of his middle
-stage may be due to his companionship with
-Lotto, with whom he was in Bergamo when
-they were both about twenty-five. He touches
-his highest, and at the same time keeps very
-near Giorgione, in the splendid St. Barbara,
-painted for the company of the <em>Bombadieri</em> or
-artillerists. Their cannon guard the pedestal on
-which she stands; it was at her altar that they
-came to commend themselves on going forth to
-war, and where they knelt to offer thanksgiving
-for a safe return; and she is a truly noble figure,
-regal in conception and fine and firm in execution,
-attired in sumptuous robes of golden brown and
-green, with splendid saints on either hand.
-Palma was often approached by his patrons who
-wanted mythological scenes, gods, and goddesses;
-but though he produced a Venus, a handsome,
-full-blown model, he never excels in the nude, and
-his tendency is to seize upon the homely. His
-scenes have a domestic, familiar flavour. With
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>all his golden and ivory beauty he lacks fire, and
-his personages have a sluggish, plethoric note. In
-his latest stage he hides all sharpness in a sort of
-scumble or haze. It would, however, be unfair
-to say he is not fine, and his portraits especially
-come very near the best. Vienna is rich in
-examples in half-lengths of one beautiful woman
-after another robed in the ample and gorgeous
-garments in which he is always interested.
-Among them is his handsome daughter,
-Violante, with a violet in her bosom, and
-wearing the large sleeves he admires. The
-“Tasso” of the National Gallery has been taken
-from him and given first to Giorgione and then
-to Titian, but there now seems some inclination
-to return it to its first author. It has a more
-dreamy, intellectual countenance than we are
-accustomed to associate with Palma; but he uses
-elsewhere the decorative background of olive
-branches, and the waxen complexion, tawny
-colouring, and the pronounced golden haze are
-Palmesque in the highest degree. The colouring
-is in strong contrast to the pale ivory glow of
-the Ariosto of Titian, which hangs near it.</p>
-
-<p><a name="holy" id="holy"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img224.jpg" width="550" height="413" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Palma Vecchio.</em> HOLY FAMILY. <em>Colonna Gallery, Rome.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>No one could be more unlike Palma than his
-contemporary, Lorenzo Lotto, who has for long
-been classed with the Bergamasques, but who
-is proved by recently discovered documents to
-have been born in Venice. It was for long an
-accepted fact that Lotto was a pupil of Bellini, and
-his earliest altarpiece, to S. Cristina at Treviso,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>bears traces of Bellini’s manner. A Pietà above
-has child angels examining the wounds with the
-grief and concern which Bellini made so peculiarly
-his own, and the St. Jerome and the branch of
-fig-leaves silhouetted against the light remind
-us of the altarpiece in S. Crisostomo. Lotto
-seems to have clung to quattrocento fashions.
-The ancona had long been rejected by most of
-his contemporaries, but he painted one of the
-last for a church in Recanati, in carved and
-gilt compartments, and he painted predellas long
-after they had become generally obsolete. We
-ask ourselves how it was that Lotto, who had so
-susceptible and easily swayed a nature, escaped
-the influence of Giorgione, the most powerful
-of any in the Venice of his youth—an influence
-which acted on Bellini in his old age, which
-Titian practically never shook off, and which
-dominated Palma to the exclusion of any earlier
-master.</p>
-
-<p>It would take too long to survey the train of
-argument by which Mr. Berenson has established
-Alvise Vivarini as the master of Lotto. Notwithstanding
-that Bellini’s great superiority was
-becoming clear to the more cultured Venetians,
-Alvise, when Lotto was a youth, was still the
-painter <em>par excellence</em> for the mass of the public.
-In the S. Cristina altarpiece the Child standing
-on its Mother’s knee is in the same attitude as
-the Child in Alvise’s altarpiece of 1480, and the
-Mother’s hand holds it in the same way. Other
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>details which supply internal evidence are the
-shape of hands and feet, the round heads and the
-way the Child is often represented lying across
-the Mother’s knees. Lotto carries into old age
-the use of fruit and flowers and beads as decoration,
-a Squarcionesque feature beloved of the
-Vivarini, but which was never adopted by Bellini.</p>
-
-<p>About 1512 Lotto comes into contact with
-Palma, and for a short time the two were in close
-touch. A “Santa Conversazione,” of which a
-good copy exists in Villa Borghese, Rome, and one
-at Dresden, with the Holy Family grouped under
-spreading trees, is saturated with Palma’s spirit,
-but it soon passes away, and except for an
-occasional touch, disappears entirely from Lotto’s
-work.</p>
-
-<p>Lotto may have had relations in Bergamo,
-for when in 1515 a competition between artists
-was set on foot by Alessandro Martino, a
-descendant of General Colleone, for an altarpiece
-for S. Stefano, he competed and carried
-off the prize. This was the first of the series
-of the great works for Bergamo, which enrich
-the little city, where at this period he can best
-be studied. The great altarpiece (now removed
-to San Bartolommeo) is a most interesting
-human document, a revelation of the
-painter’s personality. He does not break away
-from hieratic conventions, like the rival school;
-his Madonna is still placed in the apse of the
-church with saints grouped round her, a form
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>from which the Vivarini never departed, but
-the whole is full of intense movement, of a
-lyric grace and ecstasy, a desire to express
-fervent and rapturous devotion. The architectural
-background is not in happy proportion
-in relation to the figures, but the effect of vista
-and space is more remarkable than in any North
-Italian master. The vivid treatment of light
-and shade, and the gaiety and delicacy of the
-flying angels, who hold the canopy, and of the
-putti, who spread the carpet below, the shapes
-of throne and canopy and the decorations have
-led to the idea that Lotto drew his inspiration
-from Correggio, whom he certainly resembles
-in some ways; but at this time Correggio was
-only twenty, and had not given any examples
-of the style we are accustomed to call Correggiesque.
-We must look back to a common origin
-for those decorative details, which are so conspicuous
-in Crivelli and Bartolommeo Vivarini,
-which came to Lotto through the Vivarini and
-to Correggio through Ferrarese painters, and of
-which the fountain-head for both was the school
-of Squarcione. For the much more striking
-resemblances of composition and spirit, the explanation
-seems to be that Lotto on one side
-of his nature was akin to Correggio; he had
-the same lyrical feeling, the same inclination
-to exuberance and buoyancy. To both, painting
-was a vehicle for the expression of feeling,
-but Lotto had also common sense and a
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>goodly share of that humour that is allied to
-pathos.</p>
-
-<p>Till the year 1526 Lotto was much in
-Bergamo, where the first altarpiece gained him
-orders for others. The reputation of a member
-of the school of Venice was a sure passport to
-employment. We trace Alvise’s tradition very
-plainly in the altarpiece in San Bernardino,
-where the gesture of the Madonna’s hand as she
-expounds to the listening saints recalls Alvise’s of
-1480. The little gathered roses, which Lotto
-makes use of to the end of his life, lie scattered
-on the step; angels, daringly foreshortened, sweep
-aside the curtain of the sanctuary. The colour
-is in Lotto’s scarlet, light blues, and violet.
-He soon shows himself fond of genre incidents,
-and in “Christ taking leave of His Mother”
-gives a view into a bedroom and a cat running
-across the floor. The donor kneels with her
-hair fashionably dressed and wearing a pearl
-necklace. In the “Marriage of S. Catherine”
-at Bergamo the saint is evidently a portrait,
-with hair pearl-wreathed. She kneels very
-simply and naturally before the Child, and the
-exquisitely lovely and elaborately gowned young
-woman who represents the Madonna, looks
-out towards the spectator with a mundane
-and curiously modern air. It was probably
-the recognition of Lotto’s success with portraits
-that led to their being so often introduced
-into his sacred pieces. In the one we have
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>just noticed, the donor, Niccolas Bonghi, is
-brought in, and is on rather a larger scale
-than the rest, but Lotto has evidently not
-found him interesting. The portraits of the
-brothers della Torre, and that of the Prothonotary
-Giuliano in the National Gallery, inaugurate
-that wonderful series of characterisations
-which are his greatest distinction. A series of
-frescoes in village churches round Bergamo
-must also be noticed. They are remarkable
-for spontaneous and original decoration, and
-may compare with the ceremonial groups of
-Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. Lotto’s personages,
-as they chatter in the market-places, are
-full of natural animation and gaiety, and we
-realise what a step had been made in the
-painting of actual life.</p>
-
-<p>Owing to the unsettled state of the rest of
-Italy, the years from 1530 to 1540, which Lotto
-spent in Venice, found that city the gathering-ground
-of many of the most distinguished
-scholars and deepest thinkers of the day. Men
-of all shades of religious thought were engaged
-in learned discussion, and Lotto’s ardent and
-inquiring temperament must have been stimulated
-by such an environment. During these
-years, too, he became intimate with Titian, and
-experimented in Titian’s style, with the result
-that his painting gets thicker and richer, more
-fused and solid, and his figures are better put
-together. He imitates Titian’s colour, too, but
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>it makes him paint in deeper, fiercer tints, and
-he soon finds it does not suit him, and returns
-to his own scheme. His colour is still rather
-too dazzling, but the distances are translucent
-and atmospheric. He continues to introduce
-portraits. In his altarpiece in SS. Giovanni
-and Paolo the deacons giving alms and receiving
-petitions curiously resemble in type and expression
-the ecclesiastics we see to-day.</p>
-
-<p>Lotto was now an accepted member of
-Titian’s set, and Aretino, in a letter dated 1548,
-writes that Titian values his taste and judgment
-as that of no other; but Aretino, with his usual
-mixture of connoisseurship and clever spite, goes
-on to insinuate accidentally, as it were, what he
-himself knew perfectly well, that Lotto was
-not considered on a par with the masters of
-the first rank. “Envy is not in your breast,” he
-says, “rather do you delight to see in other
-artists certain qualities which you do not find
-in your own brush, ... holding the second
-place in the art of painting is nothing compared
-to holding the first place in the duties of
-religion.”</p>
-
-<p>An interesting codex or commentary tells us
-that Lotto never received high prices for his
-work, and we hear of him hawking pictures about
-in artistic circles, putting them up in raffles, and
-leaving a number with Jacopo Sansovino in the
-hope that he might hear of buyers. His work
-ended as it had begun, in the Marches. He
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>undertook commissions at Recanati, Ancona, and
-Loreto, and in September 1554 he concluded a
-contract with the Holy House at Loreto, by
-which, in return for rooms and food, he made
-over himself and all his belongings to the care
-of the fraternity, “being tired of wandering,
-and wishing to end his days in that holy place.”
-He spent the last four years of his life at Loreto
-as a votary of the Virgin, painting a series of
-pictures which are distinguished by the same sort
-of apparent looseness and carelessness which we
-noticed in Titian’s late style; a technique which,
-as in Titian’s case, conceals a profound knowledge
-of plastic modelling.</p>
-
-<p>Though Lotto executed an immense number
-of important and very beautiful sacred works,
-his portraits stand apart, and are so interesting
-to the modern mind that one is tempted to
-linger over them. Other painters give us finer
-pictures; in none do we feel so anxious to know
-who the sitters were and what was their story.
-Lotto has nothing of the Pagan quality which
-marks Giorgione and Titian; he is a born
-psychologist, and as such he witnesses to an
-attitude of mind in the Italy of his day which
-is of peculiar interest to our own. Lotto’s bystanders,
-even in his sacred scenes, have nothing
-in common with Titian’s “chorus”; they have the
-characterisation of distinct individuals, and when
-he is concerned with actual portraits he is intensely
-receptive and sensitive to the spirit of his sitters.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>He may be said to “give them away,” and to
-take an almost unfair advantage of his perception.
-The sick man in the Doria Gallery looks
-like one stricken with a death sentence. He
-knows at least that it is touch and go, and
-the painter has symbolised the situation in the
-little winged genius balancing himself in a pair
-of scales. In the Borghese Gallery is the portrait
-of a young, magnificently dressed man, with a
-countenance marked by mental agitation, who
-presses one hand to his heart, while the other
-rests on a pile of rose-petals in which a tiny
-skull is half-hidden. The “Old Man” in the
-Brera has the hard, narrow, but intensely sad
-face of one whose natural disposition has been
-embittered by the circumstances of his life, just
-as that of our Prothonotary speaks of a large and
-gentle nature, mellowed by natural affections and
-happy pursuits. We smile, as Lotto does, with
-kindly mischief at “Marsilio and his Bride;” the
-broad, placid countenance of the man is so significantly
-contrasted with the clever mouth and
-eyes of the bride that it does not need the
-malicious glance of the cupid, who is fitting on
-the yoke, to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” of their
-future. Again, the portrait of Laura di Pola, in
-the Brera, introduces us to one of those women
-who are charming in every age, not actually
-beautiful, but harmonious, thoughtful, perfectly
-dressed, sensible, and self-possessed, and the
-“Family Group” in our own gallery holds a
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>history of a couple of antagonistic temperaments
-united by life in common and the clasping hands
-of children. Lotto does not keep the personal expression
-out of even such a canvas as his “Triumph
-of Chastity” in the Rospigliosi Gallery. His
-delightful Venus, one of the loveliest nudes
-in painting, flies from the attacking termagant,
-whose virtue is proclaimed by the ermine on
-her breast, and sweeps her little cupid with her
-with a well-bred, surprised air, suggestive of the
-manners of mundane society.</p>
-
-<p><a name="laura" id="laura"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 447px;">
-<img src="images/img235.jpg" width="447" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Lorenzo Lotto.</em> PORTRAIT OF LAURA DI POLA. <em>Brera.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>The painter who was thus able to unveil
-personality had evidently a mind that was aware
-of itself, that looked forward to a wider civilisation
-and a more earnest and intimate religion.
-His life seems to have been one of some sadness,
-and crowned with only moderate success. He
-speaks of himself as “advanced in years, without
-loving care of any kind, and of a troubled mind.”
-His will shows that his worldly possessions were
-few and poor, and that he had no heir closer
-than a nephew; but he leaves some of his
-cartoons as a dowry to “two girls of quiet
-nature, healthy in mind and body, and likely to
-make thrifty housekeepers,” on their marriage
-to “two well-recommended young men,” about
-to become painters. His sensitive and introspective
-temperament led him to prefer the
-retirement and the quiet beauty of Loreto to the
-brilliant society of which he was made free in
-Venice. “His spirit,” says Mr. Berenson, “is
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>more like our own than is perhaps that of any
-other Italian painter, and it has all the appeal
-and fascination of a kindred soul in another age.”</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Palma Vecchio.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna and Saints (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Cambridge.</td> <td class="td5">Fitzwilliam Museum: Venus (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna; SS. John, Catherine; Three Sisters; Holy Family; Meeting of Jacob and Rachel (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Hampton Court: Santa Conversazione; Portrait of a Poet.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: SS. Helen, Constantine, Roch, and Sebastian; Adoration of Magi (L.), finished by Cariani.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione with Donors.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Adoration of Shepherds.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Lucrece (L.); Madonna with Saints and Donor.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Capitol: Christ and Woman taken in Adultery.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Colonna: Madonna, S. Peter, and Donor.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: St. Peter enthroned and six Saints; Assumption.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli: Sposalizio (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Formosa: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione; Violante (L.); Five Portraits of Women.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Lorenzo Lotto.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Ancona.</td> <td class="td5">Assumption, 1550; Madonna with Saints (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Asolo.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna in Glory, 1506.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Marriage of S. Catherine; Predelle.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Holy Family and S. Catherine; Predelle; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Bartolommeo: Altarpiece, 1516.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Alessandro in Colonna: Pietà.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Bernardino: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Spirito: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Christ taking leave of His Mother; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Nativity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Cingoli.</td> <td class="td5">S. Domenico: Madonna and Saints and fifteen Small Scenes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Holy Family.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Hampton Court: Portrait of Andrea Odoni, 1527; Portrait (E.);
- Portraits of Agostino and Niccolo della Torre, 1515;
- Family Group; Portrait of Prothonotary Giuliano.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Madonna and Saints (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Loreto.</td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Apostolico: Saints; Nativity; S. Michael and Lucifer
- (L.); Presentation (L.); Baptism (L.); Adoration of Magi (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Recanati.</td> <td class="td5">Municipio: Altarpiece, 1508; Transfiguration (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Sopra Mercanti: Annunciation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Madonna with S. Onofrio and a Bishop, 1508.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Rospigliosi: Love and Chastity.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Carmine: S. Nicholas in Glory, 1529.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giacomo dall’ Orio: Madonna with Saints, 1546.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Giovanni e Paolo: S. Antonino bestowing Alms, 1542.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione, etc.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>It was very natural that Rome should wish for
-works of the masters of the new Venetian School,
-but the first-rate men were fully employed at
-home. All the efforts made to secure Titian
-failed till nearly the end of his career. On the
-other hand, Venice was full of less famous
-masters following in Giorgione’s steps. When
-Sebastian Luciani was a young man, Giorgione
-was paramount there, and no one could have
-foretold that his life would be of such short
-duration. It was to be expected, therefore, that
-a painter who consulted his own interests should
-leave the city where he was overshadowed by
-a great genius and go farther afield. The
-influence of the Guilds was withdrawn in the
-sixteenth century, so that it was a simpler
-matter for painters to transfer their talents,
-and painting was beginning to appeal strongly
-to the <em>dilettanti</em>, who rivalled one another in
-their offers.</p>
-
-<p>Only one work of Sebastian’s is known belonging
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>to this earlier time in Venice. It is
-the “S. Chrysostom enthroned,” in S. Giovanni
-Crisostomo, and its majesty and rich colouring,
-and more especially the splendid group of women
-on the left, so proud and soft in their Venetian
-beauty, make us wonder if Sebastian might not
-have risen to greater heights if he had remained
-in his natural environment. He responded to
-the call to Rome of Agostino Chigi, the great
-<ins class="translit" title="Chigi was a banker">painter</ins>, art collector, and patron, the friend of
-Leo X. Chigi had just completed the Farnesina
-Villa, and Sebastian was employed till
-1512 on its decoration, and at once came under
-the influence of Michelangelo. The “Pietà”
-at Viterbo shows that influence very strongly; in
-fact, Vasari says that Michelangelo himself drew
-the cartoon for the figure of Christ, which would
-account for its extraordinary beauty. Sebastian
-embarked on a close intimacy with the Florentine
-painter, and, according to Vasari, the great canvas
-of the “Raising of Lazarus,” in the National
-Gallery, was executed under the orders and in
-part from the designs of Michelangelo. This
-colossal work was looked on as one of the most
-important creations of the sixteenth century, but
-there is little to make us wish to change it for
-the altarpiece of S. Crisostomo. The desire for
-scientific drawing and the search after composition
-have produced a laboured effect; the female
-figures are cast in a masculine mould, and it lacks
-both the severe beauty of the Tuscan School and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>the emotional charm of Sebastian’s native style.
-We cannot, however, avoid conjecturing if in
-the figure of Lazarus himself we have not a
-conception of the great Florentine. It is so
-easy in pose, so splendid in its, perhaps excessive,
-length of limb, that our thoughts turn
-involuntarily to the <em>Ignudi</em> in the Sixtine
-Chapel. The picture has been dulled and
-injured by repainting, but the distance still
-has the sombre depth of the Venetians. All
-through Sebastian’s career he seeks for form
-and composition, but, great painter as he undoubtedly
-is, he is great because he possesses
-that inborn feeling for harmony of colour. This
-is what we value in him, and he excels in so far
-as he follows his Venetian instincts.</p>
-
-<p>The death of Raphael improved Sebastian’s
-position in Rome, and though Leo X. never
-liked or employed him, he did not lack commissions.
-The “Fornarina” in the Uffizi, with
-the laurel-wreathed head and leopard-skin
-mantle, still reveals him as the Venetian, and it is
-curious that any critic should ever have assigned
-its rich, voluptuous tone and its coarse type
-to Raphael. Sebastian obtained commissions
-for decorating S. Maria del Popolo in oils and
-S. Pietro in Montorio in fresco, but in the
-latter medium, though he is ambitious of acquiring
-the force of Michelangelo, he lacks the
-Tuscan ease of hand. Colour, for which he
-possessed so true an aptitude, the deep, fused
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>colour of Giorgione, is set aside by him; his
-tints become strong and crude, his surfaces grow
-hard and polished, and he thinks, above all, of
-bold action, of drawing and modelling. The
-Venetian genius for portraiture remains, and he
-has left such fine examples as the “Andrea Doria”
-of the Vatican, or the “Portrait of a Man in the
-Pitti,” a masterly picture both in drawing and
-execution, with grand draperies, a fur pelisse,
-and damask doublet with crimson sleeves. In
-the National Gallery we possess his own portrait
-by himself, in company with Cardinal de Medici.
-The faces are well contrasted, and we judge from
-Sebastian’s that his biographer describes him
-justly, as fat, indolent, and given to self-indulgence,
-but genial and fond of good company.</p>
-
-<p>After an absence of twenty years he returned
-to Venice. There he came in contact with
-Titian and Pordenone, and struck up a friendship
-with Aretino, who became his great ally and
-admirer. The sack of Rome had driven him
-forth, but in 1529, when the city was beginning
-partially to recover from that time of horror,
-he returned, and was cordially welcomed by
-Clement VII., and admitted into the innermost
-ecclesiastical circles. The Piombo, a well-paid,
-sinecure office of the Papal court, was bestowed
-on him, and his remaining years were spent in
-Rome. He was very anxious to collaborate
-with Michelangelo, and the great painter seems
-to have been quite inclined to the arrangement.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>The “Last Judgment,” in the Sixtine Chapel,
-was suggested, and Sebastian had the melancholy
-task of taking down Perugino’s masterpieces; but
-he wished to reset the walls for oils, and Michelangelo
-stipulated for fresco, saying that oils were
-only fit for women, so that no agreement was
-arrived at.</p>
-
-<p>Sebastian’s mode of work was slow, and he
-employed no assistants. He seems to have been
-inordinately lazy, fond of leisure and good living,
-and his character shows in his work, which, with
-a few exceptions, has something heavy and
-common about it, a want of keenness and fire,
-an absence of refinement and selection.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Fornarina, 1512; Death of Adonis.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Martyrdom of S. Agatha, 1520; Portrait (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Resurrection of Lazarus, 1519; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Visitation, 1521.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Andrea Doria (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Farnesina: Frescoes, 1511.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro in Montorio. Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">S. Niccolo: Incredulity of S. Thomas (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Visitation (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Chrisostomo: S. Chrysostom enthroned (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Viterbo.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà (L.).</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>BONIFAZIO AND PARIS BORDONE</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Some uncertainty has existed as to the identity
-of the different members of the family of
-Bonifazio. All the early historians agree in
-giving the name to one master only. Boschini,
-however, in 1777 discovered the register of the
-death of a second, and a third bearing the name
-was working twenty years later. Upon this
-Dr. Morelli came to the conclusion that we must
-recognise three, if not four, masters bearing the
-name of Bonifazio, but documents recently
-discovered by Professor Ludwig have in great
-measure destroyed Morelli’s conjectures. There
-may have been obscure painters bearing the name,
-but they were mere imitators, and it is doubtful
-if any were related to the family of de Pitatis.</p>
-
-<p>Bonifazio Veronese is really the only one
-who counts. As Ridolfi says, he was born in
-Verona in the most beautiful moment of
-painting. He came to Venice at the age of
-eighteen, and became a pupil of Palma Vecchio,
-with whom his work has sometimes been
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>confused. After Palma’s death Bonifazio continued
-in friendly relations with his old master’s
-family, and his niece married Palma’s nephew.
-Bonifazio himself married the daughter of a
-basket-maker, and appears to have had no
-children, for he and his wife by their wills
-bestowed their whole fortune on their nephews.
-Antonio Palma, who married Bonifazio’s niece,
-was a painter whose pictures have sometimes
-been attributed to the legendary third Bonifazio.
-Bonifazio’s life was passed peacefully in Venice.
-He received many important commissions from
-the Republic, and decorated the Palace of the
-Treasurers. His character and standing were
-high, and he was appointed, in company with
-Titian and Lotto, to administer a legacy which
-Vincenzo Catena had left to provide a yearly
-dower for five maidens. After a long life spent
-in steady work, Bonifazio withdrew to a little
-farm amidst orchards—fifteen acres of land in
-all—at San Zenone, near Asolo; but he still kept
-his house in San Marcuola, where he died. He
-was buried in S. Alvise in Venice.</p>
-
-<p>A son of the plains and of Venetian stock,
-his work is always graceful and attractive,
-though inclined to be hot in colour. It has a
-very pronounced aristocratic character, and bears
-no trace of the rough, provincial strain of
-such men as Cariani or Pordenone. It is very
-fine and glowing in colour, but lacks vigour
-and energy in design. Nowhere do we get
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>more worldly magnificence or such frank
-worship of wealth as on Bonifazio’s joyous
-canvases. He represents Christian saints and
-Eastern kings alike, as gentlemen of princely
-rank. There is a note of purely secular art
-about his Adorations and Holy Families. In
-the “Adoration of the Magi,” in the Academy,
-the Madonna is a handsome, prosperous lady
-of Bonifazio’s acquaintance. The Child, so far
-from raising His hand in benediction, holds it out
-for the proffered cup. He does not, as usual,
-distinguish the eldest king, but singles out the
-cup held by the second, who, in a puffed
-velvet dress, is an evident portrait, probably
-that of the donor of the picture, who is in this
-way paid a courtier-like compliment. The
-third king is such a Moor as Bonifazio must
-often have seen embarking from his Eastern
-galley on the Riva dei Schiavoni. A servant
-in a peaked hood peers round the column to
-catch sight of what is going on. The groups
-of animals in the background are well rendered.
-In the “Rich Man’s Feast,” where Lazarus
-lies upon the step, we have another scene of
-wealthy and sumptuous Venetian society, an
-orgy of colour. And, again, in the “Finding of
-Moses” (Brera) he paints nobles playing the lute,
-making love and feasting, and lovely fair-haired
-women listening complacently. We are reminded
-of the way in which they lived: their
-one preoccupation the toilet, the delight of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>appearing in public in the latest and most
-magnificent fashions. And in these paintings
-Bonifazio depicts the elaborate striped and
-brocaded gowns in which the beautiful Venetians
-arrayed themselves, made in the very fashions
-of the year, and their thick, fair hair is twisted
-and coiled in the precise mode of the moment.
-The deep-red velvet he introduces into nearly
-all his pictures is of a hue peculiar to himself.
-As Catena often brings in a little white lap-dog,
-so Bonifazio constantly has as an accessory a liver-and-white
-spaniel.</p>
-
-<p>Vasari speaks of Paris Bordone as the artist
-who most successfully imitated Titian. He was
-the son of well-to-do tradespeople in Treviso,
-and received a good education in music and
-letters, before being sent off to Venice and
-placed in Titian’s studio. Bordone does not
-seem to have been on very friendly terms with
-Titian. He was dissatisfied with his teaching,
-and Titian played him an ill turn in wresting
-from him a commission to paint an altarpiece
-which had been entrusted to him when he was
-only eighteen. He was, above all, in love with
-the manner of the dead Giorgione, and it was
-upon this master that he aspired to form his
-style. His masterpiece, in the Academy, was
-painted for the Confraternity of St. Mark, and
-made his reputation. The legend it represents
-may be given in a few words:</p>
-
-<p>In the days of Doge Gradenigo, one February,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>there arose a fearful storm in Venice. During
-the height of the tempest, three men accosted a
-poor old fisherman, who was lying in his decayed
-old boat by the Piazza, and begged that he
-would row them to S. Niccolo del Lido, where
-they had urgent business. After some demur
-they persuaded him to take the oars, and in
-spite of the hurricane, the voyage was accomplished.
-On reaching the shore they pointed out
-to him a great ship, the crew of which he perceived
-to consist of a band of demons, who were
-stirring up the waves and making a great
-hubbub. The three passengers laid their commands
-on them to desist, when immediately
-they sailed away and there was a calm. The
-passengers then made the oarsman row them,
-one to S. Niccolo, one to S. Giorgio, and the
-third was rowed back to the Piazza. The
-fisherman timidly asked for his fare, and the
-third passenger desired him to go to the Doge
-and ask for payment, telling him that by that
-night’s work a great disaster had been averted
-from the city. The fisherman replied that he
-should not be believed, but would be imprisoned
-as a liar. Then the passenger drew a ring from
-his finger. “Show him this for a sign,” he said,
-“and know that one of those you have this night
-rowed is S. Niccolas, the other is S. George, and
-I am S. Mark the Evangelist, Protector of
-the Venetian Republic.” He then disappeared.
-The next day the fisherman presented the ring,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>and was assigned a provision for life from the
-Senate.</p>
-
-<p>There has, perhaps, never been a richer and
-more beautiful subject-picture painted than this
-glowing canvas, or one which brings more vividly
-before us the magnificence of the pageants which
-made such a part of Venetian life in the golden age
-of painting. It is all strength and splendour, and
-escapes the hectic colour and weaker type which
-appear in Bordone’s “Last Supper” and some of
-his other works. In 1538 he went to France
-and entered the service of Francis II., painting
-for him many portraits of ladies, besides works
-for the Cardinals of Guise and of Lorraine. The
-King of Poland sent to him for a “Jupiter and
-Antiope.” At Augsburg he was paid 3000 crowns
-for work done for the great Fugger family.</p>
-
-<p>No one gives us so closely as Bordone the type
-of woman who at this time was most admired in
-Venice. The Venetian ideal was golden haired,
-with full lips, fair, rosy cheeks, large limbed and
-ample, with “abundant flanks and snow-white
-breast.” A type glowing with health and instinct
-with life, but, to say the truth, rather dull, without
-deep passions, and with no look that reveals
-profound emotions or the struggle of a soul.
-From what we see of Bordone’s female portraits
-and from some of the mythological compositions
-he has left, he might have been among the most
-sensually minded of men. His beautiful courtesan,
-in the National Gallery, is an almost over-realistic
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>presentment of a woman who has just
-parted from her lover. His women, with their
-carnation cheeks and expressionless faces, are like
-beautiful animals; but, as a matter of fact, their
-painter was sober and temperate in his life, very
-industrious, and devoted to his widowed mother.
-About 1536 he married the daughter of a
-Venetian citizen, and had a son, who became one
-of the many insignificant painters of the end of the
-sixteenth century. Most of his days were divided
-between his little Villa of Lovadina in the district
-of Belluno, and his modest home in the Corte
-dell’ Cavallo near the Misericordia. “He lives
-comfortably in his quiet house,” writes Vasari,
-who certainly knew Bordone in Venice, “working
-only at the request of princes, or his friends,
-avoiding all rivalry and those vain ambitions
-which do but disturb the repose of man, and
-seeking to avert any ruffling of the serene
-tranquillity of his life, which he is accustomed
-to preserve simple and upright.”</p>
-
-<p>Many of his pictures show an intense love
-of country solitudes. His poetic backgrounds,
-lonely mountains, leafy woods, and sparkling
-water are in curious contrast to the sumptuous
-groups in the foreground.</p>
-
-<p>His “Three Heads,” in the Brera, is a superb
-piece of painting and an interesting characterisation.
-The woman is ripe, sensual, and calculating,
-feeling with her fingers for the gold chain,
-a mere golden-fleshed, rose-flushed hireling, solid
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>and prosaic. The go-between is dimly seen in
-the background, but the face of the suitor is a
-strange, ironic study: past youth, worn, joyless,
-and bitter, taking his pleasure mechanically
-and with cynical detachment. The “Storm
-calmed by S. Mark” (Academy) was, in Mr.
-Berenson’s opinion, begun by Giorgione.</p>
-
-<p>Rich, brilliant, and essentially Venetian as is
-the work of these two painters, it does not reach
-the highest level. It falls short of grandeur, and
-has that worldly tone that borders on vulgarity.
-As we study it we feel that it marks the point
-to which Venetian art might have attained, the
-flood-mark it might have touched, if it had
-lacked the advent of the three or four great
-spirits, who, appearing about the same time, bore
-it up to sublimer heights and developed a
-more distinguished range of qualities. Bonifazio
-and Bordone lack the grandeur and sweetness of
-Titian, the brilliant touch and imaginative genius
-of Tintoretto, the matchless feeling for colour,
-design, and decoration of Veronese, but they
-continue Venetian painting on logical lines, and
-they form a superb foundation for the highest.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bonifazio Veronese.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Finding of Moses.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Madonna; S. Elizabeth and Donor (E.); Rest in Flight
- into Egypt; Finding of Moses.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Finding of Moses.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Mother of Zebedee’s Children; Return of the
- Prodigal Son.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Colonna: Holy Family with Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Rich Man’s Feast; Massacre of Innocents; Judgment of
- Solomon, 1533; Adoration of Kings.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli: Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione; Triumph of Love; Triumph of Chastity;
- Salome.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Paris Bordone.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Vintage Scenes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Man in Black; Chess Players; Madonna and four Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Apollo and Marsyas; Diana; Holy Family.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Portrait of Woman.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Genoa.</td> <td class="td5">Brignole Sale: Portraits of Men; Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Donors.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Daphnis and Chloe; Portrait of Lady.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Holy Family.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Descent of Holy Spirit; Baptism; S. Dominio presented
- to the Saviour by Virgin; Madonna and Saints; Venal Love.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria pr. Celso: Madonna and S. Jerome.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait; Man counting Jewels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Colonna: Holy Family and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Adoration of Shepherds; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Fisherman and Doge; Paradise; Storm calmed by S. Mark.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale Chapel: Dead Christ.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora; Last Supper.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Allegorical Pictures; Lady at Toilet; Young Woman.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>PAINTERS OF THE VENETIAN PROVINCES</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>It has become usual to include in the Venetian
-School those artists from the subject provinces
-on the mainland, who came down to try their
-luck at the fountain-head and to receive its hallmark
-on their talent. The Friulan cities, Udine,
-Serravalle, and small neighbouring towns, had
-their own primitive schools and their scores of
-humble craftsmen. Their art wavered for some
-time in its expression between the German taste,
-which came so close to their gates, and the Italian,
-which was more truly their element.</p>
-
-<p>Up to 1499 Friuli was invaded seven times
-in thirty years by the Turks. They poured in
-large numbers over the Bosnian borders, crossed
-the Isonzo and the Tagliamenta, and massacred
-and carried off the inhabitants. These terrible
-periods are marked by the cessation of work in
-the provinces, but hope always revived again.
-The break caused by such a visitation can be
-distinctly traced in the Church of S. Antonino,
-at the little town of San Daniele. Martino da
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>Udine obtained the epithet of Pellegrino da San
-Daniele in 1494 when he returned from an early
-visit to Venice, where he had been apprenticed to
-Cima. He was appointed to decorate S. Antonino.
-His early work there is hard and coarse, ill-drawn,
-the figures unwieldy and shapeless, and
-the colour dusky and uniform; but owing to
-the Turkish raid, he had to take flight, and it
-was many a year before the monks gained
-sufficient courage and saved enough money to
-continue the embellishment of their church.
-In the meantime, Pellegrino’s years had been
-spent partly in Venice and partly, perhaps, in
-Ferrara, for the reason Raphael gave for refusing
-to paint a “Bacchus” for the Duke, was that the
-subject had already been painted by Pellegrino
-da San Daniele. When Pellegrino resumed his
-work, it demonstrated that he had studied the
-modern Venetians and had come under a finer,
-deeper influence. A St. George in armour
-suggests Giorgione’s S. Liberale at Castelfranco;
-he specially shows an affinity with Pordenone,
-who was his pupil and who was to become a
-better painter than his old master. As Pellegrino
-goes on he improves consistently, and adopts the
-method, so peculiarly Venetian, of sacrificing form
-to a scheme of chiaroscuro. He even, to some
-extent, succeeds in his difficult task of applying
-to wall painting the system which the Venetians
-used almost exclusively for easel pictures. He
-was an ambitious, daring painter, and some of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>his church standards were for long attributed to
-Giorgione. The church of San Antonino remains
-his chief monument; but for all his travels
-Pellegrino remains provincial in type, is unlucky
-in his selection, cares little for precision of form,
-and trusts to colour for effect.</p>
-
-<p>The same transition in art was taking place in
-other provinces. Morto da Feltre, Pennacchi,
-and Girolamo da Treviso have all left work of a
-Giorgionesque type, and some painters who went
-far onward, began their career under such minor
-masters. Giovanni Antonio Licinio, who takes
-his name from his native town of Pordenone, in
-Friuli, was one of these. All the early part of
-his life was spent in painting frescoes in the
-small towns of the Friulan provinces. At first
-they bear signs of the tuition of Pellegrino, but
-it soon becomes evident that Pordenone has
-learned to imitate Giorgione and Palma. Quite
-early, however, one of his chief failings appears,
-and one which is all his own, the disparity
-in size between his various figures. The
-secondary personages, the Magi in a Nativity,
-the Saints standing round an altar, are larger
-and more athletic in build and often more
-animated in action than the principal actors in
-the scene. What pleased Pordenone’s contemporaries
-was his daring perspective and his
-instinctive feeling for movement. He carried
-out great schemes in the hill-towns, till at
-length his reputation, which had long been ripe
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>in his native province, reached Venice. In 1519
-he was invited to Treviso to fresco the façade of
-a house for one of the Raviguino family. The
-painter, as payment, asked fifty scudi, and Titian
-was called in to adjudicate, but he admired the
-work so much that he hinted to Raviguino that
-he would be wise not to press him for a valuation.
-As a direct consequence of this piece of
-business, Pordenone was employed on the chapel
-at Treviso, in conjunction with Titian. At this
-time the Assumption and the Madonna of Casa
-Pesaro were just finished, and it is probable
-that Pordenone paid his first visit to Venice,
-hard by, and saw his great contemporary’s work.
-With his characteristic distaste for fresco,
-Titian undertook the altarpiece and painted the
-beautiful Annunciation which still holds its
-place, and Pordenone covered the dome with
-a foreshortened figure of the Eternal Father,
-surrounded by angels. Among the remaining
-frescoes in the Chapel, an Adoration of the
-Magi and a S. Liberale are from his brush.
-Fired by his success at Treviso, Pordenone offered
-his services to Mantua and Cremona, but the
-Mantovans, accustomed to the stately and restrained
-grace of Mantegna, would have nothing to say
-to what Crowe and Cavalcaselle call his “large
-and colossal fable-painting.” He pursued his way
-to Cremona, and that he studied Mantegna as he
-passed through Mantua is evident from the first
-figures he painted in the cathedral. In Cremona
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>every one admired him, and all the artists set to
-work to imitate his energetic foreshortening,
-vehement movement and huge proportions.</p>
-
-<p>Pordenone, with his love for fresco, was all
-his life an itinerant painter. In 1521 he was
-back at Udine and wandered from place to place,
-painting a vast distemper for the organ doors at
-S. Maria at Spilimbergo, the façade of the Church
-of Valeriano, an imposing series at Travesio, and
-in 1525, the “Story of the True Cross” at Casara.
-At the last place he threw aside much of his
-exaggeration, and, ruined and restored as the
-frescoes are, they remain among his most
-dignified achievements. He may be studied
-best of all at Piacenza, in the Church of the
-Madonna di Campagna, where he divides his
-subjects between sacred and pagan, so that we
-turn from a “Flight into Egypt” or a “Marriage
-of S. Catherine,” to the “Rape of Europa” or
-“Venus and Adonis.” At Piacenza he shows
-himself the great painter he undoubtedly is,
-having achieved some mastery over form, while
-his colour has the true Venetian quality and almost
-equals oils in its luscious tones and vivid hues,
-which he lowers and enriches by such enveloping
-shadows as only one whose spirit was in touch
-with the art of Giorgione would have understood
-how to use. Very complete records remain of
-Pordenone’s life, full details of a quarrel with his
-brother over property left by his father in 1533,
-and accounts of the painter’s negotiations to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>obtain a knighthood, which he fancied would
-place him more on a par with Titian when he
-went to live in Venice. The coveted honour
-was secured, but from this time he seems to have
-been very jealous of Titian and to have aimed
-continually at rivalling him. Pordenone was a
-punctual and rapid decorator, and on being given
-the ceiling of the Sala di San Finio to decorate
-in the summer of 1536, he finished the whole
-by March 1538. We have seen how Titian
-annoyed the Signoria by his delays, how anxious
-they were to transfer his commission to
-Pordenone, and what a narrow escape the
-Venetian had of losing his Broker’s patent.
-Pordenone was engaged by the nuns of Murano
-to paint an Annunciation, after they had rejected
-one by Titian on account of its price, and though
-it seems hardly possible that any one could have
-compared the two men, yet no doubt the pleasure
-of getting an altarpiece quickly and punctually
-and for a moderate sum, often outweighed the
-honour of the possible painting by the great
-Titian.</p>
-
-<p>No one has left so few easel-paintings as
-Pordenone; fresco was so much better suited to
-his particular style. The canvas of the “Madonna
-of Mercy” in the Venice Academy, was painted
-about 1525 for a member of the house of
-Ottobono, and introduces seven members of the
-family. It is very free from his colossal,
-exaggerated manner; the attendant saints are
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>studied from nature, and in his journals the
-painter mentions that the St. Roch is a portrait
-of himself. The “S. Lorenzo enthroned,” in
-the same gallery, shows both his virtues and
-failings. The saints have his enormous proportions.
-The Baptist is twisting round, to
-display the foreshortening which Pordenone
-particularly affects. The gestures are empty
-and inexpressive, but the colour is broad and
-fluid; there is a large sense of decoration in the
-composition, and something simple and austere
-about the figure of S. Lorenzo. As is so often
-the case with Pordenone, the principal actor of
-the scene is smaller and more sincerely imagined
-than the attendant personages, who are crowded
-into the foreground, where they are used to
-display the master’s skill.</p>
-
-<p>Pordenone died suddenly at Ferrara, where he
-had been summoned by its Duke to undertake
-one of his great schemes of decoration. He was
-said to have been poisoned, but though he had
-jealous rivals there seems no proof of the truth
-of the assertion, which was one very commonly
-made in those days. He is interesting as being
-the only distinguished member of the Venetian
-School whose frescoes have come down to us in
-any number, and as being the only one of the
-later masters with whom it was the chosen
-medium.</p>
-
-<p>His kinsman, Bernardino Licinio, is represented
-in the National Gallery by a half-length
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>of a young man in black, and at Hampton Court
-by a large family group and by another of three
-persons gathered round a spinet. His masterpiece
-is a Madonna and Saints in the Frari,
-which shows the influence of Palma. His flesh
-tints, striving to be rich, have a hot, red look,
-but his works have been constantly confounded
-with those of Giorgione and Paris Bordone.</p>
-
-<p>A long list might be given of minor artists
-who were industriously turning out work on
-similar lines to one or other of these masters:
-Calderari, who imitates Paris Bordone as well as
-Pordenone; Pomponio Amalteo, Pordenone’s son-in-law,
-a spirited painter in fresco; Florigerio,
-who practised at Udine and Padua, and of whom
-an altarpiece remains in the Academy; Giovanni
-Battista Grassi, who helped Vasari to compile
-his notices of Friulan art, and many others only
-known by name.</p>
-
-<p>At the close of the fifteenth century the
-revulsion against Paduan art extended as far
-as Brescia, and Girolamo Romanino was one
-of the first to acquire the trick of Venetian
-painting. He probably studied for a time under
-Friulan painters. Pellegrino is thought to have
-been at Brescia or Bergamo during the Friulan
-disturbances of 1506-12, and about 1510
-Romanino emerges, a skilled artist in Pellegrino’s
-Palmesque manner. His works at this
-time are dark and glowing, full of warm light
-and deep shadow; the scene is often laid under
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>arches, after the manner of the Vivarini and
-Cima; a gorgeous scheme of accessory is framed
-in noble architecture.</p>
-
-<p>Brescia was an opulent city, second only to
-Milan among the towns of northern Italy, and
-Romanino obtained plenty of patronage; but in
-1511 the city fell a prey to the horrors of war,
-was taken and lost by Venice, and in 1512 was
-sacked by the French. Romanino fled to Padua,
-where he found a home among the Benedictines
-of S. Giustina. Here he was soon well employed
-on an altarpiece with life-size figures for the
-high altar, and a “Last Supper” for the
-refectory. It is also surmised that he helped
-in the series for the Scuola del Santo, for several
-of which Titian in 1511 had signed a receipt,
-and the “Death of St. Anthony” is pointed out
-as showing the Brescian characteristics of fine
-colour, but poor drawing.</p>
-
-<p>Romanino returned to Brescia when the
-Venetians recovered it in 1516, but before doing
-so he went to Cremona and painted four subjects,
-which are among his most effective, in the choir
-of the Duomo.</p>
-
-<p>He is not so daring a painter as Pordenone,
-from whom he sometimes borrows ideas, but
-he is quite a convert to the modern style
-of the day, setting his groups in large spaces
-and using the slashed doublets, the long hose,
-and plumed headgear which Giorgione had
-found so picturesque. Romanino is often very
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>poor and empty, and fails most in selection and
-expression at the moments when he most needs
-to be great, but he is successful in the golden
-style he adopted after his closer contact with the
-Venetians, and his draperies and flesh tints are
-extremely brilliant. He is, indeed, inclined to
-be gaudy and careless in execution, and even the
-fine “Nativity” in the National Gallery gives
-the impression that size is more regarded than
-thought and feeling.</p>
-
-<p>Moretto is perhaps the only painter from the
-mainland who, coming within the charmed circle
-of Venetian art and betraying the study of Palma
-and Titian and the influence of Pordenone, still
-keeps his own gamut of colour, and as he goes
-on, gets consistently cooler and more silvery in
-his tones. He can only be fully studied in
-Brescia itself, where literally dozens of altarpieces
-and wall-paintings show him in every
-phase. His first connection was probably with
-Romanino, but he reminds us at one time of
-Titian by his serious realism, and finished, careful
-painting, at another of Raphael, by the grace
-and sentiment of his heads, and as time goes on
-he foreshadows the style of Veronese. In the
-“Feast in the House of Simon” in the organ-loft
-of the Church of the Pietà in Venice, the
-very name prepares us for the airy, colonnaded
-building, with vistas of blue sky and landscape,
-and the costly raiment and plenishing which
-might have been seen at any Venetian or
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>Brescian banquet. In his portraits Moretto
-sometimes rivals Lotto. His personages are
-always dignified and expressive, with pale,
-high-bred faces, and exceedingly picturesque
-in dress and general arrangement. He loved
-to paint a great gentleman, like the Sciarra
-Martinengo in the National Gallery, and to
-endow him with an air of romantic interest.</p>
-
-<p>One of those who entered so closely into the
-spirit of the Venetian School that he may almost
-be included within it, is Savoldo. His pictures
-are rare, and no gallery can show more than one
-or two examples. The Louvre has a portrait
-by him of Gaston de Foix, long thought to be
-by Giorgione. His native town can only show
-one altarpiece, an “Adoration of Shepherds,”
-low in tone but intense in dusky shadow with
-fringes of light. He is grey and slaty in his
-shadows, and often rough and startling in effect,
-but at his best he produces very beautiful, rich,
-evening harmonies; and a letter from Aretino
-bears witness to the estimation in which he was
-held.</p>
-
-<p>It is not easy to say if Brescia or Vicenza has
-most claim to Bartolommeo Montagna, the early
-master of Cima. Born of Brescian parents, he
-settled early in Vicenza, and he is by far the most
-distinguished of those Vicentine painters who
-drank at the Venetian fount. He must have
-gone early to Venice and worked with the
-Vivarini, for in his altarpiece in the Brera he
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>has the vaulted porticoes in which Bartolommeo
-and Alvise Vivarini delighted. His “Madonna
-enthroned” in the gallery at Vicenza has many
-points of contact with that of Alvise at Berlin.
-Among these are the four saints, the cupola, and
-the raised throne, and he is specially attracted
-by the groups of music-making angels; but
-Montagna has more moral greatness than Alvise,
-and his lines are stronger and more sinewy. He
-keeps faithful to the Alvisian feeling for calm
-and sweetness, but his personages have greater
-weight and gravity. He essays, too, a “Pietà”
-with saints, at Monte Berico, and shows both
-pathos and vehemence. He has evidently seen
-Bellini’s rendering, and attempts, if only with
-partial success, to contrast in the same way the
-indifference of death with the contemplation
-and anguish of the bereaved. Hard and angular
-as Montagna’s saints often are, they show
-power and austerity. His colour is brilliant
-and enamel-like; he does not arrive at the
-Venetian depth, yet his altarpieces are very
-grand, and once more we are struck by the
-greatness of even the secondary painters who
-drew their inspiration from Padua and Venice.</p>
-
-<p>Among the other Vicentines, Giovanni Speranza
-and Giovanni Buonconsiglio were imbued
-with characteristics of Mantegna. Speranza,
-in one of his few remaining works, almost
-reproduces the beautiful “Assumption” by
-Pizzolo, Mantegna’s young fellow-student, in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>the Chapel of the Eremitani. He employs
-Buonconsiglio as an assistant, and they imitate
-Montagna to such an extent that it is difficult to
-distinguish between their works. Buonconsiglio’s
-“Pietà” in the Vicenza gallery, is reminiscent
-of Montagna’s at Monte Berico. The types are
-lean and bony, the features are almost as rugged
-as Dürer’s, the flesh earthy and greenish. About
-1497 Buonconsiglio was studying oils with
-Antonello da Messina; he begins to reside in
-Venice, and a change comes over his manner.
-His colours show a brilliancy and depth acquired
-by studying Titian; and then, again, his bright
-tints remind us of Lotto. His name was on the
-register of the Venetian Guild as late as 1530.</p>
-
-<p>After Pisanello’s achievement and his marked
-effect on early Venetian art, Veronese painting
-fell for a time to a very low ebb; but Mantegna’s
-influence was strongly felt here, and art revived
-in Liberale da Verona, Falconetto, Casoto,
-the Morone and Girolamo dai Libri, painters
-delightful in themselves, but having little connection
-with the school of Venice. Francesco
-Bonsignori, however, shook himself free from
-the narrow circle of Veronese art, where he had
-for a time followed Liberale, and grows more
-like the Vicentines, Montagna and Buonconsiglio.
-He is careful about his drawing, but his figures,
-like those of many of these provincial painters, are
-short, bony and vulgar, very unlike the slender,
-distinguished type of the great Paduan. Under
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>the name of Francesco da Verona, Bonsignori
-works in the new palace of the Gonzagas, and
-several pictures painted for Mantua are now
-scattered in different collections. At Verona he
-has left four fine altarpieces. He went early
-to Venice, where he became the pupil of the
-Vivarini. His faces grow soft and oval, and
-the very careful outlines suggest the influence
-of Bellini.</p>
-
-<p>Girolamo Mocetto was journeyman to Giovanni
-Bellini; in fact, Vasari says that a “Dead
-Christ” in S. Francesco della Vigna, signed
-with Bellini’s name, is from Mocetto’s hand.
-His short, broad figures have something of
-Bartolommeo Vivarini’s character.</p>
-
-<p>Francesco Torbido went to Venice to study
-with Giorgione, and we can trace his master’s
-manner of turning half tones into deep shades;
-but he does not really understand the Giorgionesque
-treatment, in which shade was always rich
-and deep, but never dark, dirty and impenetrable,
-nor in the lights can he produce the clear glow
-of Giorgione. Another Veronese, Cavazzola, has
-left a masterpiece upon which any painter might
-be happy to rest his reputation; the “Gattemalata
-with an Esquire” in the Uffizi, a picture noble
-in feeling and in execution, and one which owes
-a great deal to Venetian portrait-painters.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pordenone.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Casara.</td> <td class="td5">Old Church: Frescoes, 1525.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Colatto.</td> <td class="td5">S. Salvatore: Frescoes (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Cremona.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Frescoes; Christ before Pilate; Way to Golgotha;
- Nailing to Cross; Crucifixion, 1521; Madonna enthroned
- with Saints and Donor, 1522.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Murano.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria d. Angeli: Annunciation (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Piacenza.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna in Campagna: Frescoes and Altarpiece, 1529-31.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Pordenone.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Madonna of Mercy, 1515; S. Mark enthroned with Saints, 1535.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Municipio: SS. Gothard, Roch, and Sebastian, 1525.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Spilimbergo.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Assumption; Conversion of S. Paul.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Sensigana.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Torre.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Adoration of Magi; Frescoes, 1520.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Portraits; Madonna, Saints, and the Ottobono Family; Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Elemosinario: Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Rocco: Saints, 1528.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pellegrino.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">San Daniele.</td> <td class="td5">Frescoes in S. Antonio.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Cividale.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria: Madonna with six Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Annunciation.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Romanino.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">S. Alessandro in Colonna: Assumption.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Pietà.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Galleria Martinengo: Portrait; Christ bearing Cross; Nativity; Coronation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Sacristy: Birth of Virgin; Visitation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco: Madonna and Saints; Sposalizio.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Cremona.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Polyptych; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Last Supper; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Sato, Lago di Garda.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></td> <td class="td5"> Duomo: Saints and Donor.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Trent.</td> <td class="td5">Castello: Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">St. Jerome. S. Giorgio in Braida: Organ shutters.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Moretto.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Holy Family; Christ bearing Cross; Donor.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Galleria Martinengo: Nativity and Saints; Madonna
- appearing to S. Francis; Saints; Madonna in Glory
- with Saints; Christ at Emmaus; Annunciation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Clemente: High Altar and four other Altarpieces.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco: Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Evangelista: High Altar; Third Altar.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria in Calchera: Dead Christ and Saints;
- Magdalen washing Feet of Christ.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria delle Grazie: High Altar.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Nazaro and Celso: Two Altarpieces; Sacristy: Nativity.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Seminario di S. Angelo: High Altar.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Count Sciarra Martinengo; Portrait;
- Madonna and Saints; Two Angels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna and Saints; Assumption.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Castello: Triptych; Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Vatican: Madonna enthroned with Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria della Pietà: Christ in the House of Levi.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio in Braida: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bartolommeo Montagna.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna and Saint, 1487.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna, Saints, and Donors, 1500.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Scuola del Santo: Fresco; Opening of S. Antony’s Tomb.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Pavia.</td> <td class="td5">Certosa: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Madonna and Saints; Christ with Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">SS. Nazaro e Celso: Saints; Pietà; Frescoes, 1491-93.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family; Madonna enthroned; Two Madonnas with Saints; Three Madonnas.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Altarpiece; Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Corona: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Monte Berico: Pietà, 1500; Fresco.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>PAOLO VERONESE</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Paolo Veronese, though perhaps he is not to
-be placed on the very highest pinnacle of the
-Venetian School, must be classed among those
-few great painters who rose far above the level
-of most of his contemporaries and who brought
-in a special note and flavour of his own. His
-art is an independent art, and he borrows little
-from predecessors or contemporaries. His free
-and joyous temperament gave relief at a moment
-when the Venetian scheme of colour threatened
-to become too sombre, and when Sebastian del
-Piombo, Pordenone, Titian himself, and above all
-Tintoretto, were pushing chiaroscuro to extremes.
-Veronese discards the deepest bronzes and mulberries
-and crimsons and oranges, and finds his
-range among cream and rose and grey-greens.
-Titian concentrated his colours and intensified
-his lights, Tintoretto sacrifices colour to vivid
-play of light and dark, but Veronese avoids the
-dark; the generous light plays all through his
-scenes. He has no wish to secure strong effects
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>but delights in soft, faded tints; old rose and
-<em>turquoise morte</em>. In his colour and his subjects
-he is a personification of the robust, proud, joy-loving
-Republic, in which, as M. Yriarte says,
-a man produced his works as a tree produces its
-fruit. We get very near him in those vast
-palaces and churches and villas, where his heroic
-figures expand in the azure air, against the white
-clouds, and yet he is one of the artists of the
-Renaissance about whom we know least. Here
-and there, in contemporary biography, we come
-across a mention of him and learn that he was
-sociable and lively, quick at taking offence, fond
-of his family and anxious to do his best by them.
-He was, too, very generous with his work—a
-great contrast in this respect to Titian—and
-contracts with convents and confraternities show
-that he often only stipulated for payment for
-bare time. Yet he was fond of personal luxury,
-loved rich stuffs, horses and hounds, and, says
-Ridolfi, “always wore velvet breeches.”</p>
-
-<p>His first masters, according to Mr. Berenson,
-were Badile and Brusasorci, masters of Verona,
-but before he was twenty, he was away working
-on his own account. His first patron was
-Cardinal Gonzaga, who brought several painters
-from Verona to Mantua; but Mantua was no
-longer what it had been in the days of Isabela
-d’Este, and Paolo Caliari soon returned to his
-own town. Before he was twenty-three he had
-decorated Villa Porti, near Vicenza, in collaboration
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>with Zelotti, a Veronese, portraying feasting
-gods and goddesses, framed in light architectural
-designs in monochrome. The two painters went
-on to other villas, mixing mortal and mythical
-figures in a happy, light-hearted medley.</p>
-
-<p>Zelotti having received a commission at
-Vicenza, Paolo decided to seek his fortune in
-Venice. The Prior of the Convent of San Sebastiano,
-on the Zattere, was a Veronese, and Caliari
-wrote to him before arriving in Venice in 1555.
-Thanks to the good Prior, who played a considerable
-part in his destiny, he obtained a
-commission for a “Coronation of the Virgin
-and four other Saints.” He first painted the
-sacristy, but his success was instantaneous, and
-many orders followed. The ceiling of the
-church was devoted to the history of Esther.
-The whole of these paintings are marvellously
-well preserved, and, inset in the carved and gilt
-framework, make a <em>coup d’œil</em> of surprising
-beauty. They had an immense effect. Every
-one was able to appreciate these joyous pictures
-of Venice, the loveliness of her skies, the pomp
-of her ceremonies, the rich Eastern stuffs and the
-glorious architecture of her palaces. It was an
-auspicious moment for a painter of Veronese’s
-temper; the so-called Republic, now, more than
-ever, an oligarchy, was at the height of its fortunes,
-redecorating was going forward everywhere,
-the merchant-nobility was rich and spending
-magnificently, the Eastern trade was flourishing,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>Venice was in all her glory. The patrons Caliari
-came to work for, preferred the ceremonial to
-the imaginative treatment of sacred themes, and
-he does not choose the tragedies of the Bible
-for illustration. He paints the history of Esther,
-with its royal audiences, banquets, and marriage-feasts.
-His Christs and Maries and Martyrs are
-composed, courtly personages, who maintain a
-dignified calm under misfortune, and have very
-little violent feeling to show.</p>
-
-<p>At the time of his arrival in Venice, Palma
-Vecchio was just dead, Tintoretto was absorbed
-by the Scuola di San Rocco, Paris Bordone was
-with Francis I. As rivals, Caliari had Salviati,
-Bonifazio, Schiavone, and Zelotti, all rendering
-homage to Titian who was eighty years old,
-but still in full vigour. Titian’s opinions in
-matters of art were dictates, his judgment was
-a law. He immediately recognised Veronese’s
-genius, which was of a kind to appeal to him,
-and together with Sansovino, who at this
-time was Director of Buildings to the Signoria,
-he received the young painter with an approval
-which ensured him a good start. Five years
-after Veronese’s arrival he was retained to
-decorate the Villa Barbaro at Maser, which is
-a type of those patrician country-houses to which
-the Venetians were becoming more attached
-every year. Daniele Barbaro, Patriarch of
-Aquileia, whose magnificent portrait by Veronese
-is in the Pitti, was himself an artist and designed
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>the ceiling of the Hall of the Council of Ten.
-Palladio, Alessandro Vittoria, and Veronese were
-associated to build him a dwelling worthy of a
-Prince of the Church. In style the villa is a total
-contrast to the gorgeous Venetian palaces; it is
-sober and simple, and well adapted to leisure and
-retirement. Its white stucco walls and decorations
-are devoid of gilding and colour, and the
-rooms adorned by Veronese’s brush show him
-in quite a new light. His visit to Rome did
-not take place till four years later, but he
-has been influenced here by the feeling for
-the antique, and he thinks much of line and
-style. He leaves on one side the gorgeous
-brocades and gleaming satins, in which he usually
-delights, and his nymphs are only clothed in
-their own beauty. And here Veronese shows
-his admirable taste and discretion; his patrons,
-the Barbaro family, are his friends, men and
-women of the world, who put no restraint on his
-fancy, and are not prone to censure, and Veronese,
-with the bridle on his neck, so to speak, uses his
-opportunities fully, yet never exceeds the limits
-of good taste. He is not gross and sensual like
-Rubens, but proud, grave and sweet, seductive,
-but never suggestive or vulgar. After having
-placed single figures wherever he can find a nook,
-he assembles all the gods of Olympia at a supper
-in the cupola. Immortality is a beautiful young
-woman seated on a cloud. Mercury gazes at
-her, caduceus in hand; Diana caresses her great
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>hound; Saturn, an old man, rests his head on his
-hand; Mars, Apollo, Venus, and a little cupid
-are scattered in the Empyrean, and Jupiter
-presides over the party. Below, a balcony rail
-runs round the cupola, and looking over it, an
-old lady, dressed in the latest fashion, points out
-the company to a beautiful young one and to a
-young man in a doublet who holds a hound in
-a leash. They are evidently family portraits,
-taken from those who looked on at the artist, and
-on the other side he has introduced members of
-his own family who were helping him. These
-decorations have a gaiety, an absence of pedantry,
-a sound and sane sympathy with the spirit of the
-Renaissance which tell of a happy moment
-when art was at its height and in touch with
-its environment. From about 1563 we may
-begin to date his great supper pictures. The
-Marriage of Cana (Louvre), one of his most
-famous works, was painted for the refectory in
-Sammichele, the old part of S. Giorgio Maggiore.
-The treaty for it is still in existence, dated June
-1562. The artist asks for a year; the Prior is
-to furnish canvas and colours, the painter’s board,
-and a cask of wine. The further payment of 972
-ducats illustrates the prices received by the
-greatest artists at the height of the Renaissance:
-£280 for work which occupied quite eight months.</p>
-
-<p>Veronese must have delighted in painting this
-work. Needless to say, it is not in the least
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>religious. He has united in it all the most varied
-personages who struck his imagination. So we
-see a Spanish grandee, Francis I., Suleiman the
-Sultan, Charles V., Vittoria Colonna, and
-Eleanor of Austria. In the foreground, grouped
-round a table, are Veronese himself, playing the
-viol, Tintoretto accompanying him, Jacopo da
-Ponte seated by them, and Paolo’s brother, the
-architect, with his hand on his hip, tossing off a
-full glass; and in the governor of the feast,
-opulent and gorgeously attired, we recognise
-Aretino. Under the marble columns of a
-Grimani or a Pesaro, he brings in all the
-illustrious actors of his own time and leaves us
-an odd and informing document. We can but
-accept the scene and admire the originality of its
-design and the freedom of its execution, its boldness
-and fancy, the way in which the varied
-incidents are brought into harmony, and the
-grace of the colonnade, peopled with spectators,
-standing out against the depth of distant sky.</p>
-
-<p>The celebrated suppers, of which this is the
-first example, are dispersed in different galleries
-and some have disappeared, but from this time
-Veronese loved to paint these great displays,
-repeating some of them, but always introducing
-variety.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img277.jpg" width="550" height="372" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Paolo Veronese.</em> MARRIAGE IN CANA. <em>Louvre.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Mansell and Co.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>In 1564 he accompanied Girolamo Grimani,
-procurator of St. Mark’s, who was appointed
-ambassador to the Holy See, and for the first time
-saw the works of Raphael and Michelangelo and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>the treasures of antiquity. For a time, the sight
-of the antique had some effect upon his work;
-in his famous ceiling in the Louvre, “Jupiter
-destroying the Vices,” the influence of Michelangelo
-is apparent and its large gestures are inspired
-by sculpture. Ridolfi says that Veronese
-brought home casts from Rome, and statues
-of Amazons and the Laocoon seem to have
-inspired the Jupiter. He did not go on long in
-this path; he does not really care for the nude—it
-is too simple for him. He prefers that his
-saints and divinities should appear in the gorgeous
-costumes of the day, and that his Venus
-and Diana and the nymphs should trail in rich
-brocades. But few documents are left concerning
-his work for the Ducal Palace up to 1576;
-much of it was destroyed in the great fire, but
-the Signoria then gave him a number of fresh
-commissions. The most important was the
-immense oval of the “Triumph of Venice,”
-or, as it is sometimes called, the “Thanksgiving
-for Lepanto”; the Republic crowned by
-victory and surrounded by allegorical figures,
-Glory, Peace, Happiness, Ceres, Juno and the
-rest. The composition shows the utmost freedom:
-the fair Queen leans back, surrounded
-by laughing patricians, who look up from their
-balconies, as if they were attending a regatta on
-the Grand Canal. The horses of the Free Companions,
-the soldiers who go afar to carry out
-the will of the Republic, prance in a crowd of
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>personages, each of whom represents a town or
-colony of her domain. Like all Veronese’s
-creations, this will always be pre-eminently a
-picture of the sixteenth century, dated by a
-thousand details of costume, architecture, and
-armour. Venice, the Venice of Lepanto and the
-Venier, of Titian, Aretino, and Veronese himself,
-makes a deep impression upon us, and the artist
-reflects his age with sympathetic spontaneity.</p>
-
-<p>Hardly a hall of the Ducal Palace but can
-show a canvas of Veronese or the assistants by
-whom he was now surrounded. From time to
-time he resumed the decorations of S. Sebastiano,
-and his incessant production betrays no trace
-of fatigue or languor. The martyrdom of the
-saint is a triumph of the beauty of the silhouette
-against a radiant sky. He goes back to Verona
-and paints the “Martyrdom of St. George.” He
-pours light into it. The saints open a shining
-path, down which a flower-crowned Love flutters
-with the diadem and palm of victory. The
-whole air and expression of St. George is full
-of strength and that look of goodness and
-serenity which is the painter’s nearest approach
-to religious feeling. Veronese was created a
-Chevalier of St. Mark; every one was asking for
-his services, but he was a stay-at-home by nature
-and fond of living with his family. Philip II.
-longed to get him to cover his great walls in the
-Escurial, but he very civilly declined all his invitations
-and sent Federigo Zucchero in his stead.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p><p>It was on account of the “Feast in the House
-of Levi” that in 1573 he was hauled before the
-tribunal of the Inquisition, and the document
-concerning this was only discovered a few years
-ago. The Signoria had never allowed any
-tribunal to chastise works of literature; on
-the contrary, Venice, though comparatively poor
-herself in geniuses of the mind, was the refuge
-of freedom of thought, and, in fact, had made a
-sort of compact with Niccolas V., which allowed
-her to set aside or suspend the decisions of the
-Holy Office, from which she could not quite
-emancipate herself. Veronese, however, was
-denounced by some “aggrieved person,” to whom
-his way of treating sacred subjects seemed an
-outrage on religion. The members of the
-tribunal demanded “who the boy was with the
-bleeding nose?” and “why were halberdiers
-admitted?” Veronese replied that they were the
-sort of servants a rich and magnificent host would
-have about him. He was then asked why he
-had introduced the buffoon with a parrot on his
-hand. He replied that he really thought only
-Christ and His Apostles were present, but that
-when he had a little space over, he adorned it
-with imaginary figures. This defence of the vast
-and crowded canvas did not commend itself, and
-he was asked if he really thought that at the
-Last Supper of our Saviour it was fitting to bring
-in dwarfs, buffoons, drunken Germans, and other
-absurdities. Did he not know that in Germany
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>and other places infested with heresy, they were
-in the habit of turning the things of Holy Church
-into ridicule, with intent to teach false doctrine
-to the ignorant? Paolo for his defence cited the
-Last Judgment, where Michelangelo had painted
-every figure in the nude, but the Inquisitor
-replied crushingly, that these were disembodied
-spirits, who could not be expected to wear clothing.
-Could Veronese uphold his picture as
-decent? The painter was probably not very
-much alarmed. He was a person of great importance
-in Venice, and the proceedings of the
-Inquisition were always jealously watched by
-members of the Senate, who would not have permitted
-any unfair interference with the liberties
-of those under the protection of the State. The
-real offence was the introduction of the German
-soldiers, who were peculiarly obnoxious to the
-Venetians; but Veronese did not care what the
-subject was as long as it gave him an excuse for
-a great <em>spectacle</em>. Brought to bay, he gave the
-true answer: “My Lords, I have not considered
-all this. I was far from wishing to picture anything
-disorderly. I painted the picture as it
-seemed best to me and as my intellect could
-conceive of it.” It meant that Veronese painted
-in the way that he considered most artistic, without
-even remembering questions of religion, and
-in this he summed up his whole æsthetic creed.
-He was set at liberty on condition that he took
-out one or two of the most offending figures.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>The “Feast in the House of Levi” (as he named
-it after the trial) is the finest of all his great
-scenic effects. The air circulates freely through
-the white architecture, we breathe more deeply
-as we look out into the wide blue sky, and
-such is the sensation of expansion, that it is
-hardly possible to believe we are gazing at a
-flat wall. Titian’s backgrounds are a blue
-horizon, a burning twilight. Veronese builds
-marble palaces, with rosy shadows, or columns
-blanched in the liquid light. His personages
-show little violent action. He places them in
-noble poses in which they can best show off
-their magnificent clothes, and he endows his
-patricians, his goddesses, his sacred persons, with
-a uniform air of majestic indolence.</p>
-
-<p>After his “trial,” Veronese proceeded more
-triumphantly than ever. Every prince wished
-to have something from his brush; the Emperor
-Rudolph, at Prague, showed with pride the
-canvases taken later by Gustavus Adolphus. The
-Duke of Modena, carrying on the traditions of
-Ferrara, added Veronese’s works to the treasures
-of the house of Este. The last ten years of his
-life were given up to visiting churches on the
-mainland and on the little islands round Venice,
-all covetous to possess something by the brilliant
-Veronese, whose name was in every mouth. Torcello,
-Murano, Treviso, Castelfranco, every convent
-and monastery loaded him with commissions, and
-it is significant of the spirit of the time, that in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>spite of the disapproval of the Holy See, his
-most ardent patrons, those who delighted most
-in his robust, uncompromising worldliness, were
-to be found in the religious houses. Then, when
-he went to rest in the summer heats in some villa
-on the Brenta, he left delightful souvenirs here
-and there. It was on such an occasion, for the
-Pisani, that he painted the “Family of Darius,”
-which was sold to England by a member of
-the house in 1857. The royal captives, who
-are throwing themselves at the feet of the
-conqueror, are, with Paolo’s usual frank naïveté
-and disregard of anachronisms, dressed in full
-Venetian costume—all the chief personages are
-portraits of the Pisani family. The freedom
-and rapidity of execution, the completeness and
-finish, the charm of colour, the beauty of the
-figures (especially the princely ones of Alexander
-and Hephaestion), and its extraordinary energy,
-make this one of the finest of all his works.
-The critic, Charles Blanc, says of it,
-“It is absurd and dazzling.”</p>
-
-<p>In the “Rape of Europa,” he recurred again
-to one of those legends of fabled beings who have
-outlasted dynasties and are still fresh and living.
-Veronese was surrounded by men like Aretino
-and Bembo, well versed in mythology, and with
-his usual zest he makes the tale an excuse for
-painting lovely, blooming women, rich toilets,
-and a delightful landscape. The wild flowers
-spring, and the little Loves fly to and fro against
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>a cloud-flecked sky of the wonderful Veronese
-turquoise. It is the work of a man who is a
-true poet of colour and for whom colour represents
-all the emotions of joy and pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>Veronese died comparatively young, of chill
-and fever, and all his family survived him. He
-lies buried in San Sebastiano. From contemporary
-memoirs we know that he lived and dressed
-splendidly. He kept immense stores of gorgeous
-stuffs to paint from in his studio, and drew
-everything from life,—the negroes covered with
-jewels, the bright-eyed pages, the models who,
-robed in velvets, brocades and satins, became
-queens or courtesans or saints. The pearls
-which bedecked them were from his own
-caskets. Though we know little of his private
-life, his work is so alive that he seems personified
-in it. He is saved from what might have been
-a prosaic or a sordid style by the delicious, ever-changing
-colour in which he revels; his silks
-and satins are less modelled by shadows than
-tinted by broken reflections, his embroidered and
-striped and arabesqued tissues are so harmoniously
-combined that the eye rests, wherever it falls, on
-something exquisite and subtle in tint. This is
-where his genius lies, “the decoration does not
-add to the interest of the drama; it replaces
-it”; in short, it <em>is</em> the drama itself, for his types
-show little selection, and his ideal of female
-beauty is not a very sympathetic one. His
-personages are cold and devoid of expression,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>their gestures are rather meaningless, but by
-means of light and air and exquisite colour he
-gives the poetical touch which all great art
-demands.</p>
-
-<p>On account of their size few examples of
-Veronese’s work are to be found in private
-collections, but the galleries of the different
-European capitals are rich in them. Numbers
-of paintings, too, which are by his assistants
-are dignified by his name, and directly after his
-death spurious works were freely manufactured
-and sold as genuine.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Cuccina Family; Adoration of Magi; Marriage of Cana.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Portrait of Daniele Barbaro.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Martyrdom of S. Giustina; Holy Family (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Consecration of S. Niccolas; The Family of Darius before
- Alexander; Adoration of the Magi.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Maser.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Barbaro: Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">S. Giustina: Martyrdom of S. Giustina.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at Emmaus; Marriage of Cana.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Battle of Lepanto; Feast in the House of Levi; Madonna with Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Triumph of Venice; Rape of Europa; Venice enthroned.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Barnabà: Holy Family.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco della Vigna: Holy Family.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Sebastiano: Madonna and Saints; Crucifixion; Madonna in
- Glory with S. Sebastian and other Saints; others in part;
- Frescoes; Saints and Figure of Faith; Sibyls.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Pasio Guadienti, 1556.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio: Martyrdom of S. George.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Monte Berico: Feast of St. Gregory, 1572.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at the House of Jairus.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>TINTORETTO</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>It does not seem likely that many new discoveries
-will be made about Tintoretto’s life. It
-was an open and above-board one, and there is
-practically no time during its span that we are
-not able to account for, and to say where he
-was living and how he was occupied. The son of
-a dyer, a member of one of the powerful guilds
-of Venice, the “little dyer,” <em>il tentoretto</em>, appears
-as an enthusiastic boy, keen to learn his chosen
-art. He was apprenticed to Titian and, immediately
-after, summarily ejected from that
-master’s workshop, on account, it seems probable,
-of the independence and innovation of his style,
-which was of the very kind most likely to shock
-and puzzle Titian’s courtly, settled genius. After
-this he painted when and where he could,
-pursuing his artistic studies with the headlong
-ardour which through life characterised his
-attitude towards art. Mr. Berenson thinks he
-may have worked in Bonifazio’s studio. He
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
-formed a close friendship with Andrea Schiavone,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
-he imported casts of Michelangelo’s statues, he
-studied the works of Titian and Palma. Over
-his door was written “the colour of Titian and
-the form of Michelangelo.” All his energies
-were for long devoted to the effort to master
-that form. Colour came to him naturally, but
-good drawing meant more to him than it had
-ever done to any Venetian. Long afterwards, to
-repeated inquiries as to how excellence could
-be best ensured, he would give no other advice
-than the reiterated, “study drawing.” He
-practised till the human form in every attitude
-held no difficulties for him. He suspended
-little models by strings, and drew every limb
-and torso he could get hold of over and over
-again. He was found in every place where
-painting was wanted, getting the builders to let
-him experiment upon the house-fronts. To
-master light and shade he constructed little
-cardboard houses, in which, by means of sliding
-shutters, lamplight and skylight effects could be
-arranged. It is particularly interesting to hear of
-this part of his education, as in the end the love
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>of shine and shadow was the most victorious of
-all his inspirations.</p>
-
-<p>The chief events in Tintoretto’s life are art-events.
-For some years he frescoed the outside
-of houses at a nominal price, or merely for his
-expenses. He decorated household furniture and
-everything he could lay hands on. Then came
-a few small commissions, an altarpiece here,
-organ-doors there, for unimportant churches.
-No one in Venice talked of any one save Palma,
-Bonifazio, and, above all, Titian, and it was difficult
-enough for an outsider, who was not one of their
-clique, to get employment. But by the time
-Tintoretto was twenty-six his talent was becoming
-recognised; he had painted the two
-altarpieces for SS. Ermagora and Fortunato, and
-the offer he made to decorate the vast church
-of his parish brought him conspicuously into
-notice. In the first ardour of youth he completed
-the “Last Judgment” for the choir.
-From time to time, during fourteen years, he
-redeemed his early promises and executed the
-“Golden Calf” and the “Presentation of the
-Virgin.” Within two years of his offer to
-the Prior, came his first great opportunity of
-achieving distinction. This was a commission
-from the Confraternity of St. Mark, and with the
-“Miracle of the Slave” he sprang at once to the
-highest place.</p>
-
-<p>The picture was universally admired, and was
-followed by three more dealing with the patron
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>saint. At forty he married happily a beautiful
-young girl, Faustina dei Vescovi, or Episcopi,
-as it is indifferently given, the daughter of a
-noble family of the mainland. Tradition has
-always pointed to the girl in blue in the “Golden
-Calf” as her portrait, while it is easy to recognise
-Tintoretto himself in the black-bearded giant,
-who helps to carry the idol. His house at this
-time was somewhere in the Parrocchia dell’ Orto,
-and there, during the next fourteen years, eight
-children were born, of whom the two eldest,
-Domenico and Marietta, attained distinction in
-their father’s profession. Another great event,
-which profoundly influenced his life, was the
-beginning of his connection in 1560 with the
-Scuola di San Rocco, the great confraternity
-which was devoted to combating the ravages of
-the plague and to succouring the families of its
-victims. His work for this lasted to the end of
-his life and is his most distinguished memorial.</p>
-
-<p>The palace to which the Robusti family
-moved in 1574, and which was inhabited by his
-descendants so late as 1830, can still be identified
-in the Calle della Sensa. It is broken up into
-two parts, but it is evident that it was a dwelling
-of some importance, a good specimen of
-Venetian Gothic. It still bears marks of considerable
-decoration; the walls are sheathed in
-marble plaques, and the first floor has rows of
-Gothic windows in delicately carved frames and
-little balconies of fretted marble. Zanetti, in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>1771, gives an etching of a magnificent bronze
-frieze cast from the master’s design, which ran
-round the Grand Sala. The family must have
-occupied the <em>piano nobile</em> and let off the floors
-they did not require.</p>
-
-<p>Descriptions of the life led by the painter and
-his family are given by Vasari, who knew him
-personally, and by Ridolfi, whose book was published
-in 1646, and who must have known his
-children, several of whom were still alive and
-proud of their father’s fame. We hear of pleasant
-evenings spent in the little palace, of the enthusiastic
-love of music, Tintoretto himself and his
-daughter being highly gifted. Among the
-<em>habitués</em> were Zarlino, for twenty-five years
-chapel-master of St. Mark’s, one of the fathers of
-modern music; Bassano; and Veronese, who, in
-spite of his love for magnificent entertainments,
-was often to be found in Tintoretto’s pleasant
-home. Poor Andrea Schiavone was always
-welcome, and as time went on the house became
-the haunt of all the cultured gentlemen and
-<em>litterati</em> of Venice.</p>
-
-<p>It is not difficult from the materials available
-to form a sufficiently lively idea of this Venetian
-citizen of the sixteenth century, as father and
-husband, host and painter. Ridolfi has collected
-a number of anecdotes, which space forbids me
-to use, but which are all very characteristic. We
-gather that he was a man of strong character,
-generous, sincere and simple, decided in his
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>ways, caring little for the great world, but
-open-handed and hospitable under his own roof,
-observant of men and manners, and sometimes
-rather brusque in dealing with bores and offensive
-persons. Full of dry quiet humour and of good-natured
-banter of his wife’s little weaknesses.
-A man, too, of upright conduct and free, as far
-as it can be ascertained, from any of those
-laxities and infidelities, so freely quoted of
-celebrated men and so easily condoned by his
-age. Art was Tintoretto’s main preoccupation;
-but he seems to have been a man of strong
-religious bias, making a close study of the Bible,
-and turning naturally in his last days to those
-truths with which his art had made him familiar,
-truths which he had represented with that touch
-of mystic feeling which was the deepest part
-of his nature.</p>
-
-<p>His relations with the State commenced in
-1574, when his offer to present a superb painting
-of the Victory of Lepanto was made to and
-accepted by the Council of Ten. Tintoretto
-was rewarded by a Broker’s patent, and between
-this and the “Paradiso,” the work of his old
-age, he executed a number of pictures for the
-Signoria. The only record of any travels are
-confined to two journeys paid to Mantua, where
-he went in the ’sixties and again in 1579 to see
-to the hanging of paintings done for the Gonzaga,
-and of which the documents have been kept,
-though the pictures have vanished. Tintoretto’s
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>last years were saddened by the death of his
-beloved daughter, who had always been his
-constant companion. He died in 1579 after a
-fortnight’s illness and left a will, which, together
-with that of his son, throws a good deal of light
-upon the family history.</p>
-
-<p>It is not easy to select from the vast quantity
-of work left by Tintoretto. He is one of those
-painters whose whole life was passed in his
-native city and who can only be adequately
-studied in that city. Perhaps the first place in
-which to seek him, is the great church which
-was the monument of his early prime. The
-“Last Judgment” was probably inspired by that
-of Michelangelo, of which descriptions and
-sketches must have reached the younger master,
-over whom the Florentine had exercised so
-strong a fascination. Tintoretto’s version impresses
-one as that of a mind boiling with
-thoughts and visions which he pours out upon
-the huge space. It depicts a terrible catastrophe,
-a scene of rushing destruction, of forms swept
-into oblivion, of others struggling to the light, of
-many beautiful figures and of a flood of air and
-light behind the rushing water,—water which
-makes us almost giddy as we watch it. The
-“Golden Calf” is a maturer production and includes
-some of the loveliest women Tintoretto
-ever painted. We see too plainly the planning,
-the device of concentrating interest on the idol by
-turning figures and pointing fingers, but nothing
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>can be imagined more supple and queenly than
-the woman in blue, and the way the light falls
-on her head and perfectly foreshortened arm
-shows to what excellence Tintoretto had attained.
-The “Presentation” is a riper work. The
-drawing of the flight of steps and of the groups
-upon them could not be bettered. The little
-figure of the Virgin, prototype of the new
-dispensation, as she advances to meet the representative
-of the old, thrills with mystic feeling,
-yet the painter has contrived to retain the sturdy
-simplicity of a child. The “St. Agnes,” with
-its contrast of light and shade, of strength made
-perfect in weakness, is of later date and was the
-commission of Cardinal Contarini.</p>
-
-<p>It is interesting to realise how Tintoretto,
-especially in the “Presentation,” has contrived,
-while using the traditional episodes, to infuse
-so strong an imaginative sense. The contrast
-of age and youth, the joy of the Gentiles, the
-starlike figure of the child surrounded by shadows,
-convey an emotional feeling, in harmony with
-the nature of the scene.</p>
-
-<p>Next let us group together the miracles in
-the history of St. Mark. One of the qualities
-which strikes us most in the “Miracle of the
-Slave” is its strong local colour. It tells of
-Titian and Bonifazio and is unlike Tintoretto’s
-later style. The colours are glowing and gem-like;
-carnations, orange-yellows, deep scarlet,
-and turquoise-blue. The crimson velvet of the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>judge’s dress is finely relieved against a blue-green
-sky, and Tintoretto has kept that instinctive
-fire and dash which culminates at once and
-without effort in perfect action, “as a bird flies,
-or a horse gallops.” It startled the quiet
-members of the Guild, and at the first moment
-they hesitated to accept it. The “Rescue of
-the Saracen” and the “Transportation of the
-Body” are more in the golden-brown manner
-to which he was moving, but it is in the
-“Finding of the Body” (Brera) that he rises to
-the highest emotional pitch. The colossal form
-of the saint, expanding with life and power as he
-towers in the spirit above his own lifeless clay,
-draws all eyes to him and seems to fill the
-barrel-roofed hall with ease and energy. Every
-part of the vault is flooded by his life-giving
-energy, and here Tintoretto deals with light and
-shade with full mastery.</p>
-
-<p>As we follow Tintoretto’s career, it is borne
-in upon us how little positive colour it takes to
-make a great colourist. The whole Venetian
-School, indeed, does not deal with what we understand
-as bright colour. Vivid tints are much more
-characteristic of the Flemish and the Florentine,
-or, let us say, of the painters of to-day. Strong,
-crude colours are to be seen on all sides in the
-Salon or the Royal Academy, but they are
-absent from the scheme of sombre splendour
-which has given the Venetians their title to
-fame. This is especially true of Tintoretto, and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>it becomes more so as he advances. His gamut
-becomes more golden-brown and mellow; the
-greys and browns and ivories combine in a
-lustrous symphony more impressive than gay
-tints, flooded with enveloping shadow and
-illumined by flashes of iridescent light. Another
-noticeable feature is the way in which he
-puts on his oil-colour, so that it bears the direct
-impression of the painter’s hand. The Florentines
-had used flat tints, opaque and with every brush-mark
-smoothed away; but as the later Venetians
-covered large spaces with oil-colour, they no
-longer sought to dissimulate the traces of the
-brush, and light, distance, movement, were all
-conveyed by the turns and twists and swirls with
-which the thin oil-colour was laid on. Look at
-the power of touch in such a picture as the
-“Death of Abel”; we see this spontaneity of
-execution actually forming part of the emotion
-with which the picture is charged. The concentrated
-hate of the one figure, the desperate
-appeal of the other, the lurid note of the landscape,
-gain their emotion as much from the
-impetuous brush-work as from the more studied
-design. We come closest to the painter’s mind
-in the Scuola di San Rocco. He had already
-been employed in the church, and there remains,
-darkened and ruined by damp, the series illustrative
-of the career of S. Roch, patron saint of
-sufferers from the plague. When the great
-Halls of Assembly were to be decorated in 1560,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>the confraternity asked a conclave of painters,
-among whom were Veronese and Andrea
-Schiavone, to prepare sketches for competition.
-When they assembled to display their designs,
-Tintoretto swept aside a cartoon from the ceiling
-of the refectory and discovered a finished picture,
-the “S. Roch in Glory,” which still holds its
-place there. Neither the other artists nor the
-brethren seem to have approved of this unconventional
-proceeding, but he “hoped they would
-not be offended; it was the only way he knew.”
-Partly from the displeased withdrawal of some of
-the rest, but partly also from the excellence of
-the work, the commission fell to Tintoretto, and
-after two years’ work he was received into the
-order, and was assigned an annual provision of
-100 ducats (£50) a year for life, being bound
-every year to furnish three pictures.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>TINTORETTO</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p>
-
-<p>The first portion of the vast building that was
-finished was the Refectory, but in examining
-the scheme, it is perhaps more convenient to
-leave it to its proper place, which is the climax.
-Before beginning, Tintoretto must have had the
-whole thing planned, and we cannot doubt that
-he was influenced by the Sixtine Chapel and
-recalled its plan and significance; the old dispensation
-typifying the new, the Old Testament
-history vivified by the acts of Christ. The
-main feature of the harmony which it is only
-reasonable to suppose governs the whole building,
-is its dedication to S. Roch, the special patron of
-mercy. The principal paintings of the Upper
-Hall are therefore concerned with acts of divine
-mercy and deliverance, and even the monochromes
-bear upon the central idea. On the roof are the
-three most important miracles of mercy performed
-on behalf of the Chosen People. The
-paintings on roof and walls are linked together.
-The “Fall of Man” at one end of the Hall, the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>disobedient eating, corresponds with the obedient
-eating of the Passover at the other, and is
-interdependent with the Manna in the Wilderness,
-the Last Supper, and the Miracle of the Loaves.
-The Miracles of satisfied thirst are represented
-by “Moses striking the Rock,” Samson drinking
-from the jawbone and the waters of Meribah.
-The Baptism and other signs of the Advent of
-Christ and the Divine preparation, balance events
-in the early life of Moses. In the Refectory
-which opens from the Great Hall, we come to
-the “Crucifixion,” the crowning act of mercy,
-surrounded by the events which immediately
-succeeded it, and typified immediately above in
-the Central Hall, by the lifting up of the Brazen
-Serpent. The miracles include six of refreshment
-and succour, two of miraculous restoration
-to health, and two of deliverance from danger.
-The whole scheme has been worked out in
-detail in my book on “Tintoretto.”</p>
-
-<p>In the working out of his great scheme,
-Tintoretto is impatient of hackneyed and traditional
-forms; he must have a reading of his own,
-and one which appeals to his imagination. We
-see that passion for movement which distinguishes
-his early work. “Moses striking the Rock” is a
-figure instinct with purpose and energy. The
-water bounds forth, living, life-giving, the people
-strain wildly to reach it. His figures are sometimes
-found fault with, as extravagant in gesture,
-but the attitudes were intended to be seen and to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>arrest attention from far below, and we must not
-forget that the painter’s models were drawn from
-a Southern race, to whom emphasis of action is
-natural. Tintoretto, it may be conceded, is on
-certain occasions, generally when dealing with
-accessory figures, inclined to excess of gesture;
-it is the defect of his temperament, but when he
-has a subject that carries him away he is sincere
-and never violent in spirit. Titian is cold compared
-to him; his colour, however effective, is
-calculated, whereas Tintoretto’s seems to permeate
-every object and to soak the whole composition.
-To quote a recent critic: “He chose to begin, if
-possible, with a subject charged with emotion.
-He then proceeded to treat it according to its
-nature, that is to say, he toned down and obscured
-the outlines of form and mapped out the subject
-instead in pale or sombre masses of light and
-shade. Under the control of this powerful
-scheme of chiaroscuro, the colouring of the
-composition was placed, but its own character,
-its degree of richness and sobriety, was determined
-by the kind of emotion belonging to the subject.
-To use colour in this way, not only with
-emotional force, but with emotional truth, is to
-use it to perform one of the greatest functions
-of art.”<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
-
-<p>So in the Crucifixion it is not so much the
-aspect of the groups, the pathos of the faces
-or gestures, that tells, but it is the mystery and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>gloom in which the whole scene is muffled, the
-atmosphere into which we are absorbed, the
-sense of livid terror conveyed by the brooding
-light and shadow, that makes us feel how different
-the rendering is from any other. In the “Christ
-before Pilate” the head and figure of Christ are
-not particularly impressive in themselves, but
-the brilliant light falling on the white robes and
-coursing down the steps supplies dignity and
-poetry; the slender white figure stands out
-like a shaft of light against the lurid and
-troubled background. Again, in the “Way to
-Golgotha” the falling evening gleam, the wild
-sky, the deep shadow of the ravine, throw into
-relief the quiet form, detached in look and
-feeling, as of one upborne by the spirit far
-above the brutal throng. Nowhere does that
-spiritual emotion find deeper expression than
-in the “Visitation.” The passion of thanksgiving,
-the poignancy of mother-love, throb
-through the two women, who have been
-travelling towards one another, with a great
-secret between them, and who at length reach
-the haven of each other’s love and knowledge.
-Here, too, the dying light, the waving tree,
-the obliteration of form, and the feeling of
-mystery make a deep appeal to the sensuous
-apprehension. We find it again and again; the
-great trees sway and whisper in the gathering
-darkness as the Virgin rides through the falling
-evening shadows, clasping her Babe, and in that
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>most moving of all Tintoretto’s creations, the
-“S. Mary of Egypt,” the emotional mood of
-Nature’s self is brought home to us. The trees
-that dominate the landscape are painted with
-a few “strokes like sabre cuts”; the landscape,
-given with apparent carelessness, yet conveying
-an indescribable sense of space and solemnity,
-unfolds itself under the dying day; and in solitary
-meditation, thrilling with ecstasy, sits that little
-figure, whose heart has travelled far away to
-commune with the Spirit, “whose dwelling is
-the light of setting suns.”</p>
-
-<p>It is not possible in a short space to touch,
-even in passing, on all the many scenes in these
-halls: the “Annunciation,” with its marvellous
-flight of cherubs, reminding us of the flight of
-pigeons in the Piazza, and how often the old
-painter must have watched them; the “Temptation,”
-contrasting the throbbing evil, the flesh
-that <em>must</em> be fed, with the calm of absolute
-purity; the “Massacre of the Innocents,” for
-which the horrors of sacked towns could have
-supplied many a parallel,—we have not time to
-dwell on these, but we may notice how the artist
-has overcome the difficulty of seeing clearly in the
-dark halls, by choosing strong and varied effects
-of light for the most shadowed spaces, and we
-can picture what the halls must have been like
-when they first glowed from his hand, adorned
-with gilded fretwork and moulding, and hung
-with opulent draperies, with the rose-red and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>purple of bishops’ and cardinals’ robes reflected in
-the gleaming pavement.</p>
-
-<p><a name="egypt" id="egypt"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 259px;">
-<img src="images/img303.jpg" width="259" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Tintoretto.</em> <span style="margin-left: 4em;"><em>Scuola di San Rocco.</em></span><br />
-S. MARY OF EGYPT.<br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>Leonardo, by one supreme example, Tintoretto,
-by many renderings, have made the “Last
-Supper” peculiarly their own in the domain of
-art. It shows how strongly the mystic strain
-entered into the man’s character, that often as
-Tintoretto treated the subject, it never lost its
-interest for him, and he never failed to find a fresh
-point of view. In that in S. Polo, Christ offers
-the sacred food with a gesture of vehement
-generosity. Placed as the picture is, to appeal to
-all comers to the Mass, to afford them a welcome
-as they pass to the High Altar, it tells of the
-Bread of Life given to all mankind. Tintoretto
-himself, painted in the character of S. Paul,
-stands at one side, absorbed in meditation. We
-need not insist again on the emotional value of
-the deep colours, the rich creams and crimsons
-and the chiaroscuro. In his latest rendering, in
-S. Giorgio Maggiore, he touches his highest point
-in symbolical treatment. Some people are only
-able to see a theatrical, artificial spirit in this
-picture, but at least, when we consider what
-deep meditation Tintoretto had bestowed on
-his subjects, we may believe that he himself was
-sincere and that he let himself go over what
-commended itself as an entirely new rendering.
-“The Light shined in the Darkness, and the
-Darkness comprehended it not.” The supernatural
-is entering on every side, but the feast
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>goes on; the serving men and maids busy themselves
-with the dishes; the disciples are inquiring,
-but not agitated; none see that throng of
-heavenly visitants, pouring in through the blue
-moonlight, called to their Master’s side by the
-supreme significance of His words. The painter
-has taken full advantage of the opportunity of
-combining the light of the cresset lamp, pouring
-out smoky clouds, with the struggling moonlight
-and the unearthly radiance, in divers, yet
-mingling streams which fight against the surrounding
-gloom. In the scene in the Scuola
-di S. Rocco the betrayal is the dominating
-incident, and in San Stefano all is peace, and the
-Saviour is alone with the faithful disciples.</p>
-
-<p><a name="bacchus" id="bacchus"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img308.jpg" width="550" height="467" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Tintoretto.</em> BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. <em>Ducal Palace, Venice.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>Though several of the large compositions
-ascribed to Tintoretto in the Ducal Palace are
-only partly by him, or entirely by followers and
-imitators, its halls are still a storehouse of his
-genius. There is much that is fine about the
-great state pieces. In the “Marriage of St.
-Catherine,” the saint, in silken gown and
-long transparent veil, is an exquisite figure.
-Tintoretto bathes all his pageantry in golden
-light and air, and yet we feel that these huge
-official subjects, with the prosaic old Doges
-introduced in incongruous company, neither
-stimulated his imagination nor satisfied his taste.
-It is on the smaller canvases that he finds inspiration.
-He never painted anything more lovely,
-more perfect in design, or more gay and tender in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>idea, than the cycle in the Ante-Collegio. The
-glowing light and exquisitely graded shadows
-upon ivory limbs have a sensuous perfection and
-a refined, unselfconscious joy such as is felt in
-hardly any other work, except the painter’s own
-“Milky Way” in the National Gallery. In all
-these four pictures the feeling for design, a
-branch of art in which Tintoretto was past master,
-is fully displayed. In the Bacchus and Ariadne
-all the principal lines, the eyes and gestures,
-converge upon the tiny ring which is the symbol
-of union between the goddess and her lover,
-between the queenly city and the Adriatic sea.
-Or take “Pallas driving away Mars”: see how
-the mass into which the figures are gathered on
-the left adds strength to the thrust of the
-goddess’s arm, and what steadiness is given by
-that short straight lance of hers, coming in
-among all the yielding curves. The whole four
-are linked together in meaning: the call to
-Venice to reign over the seas, her triumphant
-peace, with Wisdom guiding her council, and her
-warriors forging arms in case of need. In conjunction
-with these pictures are two small ones
-in the chapel, hardly less beautiful—St. George
-with St. Margaret, and SS. Andrew and Jerome.
-It is difficult to say whether the exultant St.
-George, the dignified young bishop, or the two
-older saints are the more sympathetic creations,
-or the more admirable, both in drawing and
-colour. The sense of space in both settings is an
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>added charm, and every scrap of detail, the leafy
-boughs, the cross and crozier, is important to the
-composition.</p>
-
-<p>There are many other striking examples,
-ranging all through Tintoretto’s life, of his
-untiring imagination. In the Salute is that
-“Marriage of Cana,” in which all the actors
-seem to swim in golden light. The sharp
-silhouettes bring out an effect of radiant sunshine
-with which the hall is flooded, and all the
-architectural lines lead our eyes towards the
-central figure, placed at a distance. On that
-long canvas in the Academy, kneel the three
-treasurers, pouring out their gold and bending in
-homage before the Madonna and Child, who sit
-enthroned upon a broad piazza, through the
-marble pillars of which a blue and distant landscape
-shines. Grave senators in mulberry velvet
-and ermine kneel before the Child, or hold
-counsel on Paduan affairs under the patronage of
-S. Giustina. The “Crucifixion” (in S. Cassiano)
-is another triumph of the painter’s imaginative
-conception. The bold lines of the crosses,
-the ladder, and the figures detach against a
-glorious sky, and the presence of the moving,
-murmuring throng, of which, by the placing of
-the line of sight, the spectator is made to form
-a part, is conveyed by the swaying and crossing
-of the lances borne by the armed men who keep
-the ground. There is a series, too, which deals
-with the Magdalen. She mourns her dead in that
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>solemn, restrained “Entombment,” where the enfolding
-shadows frame the cross against the sad
-dawn, which adorns the mortuary chapel of S.
-Giorgio Maggiore; and the Pietà in the Brera, the
-long lines of which add to the impression of tender
-repose, has its peace broken by the passionate cry
-of the woman who loved much. Tintoretto’s
-ideas are exhaustless; he can paint the same
-scene in a dozen different ways, and, in fact,
-the book of sketches lately acquired by the
-British Museum shows as many as thirty trials
-dashed off for one subject, and after all he uses
-one composed for something quite different. It
-is this habit of throwing off red-hot essays, fresh
-from his brain, that has led to the common but
-superficial judgment that Tintoretto was merely
-a great improvisatore, whose successes came more
-or less by good luck. He could, indeed, paint
-pictures at a pace at which many great masters
-could only sketch, but he had already designed
-and considered and rejected, doing with oil,
-ink, and paper what many of his contemporaries
-did mentally. Such achievements as the
-Ante-Collegio cycle, the “House of Martha
-and Mary,” the “Marriage of Cana,” the
-“Temptation of S. Anthony,” to name only a
-few, show a finish and perfection and a balance
-of design which preclude the idea of their being
-lightly painted pictures. When he was actually
-engaged, Tintoretto let himself go with impetuous
-ardour, but we may feel assured he left
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>nothing to chance, though he had his own way
-of making sure of the result.</p>
-
-<p>It is strange to hear people, as one does now
-and then, talking of the “Paradiso” as “a splendid
-failure.” It may be granted that the subject is
-an impossible one for human art to realise, yet
-when all allowance has been made for a lamentable
-amount of drying and blackening, it is difficult
-to agree that Ruskin was all wrong in his
-admiration of that thronging multitude, ordered
-and disciplined by the tides of light and shadow,
-which roll in and out of the masses, resolving
-them into groups and single figures of almost
-matchless beauty and melting away into a sea
-of radiant ether, which tells us of the boundless
-space which surrounds the serried ranks of the
-Blessed.</p>
-
-<p>Tintoretto was seventy-eight when it was
-allotted to him, and it was the last great effort of
-his mind and hand. Studies for it are preserved
-both at the Louvre and at Madrid, and it is
-evident that the painter has framed it upon
-the thought of Dante’s mystic rose. The circles
-and many of the figures can be traced in the
-poem, and the idea of the Eternal Light streaming
-through the leaves of the rose dominates the
-composition. It is appropriate that it should
-have been his last great work, as it was also
-the greatest attempt at composition ever made
-by a master of the Venetian School.</p>
-
-<p>There is no room here to study Tintoretto as
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>a painter of battlepieces, though from the time
-he painted the “Battle of Lepanto,” for the
-Council of Ten, he often returned to such
-subjects. His two series for the Gonzaga included
-several, and the Ducal Palace still possesses
-examples. The impetuosity of his style stood
-him in good stead, and he never fails to bring in
-graceful and striking figures.</p>
-
-<p>His portraits are hardly equal to Titian’s
-intellectual grasp or fine-grained colour, but they
-are extraordinarily characteristic. He prefers to
-paint men rather than women, and he painted
-hundreds—all the great persons of his time who
-lived in and visited Venice. The Venetian
-portrait by this time was expected to be more
-than a likeness and more than a problem. It was
-to please the taste as a picture, to interest and to
-satisfy criticism. Tintoretto, like Lotto, gets
-behind the scenes, and we see some mood, some
-aspect of the sitter that he hardly expected to
-show. His penetration is not equal to Lotto’s,
-but he deals with his sitters with an observation
-which pierces below the surface.</p>
-
-<p>In criticising Tintoretto, men seem often
-unable to discriminate between the turgid and
-melodramatic, and the spontaneous and temperamental.
-The first all must abhor, but the last
-is sincere and deserves to be respected. It is by
-his best that we must judge a man, and taking
-his best and undoubtedly authentic work, no one
-has left a larger amount which will stand the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>test of criticism. As an exponent of lofty and
-elevated central ideas, which unify all parts
-of his composition, Tintoretto stands with the
-greatest imaginative minds. The intellectual
-side of life was exemplified in Florentine art,
-but the Renaissance would have been a one-sided
-development if there had not arisen a body of
-men to whom emotion and the gift of sensuous
-apprehension seemed of supreme value, and at
-the very last there arose with him one who, to
-their philosophy of feeling and the mastery of
-their chosen medium, added the crowning glory
-of the imaginative idea.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Augsburg.</td> <td class="td5">Christ in the House of Martha and Mary.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portraits; Madonna and Saints; Luna and the Hours; Procurator
- before S. Mark.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Lady in Black; The Rescue; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Portraits of Men; Luigi Cornaro; Vincenzo Zeno.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Portrait of Himself; Admiral Venier; Portrait of Old
- Man; Jacopo Sansovino; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Esther before Ahasuerus; Nine Muses; Portrait of
- Dominican; Knight of Malta.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. George and the Dragon; Christ washing Feet of Disciples;
- Origin of Milky Way.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Entombment; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Battle on Land and Sea; Solomon and the Queen of Sheba;
- Susanna and the Elders; Finding of Moses; Esther before
- Ahasuerus; Judith and Holofernes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: S. Helena, Saints and Donors; Finding of the Body of S. Mark (E.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Susanna and the Elders; Sketch for Paradise; Portrait of Himself.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">Capitol: Baptism; Ecce Homo; The Flagellation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Colonna: Adoration of the Holy Spirit; Old Man playing Spinet; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Turin.</td> <td class="td5">The Trinity.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: S. Giustina and Three Senators; Madonna with Saints
- and Treasurers, 1566; Portraits of Senators; Deposition;
- Jacopo Soranzo, 1564 (still attributed to Titian); Andrea
- Capello (E.); Death of Abel; Miracle of S. Mark, 1548; Adam
- and Eve; Resurrected Christ blessing Three Senators; Madonna
- and Portraits; Crucifixion; Resurrection; Presentation in
- Temple.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale: Doge Mocenigo commended to Christ by S. Mark;
- Doge da Ponte before the Virgin; Marriage of S. Catherine;
- Doge Gritti before the Virgin.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ante-Collegio: Mercury and Three Graces; Vulcan’s Forge;
- Bacchus and Ariadne; Pallas resisting Mars, abt. 1578.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ante-room of Chapel: SS. George, Margaret, and Louis;
- SS. Andrew and Jerome.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Senato: S. Mark presenting Doge Loredano to the Virgin.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala Quattro Porte: Ceiling. Ante-room: Portraits; Ceiling,
- Doge Priuli with Justice. Passage to Council of Ten:
- Portraits; Nobles illumined by Holy Spirit.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala del Gran Consiglio: Paradise, 1590.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala dello Scrutino: Battle of Zara.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Reale: Transportation of Body of S. Mark; S. Mark
- rescues a Shipwrecked Saracen; Philosophers.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli Palace: Battlepiece; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Cassiano: Crucifixion; Christ in Limbo; Resurrection.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio Maggiore: Last Supper; Gathering of Manna;
- Entombment (in Mortuary Chapel).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Mater Domini: Finding of True Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dell’ Orto: Last Judgment (E.); Golden Calf (E.);
- Presentation of Virgin (E.); Martyrdom of S. Agnes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Polo: Last Supper; Assumption of Virgin.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">S. Rocco: Annunciation; Pool of Bethesda; S. Roch and the
- Beasts; S. Roch healing the Sick; S. Roch in Campo d’ Armata;
- S. Roch consoled by an Angel.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scuola di S. Rocco: Lower Hall, all the paintings on wall.
- Staircase: Visitation. Upper Hall: all the paintings on walls
- and ceiling. Refectory: Crucifixion, 1565; Christ before
- Pilate; Ecce Homo; Way to Golgotha; Ceiling, 1560.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Salute: Marriage of Cana, 1561; Martyrdom of S. Stephen.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Silvestro: Baptism.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Stefano: Last Supper; Washing of Feet; Agony in Garden.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Trovaso: Temptation of S. Anthony.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Susanna and the Elders; Sebastian Venier; Portraits of
- Procurators, Senators, and Men (fifteen in all); Old Man and
- Boy; Portrait of Lady.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>BASSANO</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>We wonder how many of those sightseers who
-pass through the Ante-Collegio in the Ducal
-Palace, and stare for a few moments at Tintoretto’s
-famous quartet and at Veronese’s “Rape of
-Europa,” turn to give even such fleeting attention
-to the long, dark canvas which hangs beside
-them, “Jacob’s Journey into Canaan,” by Jacopo
-da Ponte, called Bassano.</p>
-
-<p>Yet from the position in which it is placed
-the visitor might guess that it is considered to be
-a gem, and it gains something in interest when we
-learn from Zanetti that it was ordered by Jacopo
-Contarini at the same time as the “Rape of
-Europa,” as if the great connoisseur enjoyed
-contrasting Veronese’s light, gay style with the
-vigorous brush of da Ponte.</p>
-
-<p>If attention is arrested by the beauty of the
-painting, and the visitor should be inspired to
-seek the painter in his native city, he will be
-well repaid. Bassano once held an important
-position on the main road between Italy and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>Germany, but since the railroad was made across
-the Brenner Pass, few people ever see the little
-town which lies cradled on the spurs of the
-Italian Alps, where the gorge of Valsugana
-opens. It is surrounded by chestnut woods,
-which sweep up to the blue mountains, the wide
-Brenta flows through the town, and the houses
-cluster high on either side, and have gardens and
-balconies overhanging the water. The façades
-of many of the houses are covered with fading
-frescoes, relics of da Ponte’s school of fresco-painters,
-which, though they are fast perishing,
-still give a wonderful effect of warmth and colour.</p>
-
-<p>Jacopo da Ponte was the son and pupil of his
-father, Francesco, who in his day had been a
-pupil of the Vicentine, Bartolommeo Montagna.
-Francesco da Ponte’s best work is to be found
-at Bassano, in the cathedral and the church of
-San Giovanni, and has many of the characteristics,
-such as the raised pedestal and vaulted cupola,
-which we have noticed that Montagna owed to
-the Vivarini. Francesco’s son went when very
-young to Venice, and was there thrown at once
-among the artists of the lagoons, and attached
-himself in particular to Bonifazio. In Jacopo’s
-earliest work, now in the Museum at Bassano, a
-“Flight into Egypt,” Bonifazio’s tuition is
-markedly discernible in the build of the figures
-and, above all, in the form of the heads. A
-comparison of the very peculiarly shaped head
-of the Virgin in this picture with that of the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
-Venetian lady in Bonifazio’s “Rich Man’s Feast,”
-in the Venetian Academy, leaves us in no doubt
-on this score. Jacopo’s “Adulteress before
-Christ” and the “Three in the Fiery Furnace”
-have Bonifazio’s manner in the architecture and
-the staging of the figures. Only five examples
-are known of this early work of da Ponte, and it
-is all in Bonifazio’s lighter style, not unlike his
-“Holy Family” in the National Gallery.</p>
-
-<p>The house in which the painter lived when
-he returned to his native town, still stands in the
-little Piazza Monte Vecchio, and its whole façade
-retains the frescoes, mouldy and decaying, with
-which he decorated it. The design is in four
-horizontal bands. First comes a frieze of
-children in every attitude of fun and frolic.
-Then follows a long range of animals—horses,
-oxen, and deer. Musical instruments and flowers
-make a border, with allegorical representations
-of the arts and crafts filling the spaces between
-the windows. The principal band is decorated
-with Scriptural subjects, most of which are now
-hardly discernible, but which represent “Samson
-slaying the Philistines,” “The Drunkenness
-of Noah,” “Cain and Abel,” “Lot and his
-Daughters,” and “Judith with the Head of
-Holofernes.” Between the two last there
-formerly appeared a drawing of a dead child,
-with the motto, “Mors omnia aequat,” which
-was removed to the Museum in 1883, in comparatively
-good preservation.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p><p>Jacopo da Ponte lived a busy life at Bassano,
-where, with the help of his four sons, who were
-all painters, he poured out an inexhaustible
-stream of works, which, it is said, were put up
-to auction at the neighbouring fairs, if no other
-market was forthcoming. From time to time
-he and his sons went down to Venice, and with
-the help of the eldest, Francesco, Bassano (as he
-is generally known) painted the “Siege of Padua”
-and five other works in the Ducal Palace. His
-mature style was founded mainly upon that of
-Titian, and it is to this second manner that he
-owes his fame. He makes use of fewer colours,
-and enhances his lights by deepening and consolidating
-his shadows, so that they come into
-strong contrast, and his technique gains a richer
-impasto. He has a marvellous faculty for keeping
-his colour pure, and his greens shine like a
-beetle’s wing. A nature-lover in the highest
-degree, his painting of animals and plants evinces
-a mind which is steeped in the magic of outdoor
-life. A subject of which he was particularly
-fond, and which he seems to have undertaken for
-half the collectors of Europe, was the “Four
-Seasons.” Here was found united everything
-that Bassano most loved to paint: beasts of the
-farmyard and countryside, agriculturists with
-their implements, scenes of harvest-time and
-vintage, rough peasants leading the plough,
-cutting the grass, harvesting the grain, young
-girls making hay, driving home the cattle,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>taking dinner to the reapers. When he was
-obliged to paint for churches he chose such
-subjects as the Adoration of the Shepherds, the
-Sacrifice of Noah, the Expulsion from the
-Temple, into which he could introduce animals,
-painting them with such vigour and such forcible
-colour that Titian himself is said to have had
-a copy hanging in his studio. He loved to paint
-his daughters engaged in household tasks, and
-perhaps placed his figures with rather too obvious
-a reference to light and shade, and to the sun
-striking full on sunburnt cheeks and buxom
-shoulders. A friend, not a rival, of Veronese
-and Tintoretto, Gianbattista Volpado, records
-that when he was one day discussing contemporary
-painters with the latter, Tintoretto
-exclaimed, “Ah, Jacopo, if you had my drawing
-and I had your colour I would defy the devil
-himself to enable Titian, Raphael, and the rest to
-make any show beside us.”</p>
-
-<p>Bassano was invited to take up his residence
-at the Court of the Emperor Rudolph, but he
-refused to leave his mountain city, where he died
-in 1592. His funeral was attended by a crowd
-of the poorest inhabitants, for whom his charity
-had been boundless.</p>
-
-<p>The “Journey of Jacob,” to which we have
-already alluded, is among his most beautiful
-works. The brilliant array of figures is subordinated
-to the charm of the landscape. The
-evening dusk draws all objects into its embrace.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>The long, low, deep-blue distance stands out
-against a gleam of sunset sky. The tree-trunks
-and light play of leafy branches, which break
-up the composition, are from da Ponte’s own
-country round Bassano. The pony upon which
-the boy scrambles, the cows, the dog among
-the quiet sheep, are given with all the loving
-truth of the born animal-painter. It is no
-wonder that Teniers borrowed ideas from him,
-and has more than once imitated his whole
-design.</p>
-
-<p>The “Baptism of St. Lucilla” (in the Museum
-at Bassano) is one of his most Titianesque
-creations. The personages in it are grouped
-upon a flight of steps, in front of a long Renaissance
-palace with cypresses against a sky of
-evening-red barred with purple clouds. The
-drawing and modelling of the figures are almost
-faultless, and the colour is dazzling. The bending
-figure of S. Lucilla, with the light falling
-on her silvery satin dress, as she kneels before
-the young bishop, St. Valentine, is one of the
-most graceful things in art, and Titian himself
-need not have disowned the little angels, bearing
-palm branches and frolicking in the stream of
-radiance overhead.</p>
-
-<p>Bassano has a “Concert,” which is interesting
-as a family piece. It was painted in the year
-in which his son Leandro’s marriage took place,
-and is probably a bridal painting to celebrate
-the event. The “Magistrates in Adoration”
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>(Vicenza) again gives a brilliant effect of light,
-and its stately ceremonial is founded on Tintoretto’s
-numerous pictures of kneeling doges
-and procurators in fur-trimmed velvet robes.</p>
-
-<p><a name="bapt" id="bapt"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 379px;">
-<img src="images/img323.jpg" width="379" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Jacopo da Ponte.</em> BAPTISM OF S. LUCILLA. <em>Bassano.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Alinari.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>Madonnas and saints are usually built into
-close-packed pyramids, but in the “Repose in
-Egypt,” now in the Ambrosiana, Milan, his
-arrangement comes very close to Palma and
-Lotto. The beautiful Mother and Child, the
-attendants, above all the St. Joseph, resting,
-head on hand, at the Virgin’s feet and gazing
-in rapt adoration on the Child, are examples of
-the true Venetian manner, while the exquisite
-landscape behind them, and the vigorously drawn
-tree under which they recline, show Bassano
-true to his passion for nature.</p>
-
-<p>Hampton Court is rich in his pictures.
-“The Adoration of the Shepherds,” in which
-the pillars rise behind the sacred group, is an
-exercise in the manner of Titian’s Frari altarpiece.
-His portraits are fine and sympathetic,
-but hardly any of them are signed or can be
-dated. His own is in the Uffizi, and there is a
-splendid “Old Man” at Buda-Pesth. Ariosto
-and Tasso, Sebastian Venier, and many other
-distinguished men were among his sitters; most
-of them are in half-length with three-quarter
-heads. The National Gallery possesses a singularly
-attractive one of a young man with a
-sensitive, acute countenance, robed in dignified,
-picturesque black, relieved by an embroidered
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>linen collar. He stands by the sort of square
-window, opening on a distant landscape, of which
-Tintoretto and Lotto so often made use, in front
-of which a golden vase, holding a branch of
-olive, catches the rays of light.</p>
-
-<p>Bassano has no great power of design, and
-his knowledge of the nude seems to have been
-small, but his brushwork is facile, and his colour
-leaps out with a vivid beauty which obliterates
-other shortcomings.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Augsburg.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bassano.</td> <td class="td5">Susanna and Elders (E.); Christ and Adulteress (E.); The Three
- Holy Children (E.); Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.); Flight
- into Egypt (E.); Paradise; Baptism of S. Lucilla; Adoration
- of Shepherds; St. Martin and the Beggar; St. Roch recommending
- Donor to Virgin; St. John the Evangelist adored by a Warrior;
- Descent of Holy Spirit; Madonna in Glory, with Saints (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: S. Lucia in Glory; Martyrdom of S. Stephen (L.); Nativity.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Portraits.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Cittadella.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Christ at Emmaus.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Israelites in Desert; Moses striking Rock; Conversion of S. Paul.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Portraits; Jacob’s Journey; Boaz and Ruth; Shepherds (E.);
- Christ in House of Pharisee; Assumption of Virgin; Men
- fighting Bears; Tribute Money.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Man; Christ and the Money-Changers; Good Samaritan.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Ambrosiana: Adoration of Shepherds (E.); Annunciation to Shepherds (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">Portraits; S. Jerome; Deposition.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria in Vanzo: Entombment.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Christ bearing Cross; Vintage (L.).</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Last Supper; The Trinity.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Christ in Garden; A Venetian Noble; S. Elenterino
- blessing the Faithful.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace, Ante-Collegio: Jacob’s Journey.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giacomo dell’ Orio: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Madonna; St. Mark and Senators.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">The Good Samaritan; Thomas led to the Stake; Adoration of Magi;
- Rich Man and Lazarus; The Lord shows Abraham the Promised
- Land; The Sower; A Hunt; Way to Golgotha; Noah entering the
- Ark; Christ and the Money-Changers; After the Flood; Saints;
- Adoration of Magi; Portraits; Christ bearing Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Academy: Deposition; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
-<h2>PART III</h2>
-
-<p> </p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>THE INTERIM</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>Many of the churches and palaces of Venice
-and the adjoining mainland, and almost every
-public and private gallery throughout Europe,
-contain pictures purporting to be painted by
-Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and others of that
-famous company. Hardly a great English house
-but boasts of a round dozen at least of such
-specimens, acquired in the days when rich
-Englishmen made the “grand tour” and substantiated
-a reputation for taste and culture by
-collecting works of art. These pictures resemble
-the genuine article in a specious yet half-hearted
-way. Their owners themselves are not very
-tenacious as to their authenticity, and the visit
-of an expert, or the ordeal of a public exhibition
-tears their pretensions to tatters. In the
-Academia itself the Bonifazio and Tintoretto
-rooms are crowded with imitations. The Ducal
-Palace has ceilings and panels on which are
-reproduced the kind of compositions initiated
-by the great artists, which make an effort to
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>capture their gamut of colour and to master
-their scheme of chiaroscuro, copying them, in
-short, in everything except in their inimitable
-touch and fire and spirit. It would have been
-impossible for any men, however industrious
-and prolific, to have carried out all the work
-which passes under their names, to say nothing
-of that which has perished; but our surprise and
-curiosity diminish when we come to inquire
-systematically into the methods of that host of
-copyists which, even before the masters’ death,
-had begun to ply its lucrative trade.</p>
-
-<p>We must bear in mind that every great man
-was surrounded by busy and attentive satellites,
-helping him to finish and, indeed, often painting
-a large part of important commissions, witnesses
-of the high prices received, and alive to all the
-gossip as to the relative popularity of the
-painters and the requests and orders which
-reached them from all quarters. The painters’
-own sons were in many instances those who
-first traded upon their fathers’ fame. From
-Ridolfi, Zanetti, or Boschini we learn of the
-many paintings executed by Carlotto Caliari and
-the vast numbers painted by Domenico Robusti
-in the style of their respective fathers. Domenico
-seems to have particularly affected the subject of
-“St. George and the Dragon,” and the picture at
-Dresden, which passes under Tintoretto’s name, is
-perhaps by his hand. Of Bassano’s four sons, Francesco
-“imitated his father perfectly,” conserving
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>his warmth of tint, his relief and breadth. Zanetti
-enumerates a surprising number of Francesco’s
-works, seven of them being painted for the Ducal
-Palace. Leandro followed more particularly his
-father’s first manner, was a good portrait-painter,
-and possessed lightness and fancy. Girolamo
-copied and recopied the old Bassano till he
-even deceived connoisseurs, “how much more,”
-says Zanetti, writing in 1771, “those of the
-present day, who behold them harmonised and
-accredited by time.” No school in Venice was
-so beloved, or lent itself so well to the efforts
-of the imitators, as that of Paolo Veronese.
-Even at an early date it was impossible not to
-confound the master with the disciples; the
-weaker of the originals were held to be of
-imitators, the best imitations were assigned to
-the master himself. “Oh how easy it is,”
-exclaims Zanetti again, “to make mistakes about
-Veronese’s pictures, but I can point out sundry
-infallible characteristics to those who wish for
-light upon this doubtful path; the fineness
-and lightness of the brushwork, the sublime
-intelligence and grace, shown particularly in
-the form of the heads, which is never found in
-any of his imitators.”</p>
-
-<p>Few Venetians, however, followed the style
-of only one man; the output was probably
-determined and varied by the demand. Too
-many attractive manners existed to dazzle them,
-and when once they began to imitate, they were
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>tempted on all hands. It must also be remembered
-that every master left behind him
-stacks of cartoons, sketches and suggestions, and
-half-finished pictures, which were eagerly seized
-upon, bought or stolen, and utilised to produce
-masterpieces masquerading under his name.</p>
-
-<p>As the seventeenth century advanced the
-character of art and manners underwent a
-change. Men sought the beautiful in the novel
-and bizarre, and the complex was preferred to
-the simple. Venetian art, in all its branches,
-had passed from the stately and restrained to
-the pompous and artificial. Yet the barocco
-style was used by Venice in a way of its own;
-whimsical, contorted, and overloaded with ornament
-as it is, it yet compels admiration by its
-vigorous life and movement. The art of the
-sei-cento in Venice was extravagant, but it was
-alive. It escaped the most deadly of all faults,
-a cold and academic mannerism—and this at a
-time when the rest of Italy was given over to
-the inflated followers of Michelangelo and the
-calculated elaborations of the eclectics.</p>
-
-<p>Many of the things we most love in Venice,
-such as the Salute, the Clock-Tower, the
-Dogana, the Bridge of Sighs, the Rezzonico
-and Pesaro Palaces, are additions of the seventeenth
-century. The barocco intemperance in
-sculpture was carried on by disciples of Bernini;
-and as the immediate influence of the great
-masters declined, painting acquired the same
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>sort of character. The carelessness and rapidity
-of Tintoretto, which, in his case, proceeded from
-the lightning speed of his imagination and
-the unerring sureness of his brush, became a
-mechanical trick in the hands of superficial
-students. True art had migrated elsewhere—to
-the homes of Velasquez, Rubens, and Rembrandt.
-As art grew more pompous it became less
-emotional. Painters like Palma Giovine spoilt
-their ready, lively fancy by the vice of hurry.
-The nickname of “Fa Presto” was deserved by
-others besides Luca Giordano, and Venice was
-overrun by a swarm of painters whose prime
-standard of excellence was the ability to make
-haste. Grandeur of conception was forgotten;
-a grave, ample manner was no longer understood;
-superficial sentiment and bombastic size
-carried the day. Yet a few painters, though
-their forms had become redundant and exaggerated,
-retained something of what had been
-the Venetian glory—the deep and moist colour
-of old. It still glowed with traces of its old
-lustre on the canvases of Giovanni Contarini,
-or Tiberio Tinelli, or Pietro Liberi; and
-though there was a perfect fury of production,
-without order and without law, there can still
-be perceived the survival of that sense of the
-decorative which kept the thread of art. We
-discover it in the ceiling of the Church of San
-Pantaleone, where Gianbattista Fumiani paints
-the glorification of the martyred patron, and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>which, fantastic and extravagant as it is, with
-its stupendous, architectural setting, and its
-acutely, almost absurdly foreshortened throng,
-is not without a certain grandiose geniality,
-ample and picturesque, like the buildings of
-that date. In Alessandro Varotari (il Padovanino),
-whose “Nozze di Cana” in the Academia is a
-finely spaced scene, in which a charming use is
-made of cypresses, we seem to recognise the last
-ray of the Titianesque. The painting of the seventeenth
-century passed on towards the eighteenth,
-and, from ceilings and panels, rosy nymphs and
-Venuses smile at us, attitudinising and contorted
-upon their cloudy backgrounds. Lackadaisical
-Magdalens drop sentimental tears, and the
-Angel of the Annunciation capers above the
-head of an affected Virgin, while violent colours,
-intensified chiaroscuro, and black greasy impasto
-betray the neighbourhood of the <em>tenebrosi</em>.
-When, towards the end of the seventeenth
-century, Gregorio Lazzarini set himself to shake
-off these influences, he went to the opposite
-extreme. Although a beautiful designer, he
-becomes cold and flat in colour, with a coldness
-and insipidity, indeed, that take us by surprise,
-appearing in a country where the taste for
-luminous and brilliant tints was so strongly
-rooted. The student of Venetian painting, who
-wishes to fill up the hiatus which lies between
-the Golden Age and the revival of the eighteenth
-century, cannot do better than compare Fumiani’s
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>vault in San Pantaleone with Lazzarini’s sober
-and earnest fresco, “The Charity of San Lorenzo
-Giustiniani,” in San Pietro in Castello, and with
-Pietro Liberi’s “Battle of the Dardanelles” in
-the Ducal Palace. In all three we have
-examples of the varied and accomplished yet
-soulless art of this period. Not many of the
-scenes painted for the palaces of patricians in the
-seventeenth century have survived. They are
-to be found here and there by the curious who
-wander into old churches and palaces with a
-second-hand copy of Boschini in their hands;
-but in the reaction from the florid which took
-place in the Empire period, many of them gave
-place to whitewash and stucco. In the Ducal
-Palace, side by side with the masterpieces of the
-Renaissance, are to be found the overcrowded
-canvases of Vicentino, Giovanni Contarini,
-Pietro Liberi, Celesti, and others like them.
-Some of the poor and meretricious mosaics in
-St. Mark’s are from designs by Palma Giovine
-and Fumiani. Carlo Ridolfi, who was a painter
-himself, as well as the painter’s chronicler, has
-an “Adoration of the Magi” in S. Giovanni
-Elemosinario, poor enough in invention and
-execution. Two pictures by obscure artists
-disfigure a corner of the Scuola di San Rocco.
-The Museo Civico has a large canvas by
-Vicentino, a “Coronation of a Dogaressa,” which
-once adorned Palazzo Grimani. We hear of a
-school opened by Antonio Balestra, who was the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>master of Rosalba Carriera and Pietro Longhi,
-and the names of others have come down to us
-in numbers too numerous to be quoted. Towards
-the end of the seventeenth century more
-light and novelty sparkles in the painting of
-the Bellunese, Battista Ricci, and assures us
-that he was no mere copyist; and, as the eighteenth
-century opens, we become aware of the
-strong and daring brush of Gianbattista Piazetta.
-Piazetta studied the works of the Carracci for
-some time in Bologna, and especially those of
-Guercino, whose style, with its bold contrasts
-of light and shade, has served above all as his
-model. He paints very darkly, and his figures
-often blend with and disappear into the profound
-tones of his backgrounds. Charles Blanc calls
-him “a Venetian Caravaggio”; and he has
-something of the strength and even the brutality
-of the Bolognese. A fine decorative and imaginative
-example of his work is the “Madonna
-appearing to S. Philip Neri” in the Church of
-S. Fava. The erect form of the Madonna is
-relieved in striking chiaroscuro against the
-mantle, upheld by <em>putti</em>. Radiant clouds light
-up the background and illumine the form of the
-old saint, a refined and spirited figure, gazing at
-the vision in an ecstasy of devotion. Piazetta is
-a bold realist, and many of his small pictures
-are strong and forcible. Sebastiano Ricci,
-Battista’s son, is described as “a fine intelligence,”
-and attracts our notice as having forged
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>special links with England. Hampton Court
-possesses a long array of his paintings. In the
-chapel of Chelsea Hospital the plaster semi-dome
-is painted by him, in oils, with very good
-effect. He is said to have worked in Thornhill’s
-studio, and his influence may be suspected in
-the Blenheim frescoes, and even in touches in
-Hogarth’s work.</p>
-
-<p>By the eighteenth century Venice had parted
-with her old nobility of soul, and enjoyment
-had become the only aim of life. Yet Venice,
-among the States of Italy, alone retained her
-freedom. The Doge reigned supreme as in
-the past. Beneath the ceiling of Veronese the
-dreaded Three still sat in secret council. Venice
-was still the city of subtle poisons and dangerous
-mysteries, but the days were gone when she had
-held the balance in European affairs, and she
-had become, in a superlative degree, the city of
-pleasure. Nowhere was life more varied and
-entertaining, more full of grace and enchantment.</p>
-
-<p>A long period of peace had rocked the
-Venetian people into calm security. There was,
-indeed, a little spasmodic fighting in Corfù,
-Dalmatia, and Algiers, but no real share was
-retained in the struggles of Europe. The whole
-policy of the city’s life was one of self-indulgence.
-Holiday-makers filled her streets; the whole
-population lived “in piazza,” laughing, gossiping,
-seeing and being seen. The very churches
-had become a rendezvous for fashionable intrigues;
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>the convents boasted their <em>salons</em>, where nuns
-in low dresses, with pearls in their hair, received
-the advances of nobles and gallant abbés. People
-came to Venice to waste time; trivialities, the
-last scandal, sensational stories, were the only
-subjects worth discussing. In an age of parodies
-and practical jokes, the more absurd any one
-could be, the more silly or witty stories he
-could tell, the more assured was his success in
-the joyous, frivolous circle, full of fun and
-laughter. The Carnival lasted for six months
-of the year, and was the occasion for masques
-and licence of every description. In the hot
-weather, the gay descendants of the Contarini, the
-Loredan, the Pisani, and other grand old houses,
-migrated to villas along the Brenta, where by day
-and night the same reckless, irresponsible life
-went gaily on. The power of such courtesans
-as Titian and Paris Bordone had painted was
-waning. Their place was adequately supplied
-by the easy dames of society, no longer secluded,
-proud and tranquil, but “stirred by the wild
-blood of youth and stooping to the frolic.”
-“They are but faces and smiles, teasing and
-trumpery,” says one of their critics, yet they
-are declared to be wideawake, natural and
-charming, making the most of their smattering
-of letters. Love was the great game; every
-woman had lovers, every married woman openly
-flaunted her <em>cicisbeo</em> or <em>cavaliere servente</em>.</p>
-
-<p>The older portion of the middle class was
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>still moderate and temperate, contented to live
-in the old fashion, eschewing all interest in
-politics, with which it was dangerous for the
-ordinary individual to meddle; but the new
-leaven was creeping through every level of
-society. The sons and daughters of the
-<em>bourgeoisie</em> tried to rise in the social scale by
-aping the pleasant vices of the aristocracy. They
-deserted the shop and the counting-house to play
-cards and strut upon the piazza. They mimicked
-the fine gentleman and the gentildonna, and
-made fashionable love and carried on intrigues.
-The spirit of the whole people had lost its
-elevation; there were no more proud patricians,
-full of noble ambitions and devoted zeal of public
-service; it was hardly possible to get a sufficient
-number of persons to carry on public business.
-It is a contemptible indictment enough; yet
-among all this degenerate life, we come upon
-something more real as we turn to the artists.
-They were very much alive. In music, in
-literature, and in painting, new and graceful
-forms of art were emerging. Painting was not the
-grand art of other days; it might be small and
-trivial, but there grew up a real little Renaissance
-of the eighteenth century, full of originality and
-fire, and showing a reaction from the pompous
-and banale style of the imitators.</p>
-
-<p>The influence of the “lady” was becoming
-increasingly felt by society. Confidential little
-boudoirs, small and cosy apartments were the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>mode, and needed decorating as well as vast
-salas. The dainty luxury of gilt furniture,
-designed by Andrea Brustolon and upholstered
-in delicate silks, was matched by small, attractive
-works of art. Venice had lost her Eastern trade,
-and as the East faded out of her scheme of life,
-the West, to which she now turned, was bringing
-her a different form of art. The great reception
-rooms were still suited by the grandiose compositions
-of Ricci, Piazetta, and Pittoni, but
-another genre of charming creations smiled
-from the brocaded alcoves and more intimate
-suites of rooms.</p>
-
-<p>It is impossible to name more than a fraction
-of these artists of the eighteenth century. There
-is Amigoni, admirable as a portrait-painter;
-Pittoni, one of the ablest figure-painters of the
-day; Luca Carlevaris, the forerunner of Canale;
-Pellegrini, whose decorations in this country are
-mentioned by Horace Walpole and of which the
-most important are preserved in the cupola and
-spandrils of the Grand Hall at Castle Howard.
-Their work is still to be found in many a
-Venetian church or North Italian gallery. Some
-of it is almost fine, though too often vitiated by
-the affected, exaggerated spirit of their day.
-When originality asserts itself more decidedly,
-Rosalba Carriera stands out as an artist who
-acquired great popularity. In 1700, when she
-was a young woman of twenty-four, she was
-already a great favourite with the public. She
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>began life as a lace-maker, but when trade was
-bad, Jean Stève, a Frenchman, taught her to
-paint miniatures. She imparted a wonderfully
-delicate feeling to her art, and, passing on to
-pastel, she brought to this branch of portraiture
-a brilliancy and freshness which it had not
-known before. Rosalba has perhaps preserved
-for us better than any one else, those women
-of Venice who floated so lightly on the dancing
-waves of that sparkling stream. There they
-are: La Cornaro; La Maria Labia, who was
-surrounded by French lovers, “very courteous
-and very beautiful”; La Zenobio and La Pisani;
-La Foscari, with her black plumes; La Mocenigo,
-“the lady with the pearls.” She has pinned
-them all to the canvas; lovely, frail, light-hearted
-butterflies, with velvet neck-ribbons
-round their snowy throats and coquettish patches
-on their delicate skin and bouquets of flowers in
-their high-dressed hair and sheeny bodices. They
-look at us with arch eyes and smile with melting
-mouths, more frivolous than depraved; sweet,
-ephemeral, irresponsible in every relation of life.
-Older men and women there are, too, when those
-artificial years have produced a succession of
-rather dull, sodden personages, kindly, inoffensive,
-but stupid, and still trifling heavily with the
-world.</p>
-
-<p>Of Rosalba we have another picture to compare
-with those of her sitters. She and the
-other artists of her circle lived the merry, busy
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>life of the worker, and found in their art the
-antidote to the evil living and the dissipation of
-the gay world which provided sitters and patrons.
-Rosalba’s <em>milieu</em> is a type of others of its class.
-She lives with her mother and sisters, an honest,
-cheerful, industrious existence. They are fond
-of old friends and old books, and indulge in music
-and simple pleasures. Her sisters help Rosalba
-by preparing the groundwork of her paintings.
-She pays visits, and writes rhymes, and plays on
-the harpsichord. She receives great men without
-much ceremony, and the Elector Palatine, the
-Duke of Mecklenburg, Frederick, King of
-Norway, and Maximilian, King of Bavaria, come
-to her to order miniatures of their reigning
-beauties. Then she goes off to Paris where she
-has plenty of commissions, and the frequently
-occurring names of English patrons in her fragmentary
-diaries, tell how much her work was
-admired by English travellers. She did more
-than anybody else to promote the fashion for
-pastels, and her delightful art may be seen at its
-best in the pastel room of the Dresden Gallery.</p>
-
-<p>Henrietta, Countess of Pomfret, has left us
-a charming description of a party of English
-travellers, which included Horace Walpole,
-arriving in Venice in 1741, strolling about in
-mask and <em>bauta</em>, and visiting the famous pastellist
-in her studio. It is in such guise that Rosalba
-has painted Walpole, and has left one of the
-most interesting examples of her art.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p>
-<p class="center">SOME EXAMPLES</p>
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Francesco da Ponte.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Sala del Maggior Consiglio. Four pictures on
- ceiling (second from the four corners of the sala). On left
- as you face the Paradiso: 1. Pope Alexander III. giving the
- Stocco, or Sword, to the Doge as he enters a Galley to
- command the Army against Ferrara; 2. Victory against the
- Milanese; 3. Victory against Imperial Troops at Cadore;
- 4. Victory under Carmagnola, over Visconti. These four are
- all very rich in colour.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Chiesetta: Circumcision; Way to Calvary.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala dell’ Scrutino: Padua taken by Night from the Carraresi.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Leandro da Ponte.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Sala del Maggior Consiglio: The Patriarch giving a
- Blessed Candle to the Doge.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala of Council of Ten: Meeting of Alexander III. and Doge
- Ziani. A fine decorative picture, running the whole of one
- side of the sala.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala of Archeological Museum: Virgin in Glory, with the
- Avogadori Family.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Palma Giovine.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Presentation of the Virgin.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: S. Margaret.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Deposition; Nativity; Ecce Homo; Flagellation.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Scenes from the Apocalypse; S. Francis.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: The Last Judgment.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Cain and Abel; Daughter of Herodias; Pietà ; Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Il Padovanino.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Lucretia.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Cornelia and her Children.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Venus and Cupid.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Toilet of Minerva.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: The Marriage of Cana; Madonna in Glory; Vanity,
- Orpheus, and Eurydice; Rape of Proserpine; Virgin in Glory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Man and Woman playing Chess; Triumph of Bacchus.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Woman taken in Adultery; Holy Family.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pietro Liberi.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Battle of the Dardanelles.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Andrea Vicentino.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Civico: The Marriage of a Dogaressa.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. A. Fumiani.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">San Pantaleone: Ceiling.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Church of the Carità : Christ disputing with the Doctors.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>A. Balestra.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">S. Tomaso: Annunciation.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. Lazzarini.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro in Castello.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">The Charity of S. Lorenzo Giustiniani.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Sebastiano Ricci.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Rocco: The Glorification of the Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Gesuati: Pope Pius V. and Saints.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Half-dome.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. B. Pittoni.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">The Bath of Diana.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. B. Piazetta.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Chiesa della Fava: Madonna and S. Philip Neri.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Academy: Crucifixion; The Fortune-Teller.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<p> </p>
- <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Rosalba Carriera.</em></p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: pastels.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Pastels.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>TIEPOLO</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>We have already noted that to establish the
-significance of any period in art, it is necessary
-that the tendencies should unite and combine in
-some culminating spirits who rise triumphant
-over their contemporaries and soar above the
-age in which they live. Such a genius stands
-out above the eighteenth century crowd, and is
-not only of his century, but of every time. For
-two hundred years Tiepolo has been stigmatised
-as extravagant, mannered, as just equal to painting
-cupids, nymphs, and parroquets. In the last
-century he experienced the effect of the profound
-discredit into which the whole of eighteenth-century
-art had fallen. In France, David had
-obliterated Watteau; and the reputation of
-Pompeo Battoni, a sort of Italian David, effaced
-Tiepolo and his contemporaries. When the
-delegates of the French Republic inspected Italian
-churches and palaces, and decided what works of
-art should be sent to the Louvre, they singled
-out the Bolognese, the Guercinos and Guidos,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>the Carracci, even Pompeo Battoni and other
-such forgotten masters, a Gatti, a Nevelone, a
-Badalocchio; but to the lasting regret of their
-descendants, they disdained to annex a single one
-of the great paintings of the Venetian, Gianbattista
-Tiepolo.</p>
-
-<p>Eastlake only vouchsafes him one line as “an
-artist of fantastic imagination.” Most of the
-nineteenth-century critics do not even mention
-him. Burckhardt dismisses him with a grudging
-line of praise, Blanc is equally disparaging, and
-for Taine he is a mere mannerist, yet his
-influence has been felt far beyond his lifetime;
-only now is he coming into his own, and it is
-recognised that the <em>plein-air</em> artist, the luminarist,
-the impressionist, owe no small share of their
-knowledge to his inspiration.</p>
-
-<p>The name of Tiepolo brings before us a
-whole string of illustrious personages—doges
-and senators, magnificent procurators and great
-captains—but we have nothing to prove that the
-artist belonged to a decayed branch of the famous
-patrician house. Born in Castello, the people’s
-quarter of Venice, he studied in early youth
-with that good draughtsman, Lazzarini. At
-twenty-three he married the sister of Francesco
-Guardi; Guardi, who comes between Longhi
-and Canale and who is a better painter than
-either. Tiepolo appeared at a fortunate moment.
-The demand for a facile, joyous genius was at
-its height. The life of the aristocracy on the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>lagoons was every year growing more gay,
-more abandoned to capricious inclination, to
-light loves and absurd amusements. And the
-art which reflected this life was called upon to
-give gaiety rather than thought, costume rather
-than character. Yet if the Venetian art had lost
-all connection with the grave magnificence of
-the past, it had kept aloof from the academic
-coldness which was in fashion beyond the
-lagoons, so that though theatrical, it was with a
-certain natural absurdity. The age had become
-romantic; the Arcadian convention was in full
-force, Nature herself was pressed into the service
-of idle, sentimental men and women. The
-country was pictured as a place of delight,
-where the sun always shone and the peasants
-passed their time singing madrigals and indulging
-in rural pleasures. The public, however, had
-begun to look for beauty; the traditions which
-had formed round the decorative schools were
-giving way to the appreciation of original work.
-Tiepolo, sincere and spontaneous even when
-he is sacrificing truth to caprice, struck the
-taste of the Venetians, and without emancipating
-himself from the tendencies of the time, contrives
-to introduce a fresh accent. All round
-him was a weak and self-indulgent world, but
-within himself he possessed a fund of buoyant
-and inexhaustible energy. He evokes a throng
-of personages on the ceilings of the churches
-and palaces confided to his fancy. His creations
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>range from mythology to religion, from
-the sublime to the grotesque. All Olympia
-appears upon his ample and luminous spaces.
-It is not to the cold, austere Lazzarini, or to
-the clashing chiaroscuro of Piazetta, or the
-imaginative spirit of Battista Ricci, though he
-was touched by each of them, that we must turn
-for Tiepolo’s derivation. Long before his time,
-the kind of decoration of ceilings which we
-are apt to call Tiepolesque; the foreshortened
-architecture, the columns and cornices, the figures
-peopling the edifices, or reclining upon clouds,
-had been used by an increasing throng of painters.
-The style arose, indeed, in the quattrocento;
-Mantegna, the Umbrians, and even Michelangelo
-had used it, though in a far more sober way than
-later generations. Correggio and the Venetians
-had perfected the idea, which the artists of the
-seventeenth century seized upon and carried
-to the most intemperate excess. But Tiepolo
-rose above them all; he abandoned the heavy,
-exaggerated, contorted designs, which by this
-time defied all laws of equilibrium, and we
-must go back further than his immediate predecessors
-for his origins. His claim to stand
-with Tintoretto or Veronese may be contested,
-but he is nearest to these, and no doubt Veronese
-is the artist he studied with the greatest fervour.
-Without copying, he seems to have a natural
-affinity of spirit with Veronese and assimilates
-the ample arrangement of his groups, the grace
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>of his architecture, and his decorative feeling for
-colour. Zanetti, who was one of Tiepolo’s dearest
-friends, writes: “No painter of our time could
-so well recall the bright and happy creations
-of Veronese.” The difference between them is
-more one of period than of temperament. Paolo
-Veronese represented the opulence of a rich,
-strong society, full of noble life, while Tiepolo’s
-lot was cast among effeminate men and frivolous
-women, and full of the modern spirit himself,
-he adapts his genius to his time and devotes
-himself to satisfy the theatrical, sentimental
-vein of the Venice of the decadence. Full
-of enthusiasm for his work, he was ready to
-respond to any call. He went to and fro between
-Venice and the villas along the mainland
-and to the neighbouring towns. Then coveting
-wider fields, he travelled to Milan and Genoa,
-where his frescoes still gleam in the palaces
-of the Dugnani, the Archinto, and the Clerici.
-At Würzburg in Bavaria he achieved a magnificent
-series of decorations for the palace of the
-Prince-Archbishop. Then coming back to Italy,
-he painted altarpieces, portraits, pictures for his
-friends, and a fresh multitude of allegorical and
-mythological frescoes in palaces and villas. His
-charming villa at Zianigo is frescoed from top
-to bottom by himself and his sons, and has
-amusing examples of contemporary dress and
-manners.</p>
-
-<p>When the Academy was instituted in 1755,
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>Tiepolo was appointed its first director, but the
-sort of employment it provided was not suited
-to his impetuous spirit, and in 1762 he threw
-up the post and went off to Spain with his two
-sons. There he received a splendid welcome
-and was loaded with commissions, the only
-dissentient voice being that of Raphael Mengs,
-who, obsessed by the taste for the classic and the
-antique, was fiercely opposed to the Venetian’s
-art. Tiepolo died suddenly in Madrid in 1770,
-pencil in hand. Though he was past seventy,
-the frescoes he has left there show that his
-hand was as firm and his eye as sure as ever.</p>
-
-<p>His frescoes have, as we have said, that
-frankly theatrical flavour which corresponds
-exactly to the taste of the time. Such works
-as the “Transportation of the Holy House of
-Loretto” in the Church of the Scalzi in Venice,
-or the “Triumph of Faith” in that of the
-Pietà, the “Triumph of Hercules” in Palazzo
-Canossa in Verona, or the decorations in the
-magnificent villa of the Pisani at Strà, are
-extravagant and fantastic, yet have the impressive
-quality of genius. These last, which have for
-subject the glorification of the Pisani, are full
-of portraits. The patrician sons and daughters
-appear, surrounded by Abundance, War, and
-Wisdom. A woman holding a sceptre symbolises
-Europe. All round are grouped flags and
-dragons, “nations grappling in the airy blue,”
-bands of Red Indians in their war-paint and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>happy couples making love. The idea of the
-history, the wealth, the supreme dignity of the
-House is paramount, and over all appears Fame,
-bearing the noble name into immortality. In
-Palazzo Clerici at Milan a rich and prodigal
-committee gave the painter a free hand, and on
-the ceiling of a vast hall the Sun in a chariot,
-with four horses harnessed abreast, rises to the
-meridian, flooding the world with light. Venus
-and Saturn attend him, and his advent is heralded
-by Mercury. A symbolical figure of the earth
-joys at his coming, and a concourse of naiads,
-nymphs, and dolphins wait upon his footsteps.
-In the school of the Carmine in Venice Tiepolo
-has left one of his grandest displays. The
-haughty Queen of Heaven, who is his ideal of
-the Virgin, bears the Child lightly on her arm,
-and, standing enthroned upon the rolling clouds,
-hardly deigns to acknowledge the homage of
-the prostrate saint, on whom an attendant angel
-is bestowing her scapulary. The most charming
-<em>amoretti</em> are disporting in all directions, flinging
-themselves from on high in delicious <em>abandon</em>,
-alternating with lovely groups of the cardinal
-virtues. At Villa Valmarana near Vicenza, after
-revelling among the gods, he comes to earth
-and delights in painting lovely ladies with
-almond eyes and carnation cheeks, attended by
-their cavaliers, seated in balconies, looking on
-at a play, or dancing minuets, and carnival
-scenes with masques and dominoes and <em>fêtes
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>champêtres</em>, which give us a picture of the
-fashions and manners of the day. He brings in
-groups of Chinese in oriental dress, and then
-he condescends to paint country girls and their
-rustic swains, in the style of Phyllis and
-Corydon.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes he becomes graver and more solid.
-He abandons the airy fancies scattered in cloud-land.
-The story of Esther in Palazzo Dugnano
-affords an opportunity for introducing magnificent
-architecture, warriors in armour, and stately
-dames in satin and brocades. He touches his
-highest in the decorations of Palazzo Labia,
-where Antony and Cleopatra, seated at their
-banquet, surrounded by pomp and revelry, regard
-one another silently, with looks of sombre
-passion. Four exquisite panels have lately been
-acquired by the Brera Gallery, representing the
-loves of Rinaldo and Armida, and are a feast
-of gay, delicate colour, with fascinating backgrounds
-of Italian gardens. The throne-room
-of the palace at Madrid has the same order of
-compositions—Æneas conducted by Venus from
-Time to Immortality, and other deifications of
-Spanish royalty.</p>
-
-<p><a name="cleo" id="cleo"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 431px;">
-<img src="images/img355.jpg" width="431" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Tiepolo.</em> ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. <em>Palazzo Labia, Venice.</em></p>
-
-<p>Now and then Tiepolo is possessed by a
-tragic mood. In the Church of San Alvise he
-has left a “Way to Calvary,” a “Flagellation,”
-and a “Crowning of Thorns,” which are intensely
-dramatic, and which show strong feeling.
-Particularly striking is the contrast between the
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>refined and sensitive type of his Christ and the
-realistic and even brutal study of the two
-despairing malefactors—one a common ruffian,
-the other an aged offender of a higher class.
-His altarpiece at Este, representing S. Tecla
-staying the plague, is painted with a real insight
-into disaster and agony, and S. Tecla is a
-pathetic and beautiful figure. Sometimes in his
-easel-pictures he paints a Head of Christ, a
-S. Anthony, or a Crucifixion, but he always
-returns before long to the ample spaces and
-fantastic subjects which his soul loved.</p>
-
-<p>Tiepolo is a singular contradiction. His art
-suggests a strong being, held captive by butterflies.
-Sometimes he is joyous and limpid, sometimes
-turbulent and strong, but he has always
-sincerity, force, and life. A great space serves
-to exhilarate him, and he asks nothing better
-than to cover it with angels and goddesses, white
-limbs among the clouds, sea-horses ridden by
-Tritons, patrician warriors in Roman armour,
-balustrades and columns and <em>amoretti</em>. He does
-not even need to pounce his design, but puts in
-all sorts of improvised modifications with a sure
-hand. The vastness of his frescoes, the daring
-poses of his countless figures, and the freedom of
-his line speak eloquently of the mastery to
-which his hand had attained. He revels, above
-all, in effects of light—“all the light of the
-sky, and all the light of the sea; all the light
-of Venice ... in which he swims as in a bath.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>He paints not ideas, scarcely even forms, but
-light. His ceilings are radiant, like the sky
-of birds; his poems seem to be written in the
-clouds. Light is fairer than all things, and
-Tiepolo knows all the tricks and triumphs of
-light.”<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
-
-<p>Nearly all his compositions have a serene
-and limpid horizon, with the figures approaching
-it painted in clear, silvery hues, airy and
-diaphanous, while the forms below are more
-muscular, the flesh tints are deeper, and the
-whole of the foreground is often enveloped in
-shadow. Veronese had lit up the shadows,
-which, under his contemporaries, were growing
-gloomy. Tiepolo carries his art further on the
-same lines. He makes his figures more graceful,
-his draperies more vaporous, and illumines
-his clouds with radiance. His faded blue and
-rose, his golden-greys, and pearly whites and
-pastel tints are not so much solid colours as
-caprices of light. We have remarked already
-that with Veronese the accessories of gleaming
-satins and rich brocades serve to obscure the
-persons. In many of Tiepolo’s scenes the
-figures are lost in a flutter of drapery, subject
-and action melt away, and we are only conscious
-of soft harmonies of delicious colour,
-as ethereal as the hues of spring flowers in
-woodland ways and joyous meadows. With
-these delicious, audacious fancies, put on with
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>a nervous hand, we forget the age of profound and
-ardent passion, we escape from that of pompous
-solemnity and studied grace, and we breathe
-an atmosphere of irresponsible and capricious
-pleasure. In this last word of her great masters
-Venice keeps what her temperament loved—sensuous
-colour and emotional chiaroscuro, used
-to accentuate an art adapted to a city of pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>The excellence of the old masters’ drawings
-is a perpetual revelation. Even second-class
-men are almost invariably fine draughtsmen,
-proving that drawing was looked upon as something
-over which it was necessary for even the
-meanest to have entire mastery. Tiepolo’s
-drawings, preserved in Venice and in various
-museums, are as beautiful as can be wished;
-perfect in execution and vivid in feeling. In
-Venice are twenty or thirty sheets in red carbon,
-of flights of angels, and of draperies studied in
-every variety of fold.</p>
-
-<p>Poor work of his school is often ascribed to
-his sons, but the superb “Stations of the Cross,”
-in the Frari, which were etched by Domenico,
-and published as his own in his lifetime, are
-almost equal to the father’s work. Tiepolo had
-many immediate followers and imitators. The
-colossal roof-painting of Fabio Canal in the
-Church of SS. Apostoli, Venice, may be pointed
-out as an example of one of these. But he is full
-of the tendencies of modern art. Mr. Berenson,
-writing of him, says he sometimes seems more
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>the first than the last of a line, and notices how
-he influenced many French artists of recent
-times, though none seem quite to have caught
-the secret of his light intensity and his exquisite
-caprice.</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Aranjuez.</td> <td class="td5">Royal Palace: Frescoes; Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Orangery: Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Cappella Colleoni: Scenes from the Life of the Baptist.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Martyrdom of S. Agatha; S. Dominia and the Rosary.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Sketches; Deposition.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Escurial; Ceilings.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Palazzi Clerici, Archinto, and Dugnano: Frescoes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Brera: Loves of Rinaldo and Armida.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at Emmaus.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Strà.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Pisani: Ceiling.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: S. Joseph, the Child, and Saints; S. Helena finding the Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale: Sala di Quattro Porte: Neptune and Venice.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Labia: Frescoes; Antony and Cleopatra.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Rezzonico: Two Ceilings.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Alvise: Flagellation; Way to Golgotha.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Apostoli: Communion of S. Lucy.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Fava: The Virgin and her Parents.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Gesuati: Ceiling; Altarpiece.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria della Pietà: Triumph of Faith.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Paolo: Stations of the Cross.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scalzi: Transportation of the Holy House of Loretto.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scuola del Carmine: Ceiling.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Canossa: Triumph of Hercules.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Entrance Hall: Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Villa Valmarana: Frescoes; Subjects from Homer, Virgil,
- Ariosto, and Tasso; Masks and Oriental Scenes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Würzburg.</td> <td class="td5">Palace of the Archbishop: Ceilings; Fêtes Galantes; Assumption;
- Fall of Rebel Angels.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>PIETRO LONGHI</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>We have here a master who is peculiarly the
-Venetian of the eighteenth century, a genre-painter
-whose charm it is not easy to surpass,
-yet one who did not at the outset find his true
-vocation. Longhi’s first undertakings, specimens
-of which exist in certain palaces in Venice, were
-elaborate frescoes, showing the baneful influence
-of the Bolognese School, in which he studied
-for a time under Giuseppe Crispi. He attempts
-to place the deities of Olympus on his ceilings
-in emulation of Tiepolo, but his Juno is heavy
-and common, and the Titans at her feet appear
-as a swarm of sprawling, ill-drawn nudities. He
-shows no faculty for this kind of work, but he
-was thirty-two before he began to paint those
-small easel-pictures which in his own dainty style
-illustrate the “Vanity Fair” of his period, and in
-which the eighteenth century lives for us again.</p>
-
-<p>His earliest training was in the goldsmith’s
-art, and he has left many drawings of plate,
-exquisite in their sense of graceful curve and
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>their unerring precision of line. It was a
-moment when such things acquired a flawless
-purity of outline, and Longhi recognised their
-beauty with all the sensitive perception of the
-artist and the practised workman. His studies
-of draperies, gestures, and hands are also extraordinarily
-careful, and he seems besides to have
-an intimate acquaintance with all the elegant
-dissipation and languid excesses of a dying order.
-We feel that he has himself been at home in
-the masquerade, has accompanied the lady to
-the fortune-teller, and, leaning over her graceful
-shoulder, has listened to the soothsayer’s murmurs.
-He has attended balls and routs, danced minuets,
-and gossiped over tiny cups of China tea. He
-is the last chronicler of the Venetian feasts,
-and with him ends that long series that began
-with Giorgione’s concert and which developed
-and passed through suppers at Cana and banquets
-at the houses of Levi and the Pharisee. We
-are no longer confronted with the sumptuosity
-of Bonifazio and Veronese; the immense tables
-covered with gold and silver plate, the long
-lines of guests robed in splendid brocades, the
-stream of servants bearing huge salvers, or the
-bands of musicians, nor are there any more
-alfresco concerts, with nymphs and bacchantes.
-Instead there are masques, the life of the Ridotto
-or gaming-house, routs and intrigues in dainty
-boudoirs, and surreptitious love-making in that
-city of eternal carnival where the <em>bauta</em> was
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>almost a national costume. Longhi holds that
-post which in French art is filled by Watteau,
-Fragonard, and Lancret, the painters of <em>fêtes
-galantes</em>, and though he cannot be placed on
-an equal footing with those masters, he is
-representative and significant enough. On his
-canvases are preserved for us the mysteries of
-the toilet, over which ladies and young men
-of fashion dawdled through the morning, the
-drinking of chocolate in <em>négligé</em>, the momentous
-instants spent in choosing headgear and fixing
-patches, the towers of hair built by the modish
-coiffeur—children trooping in, in hoops and
-uniforms, to kiss their mother’s hand, the fine
-gentleman choosing a waistcoat and ogling the
-pretty embroideress, the pert young maidservant
-slipping a billet-doux into a beauty’s hand under
-her husband’s nose, the old beau toying with
-a fan, or the discreet abbé taking snuff over the
-morning gazette. The grand ladies of Longhi’s
-day pay visits in hoop and farthingale, the beaux
-make “a leg,” and the lacqueys hand chocolate.
-The beautiful Venetians and their gallants swim
-through the gavotte or gamble in the Ridotto,
-or they hasten to assignations, disguised in wide
-<em>bauti</em> and carrying preposterous muffs. The
-Correr Museum contains a number of his
-paintings and also his book of original sketches.
-One of the most entertaining of his canvases
-represents a visit of patricians to a nuns’ parlour.
-The nuns and their pupils lend an attentive
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>ear to the whispers of the world. Their dresses
-are trimmed with <em>point de Venise</em>, and a little
-theatre is visible in the background. This and
-the “Sala del Ridotto” which hangs near, are
-marked by a free, bold handling, a richness of
-colouring, and more animation than is usual in
-his genre-pictures. He has not preserved the
-lovely, indeterminate colour or the impressionist
-touch which was the natural inheritance of
-Watteau or Tiepolo. His backgrounds are dark
-and heavy, and he makes too free a use of
-body colour; but his attitude is one of close
-observation—he enjoys depicting the life around
-him, and we suspect that he sees in it the most
-perfect form of social intercourse imaginable.
-Longhi is sometimes called the Goldoni of
-painting, and he certainly more nearly resembles
-the genial, humorous playwright than he does
-Hogarth, to whom he has also been compared.
-Yet his execution and technique are a little
-like Hogarth’s, and it is possible that he was
-influenced by the elder and stronger master,
-who entered on his triumphant career as a
-satirical painter of society about 1734. This
-was just the time when Longhi abandoned his
-unlucky decorative style, and it is quite possible
-that he may have met with engravings of the
-“Marriage à la mode,” and was stimulated by
-them to the study of eighteenth-century manners,
-though his own temperament is far removed
-from Hogarth’s moral force and grim satire.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>His serene, painstaking observation is never
-distracted by grossness and violence. The
-Venetians of his day may have been—undoubtedly
-were—effeminate, licentious, and decadent,
-but they were kind and gracious, of
-refined manners, well-bred, genial and intelligent,
-and so Longhi has transcribed them. In the
-time which followed, ceilings were covered by
-Boucher, pastels by Latour were in demand,
-the scholars of David painted classical scenes,
-and Pietro Longhi was forgotten. Antonio
-Francesco Correr bought five hundred of his
-drawings from his son, Alessandro, but his
-works were ignored and dispersed. The classic
-and romantic fashions passed, but it was only
-in 1850 that the brothers de Goncourt, writing
-on art, revived consideration for the painter of a
-bygone generation. Many of his works are in
-private collections, especially in England, but few
-are in public galleries. The National Gallery is
-fortunate in possessing several excellent examples.</p>
-
-<p><a name="visit" id="visit"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 441px;">
-<img src="images/img363.jpg" width="441" height="550" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Pietro Longhi.</em> VISIT TO THE FORTUNE-TELLER. <em>London.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Hanfstängl.</em>)</p>
-
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: At the Gaming Table; Taking Coffee.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Baglioni: The Festival of the Padrona.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Lady.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Three genre-pictures.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Visit to a Circus; Visit to a Fortune-Teller; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: Card party; Portrait.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Six genre-paintings.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Correr Museum: Eleven paintings of Venetian life; Portrait of Goldoni.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Grassi: Frescoes; Scenes of fashionable life.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Quirini-Stampalia: Eight paintings; Portraits.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>CANALE</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>While Piazetta and Tiepolo were proving
-themselves the inheritors of the great school
-of decorators, Venice herself was finding her
-chroniclers, and a school of landscape arose, of
-which Canale was the foremost member. Giovanni
-Antonio Canale was born in Venice in
-1697, the same year as Tiepolo. His father
-earned his living at the profession, lucrative
-enough just then, of scene-painting, and Antonio
-learned to handle his brush, working at his side.
-In 1719 he went off to seek his fortune in Rome,
-and though he was obliged to help out his
-resources by his early trade, he was most concerned
-in the study of architecture, ancient and
-modern. Rome spoke to him through the eye,
-by the picturesque masses of stonework, the
-warm harmonious tones of classic remains and
-the effects of light upon them. He painted
-almost entirely out-of-doors, and has left many
-examples drawn from the ruins. His success
-in Rome was not remarkable, and he was still
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>a very young man when he retraced his steps.
-On regaining his native town, he realised for the
-first time the beauty of its canals and palaces,
-and he never again wavered in his allegiance.</p>
-
-<p>Two rivals were already in the field, Luca
-Carlevaris, whose works were freely bought by
-the rich Venetians, and Marco Ricci, the figures
-in whose views of Venice were often touched
-in by his uncle, Sebastiano; but Canale’s growing
-fame soon dethroned them, “i cacciati del nido,”
-as he said, using Dante’s expression. In a
-generation full of caprice, delighting in sensational
-developments, Canale was methodical to
-a fault, and worked steadily, calmly producing
-every detail of Venetian landscape with untiring
-application and almost monotonous tranquillity.
-He lived in the midst of a band of painters who
-adored travel. Sebastiano Ricci was always on
-the move; Tiepolo spent much of his time in
-other cities and countries, and passed the last
-years of his life in Spain; Pietro Rotari was
-attached to the Court of St. Petersburg; Belotto,
-Canale’s nephew, settled in Bohemia; but Canale
-remained at home, and, except for two short
-visits paid to England, contented himself with
-trips to Padua and Verona.</p>
-
-<p>Early in life Canale entered into relations
-with Joseph Smith, the British Consul in Venice,
-a connoisseur who had not only formed a fine
-collection of pictures, but had a gallery from
-which he was very ready to sell to travellers.
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>He bought of the young Venetian at a very
-low price, and contrived, unfairly enough, to
-acquire the right to all his work for a certain
-period of time, with the object of sending it, at
-a good profit, to London. For a time Canale’s
-luminous views were bought by the English
-under these auspices, but the artist, presently
-discovering that he was making a bad bargain,
-came over to England, where he met with an
-encouraging reception, especially at Windsor
-Castle and from the Duke of Richmond. Canale
-spent two years in England and painted on the
-Thames and at Cambridge, but he could not
-stand the English climate and fled from the
-damp and fogs to his own lagoons.</p>
-
-<p>To describe his paintings is to describe Venice
-at every hour of the day and night—Venice
-with its long array of noble palaces, with its
-Grand Canal and its narrow, picturesque waterways.
-He reproduces the Venice we know, and
-we see how little it has changed. The gondolas
-cluster round the landing-stages of the Piazzetta,
-the crowds hurry in and out of the arcades of
-the Ducal Palace, or he paints the festivals
-that still retained their splendour: the Great
-Bucentaur leaving the Riva dei Schiavoni on
-the Feast of the Ascension, or San Geremia and
-the entrance to the Cannaregio decked in flags
-for a feast-day. From one end to another of
-the Grand Canal, that “most beautiful street
-in the world,” as des Commines called it in
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>1495, we can trace every aspect of Canale’s
-time, when the city had as yet lost nothing of
-its splendour or its animation. At the entrance
-stands S. Maria della Salute, that sanctuary dear
-to Venetian hearts, built as a votive offering
-after the visitation of the plague in 1631. Its
-flamboyant dome, with its volutes, its population
-of stone saints, its green bronze door catching
-the light, pleased Canale, as it pleased Sargent
-in our own day, and he painted it over and
-over again. The annual fête of the Confraternity
-of the Carità takes place at the Scuola di San
-Rocco, and Canale paints the old Renaissance
-building which shelters so much of Tintoretto’s
-finest work, decorated with ropes of greenery
-and gay with flags,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> while Tiepolo has put in
-the red-robed, periwigged councillors and the
-gazing populace. Near it in the National
-Gallery hangs a “Regatta” with its array of
-boats, its shouting gondoliers, and its shadows
-lying across the range of palaces, and telling
-the exact hour of the day that it was sketched
-in; or, again, the painter has taken peculiar
-pleasure in expressing quiet days, with calm
-green waters and wide empty piazzas, divided by
-sun and shadow, with a few citizens plodding
-about their business in the hot midday, or a
-quiet little abbé crossing the piazza on his way
-to Mass. Canale has made a special study of the
-light on wall and façade, and of the transparent
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>waters of the canals and the azure skies in which
-float great snowy fleeces.</p>
-
-<p>His second visit to England was paid in
-1751. He was received with open arms by
-the great world, and invited to the houses of the
-nobility in town and country. The English
-were delighted with his taste and with the
-mastery with which he painted architectural
-scenes, and in spite of advancing years he produced
-a number of compositions, which commanded
-high prices. The Garden of Vauxhall,
-the Rotunda at Ranelagh, Whitehall, Northumberland
-House, Eton College, were some of the
-subjects which attracted him, and the treatment
-of which was signalised by his calm and perfect
-balance. He made use of the camera ottica,
-which is in principal identical with the camera
-oscura. Lanzi says he amended its defects and
-taught its proper use, but it must be confessed
-that in the careful perspective of some of his
-scenes, its traces seem to haunt us and to convey
-a certain cold regularity. Canale was a marvellous
-engraver. Mantegna, Bellini, and Titian
-had placed engraving on a very high level in the
-Venetian School, and though at a later date it
-became too elaborate, Tiepolo and his son brought
-it back to simplicity. Canale aided them, and
-his <em>eaux-fortes</em>, of which he has left about thirty,
-are filled with light and breadth of treatment,
-and he is particularly happy in his brilliant,
-transparent water.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p><p>The high prices Canale obtained for his
-pictures in his lifetime led to the usual
-imitations. He was surrounded by painters
-whose whole ambition was limited to copying
-him. Among these were Marieschi, Visentini,
-Colombini, besides others now forgotten. More
-than fifty of his finest works were bought
-by Smith for George III. and fill a room at
-Windsor. He was made a member of the
-Academy at Dresden, and Bruhl, the Prime
-Minister of the Elector, obtained from him
-twenty-one works which now adorn the gallery
-there. Canale died in Venice, where he had
-lived nearly all his life, and where his gondola-studio
-was a familiar object in the Piazzetta, at
-the Lido, or anchored in the long canals.</p>
-
-<p>His nephew, Bernardo Belotto, is often also
-called Canaletto, and it seems that both uncle and
-nephew were equally known by the diminutive.
-Belotto, too, went to Rome early in his career,
-where he attached himself to Panini, a painter
-of classic ruins, peopled with warriors and
-shepherds. He was, by all accounts, full of
-vanity and self-importance, and on a visit to
-Germany managed to acquire the title of Count,
-which he adhered to with great complacency.
-He travelled all over Italy looking for patronage,
-and was very eager to find the road to success and
-fortune. About the same time as his uncle, he
-paid a visit to London and was patronised by
-Horace Walpole, but in the full tide of success
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>he was summoned to Dresden, where the Elector,
-disappointed at not having secured the services
-of the uncle, was fain to console himself with
-those of the nephew. The extravagant and
-profligate Augustus II., whose one idea was to
-extract money by every possible means from
-his subjects, in order to adorn his palaces, was
-consistently devoted to Belotto, who was in his
-element as a Court painter. He paints all his
-uncle’s subjects, and it is not always easy to
-distinguish between the two; but his paintings
-are dull and stiff as compared with those of
-Canale, though he is sometimes fine in colour,
-and many of his views are admirably drawn.</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">SOME WORKS OF CANALE</p>
-
-<p class="center">It is impossible to draw up any exhaustive list, so many being
-in private collections.</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">The Grand Canal; Campo S. Giacomo; Piazza S. Marco;
- Church and Piazza of SS. Giovanni and Paolo.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">The Piazzetta.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">The Colosseum.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Scuola di San Rocco; Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh;
- S. Pietro in Castello, Venice.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Louvre: Church of S. Maria della Salute.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Heading; Courtyard of a Palace.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Liechtenstein Gallery: Church and Piazza of S. Mark, Venice;
- Canal of the Giudecca, Venice; View on Grand Canal;
- The Piazzetta.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Windsor.</td> <td class="td5">About fifty paintings.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Wallace Collection.</td> <td class="td5">The Giudecca; Piazza San Marco; Church of San
- Simione; S. Maria della Salute; A Fête on the Grand Canal;
- Ducal Palace; Dogana from the Molo; Palazzo Corner;
- A Water-fête; The Rialto; S. Maria della Salute; A Canal
- in Venice.</td> </tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p>
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
-
-<p class="center"><strong>FRANCESCO GUARDI</strong></p>
-
-
-<p>An entry in Gradenigo’s diary of 1764, preserved
-in the Museo Correr, speaks of “Francesco
-Guardi, painter of the quarter of SS. Apostoli,
-along the Fondamenta Nuove, a good pupil of
-the famous Canaletto, having by the aid of the
-camera ottica, most successfully painted two canvases
-(not small) by the order of a stranger (an
-Englishman), with views of the Piazza San
-Marco, towards the Church and the Clock
-Tower, and of the Bridge of the Rialto and
-buildings towards the Cannaregio, and have
-to-day examined them under the colonnades
-of the Procurazie and met with universal
-applause.”</p>
-
-<p>Francesco Guardi was a son of the Austrian
-Tyrol, and his mountain ancestry may account,
-as in the case of Titian, for the freshness and
-vigour of his art. Both his father, who settled
-in Venice, and his brother were painters. His
-son became one in due time, and the profession
-being followed by four members of the family
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>accounts for the indifferent works often attributed
-to Guardi.</p>
-
-<p>His indebtedness to Canale is universally
-acknowledged, and perhaps it is true that he
-never attains to the monumental quality, the
-traditional dignity which marks Canale out as
-a great master, but he differs from Canale in
-temperament, style, and technique. Canale is
-a much more exact and serious student of
-architectural detail; Guardi, with greater visible
-vigour, obliterates detail, and has no hesitation
-in drawing in buildings which do not really
-appear. In his oval painting of the Ducal Palace
-(Wallace Collection) he makes it much loftier
-and more spacious than it really is. In his
-“Piazzetta” he puts in a corner of the Loggia
-where it would not actually be seen. In the
-“Fair in Piazza S. Marco” the arch from under
-which the Fair appears is gigantic, and he foreshortens
-the wing of the royal palace. He curtails
-the length of the columns in the piazza and so
-avoids monotony of effect, and he often alters
-the height of the campaniles he uses, making
-them tall and slender or short and broad, as
-his picture requires. At one time he produced
-some colossal pictures, in several of which Mr.
-Simonson, who has written an admirable life of
-the painter, believes that the hand of Canale is
-perceptible in collaboration; but it was not his
-natural element, and he often became heavy in
-colour and handling. In 1782 he undertook a
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>commission from Pietro Edwards, who was a
-noted connoisseur and inspector of State pictures,
-and had been appointed superintendent in 1778 of
-an official studio for the restoration of old masters.</p>
-
-<p>Edwards had important dealings with Guardi,
-who was directed to paint four leading incidents
-in the rejoicings in honour of the visit of
-Pius IV. to Venice. The Venetians themselves
-had become indifferent patrons of art, but Venice
-attracted great numbers of foreign visitors, and
-before the second half of the eighteenth century
-the export of old masters had already become
-an established trade. There is no sign, however,
-that Joseph Smith, who retained his consulship
-till 1760, extended any patronage to Guardi,
-though he enriched George III.’s collection
-with works of the chief contemporary artists
-of Venice. It is probable that Guardi had been
-warned against him by Canale and profited by
-the latter’s experience.</p>
-
-<p>We can divide his work into three categories.
-1. Views of Venice. 2. Public ceremonies.
-3. Landscapes. Gradenigo mentions casually
-that he used the camera ottica, but though we
-may consider it probable, we cannot trace the
-use of it in his works. He is not only a painter
-of architecture, but pays great attention to light
-and atmosphere, and aims at subtle effects; a
-transparent haze floats over the lagoons, or the
-sun pierces though the morning mists. His
-four large pendants in the Wallace Collection
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>show his happiest efforts; light glances off the
-water and is reflected on the shadowed walls.
-His views round the Salute bring vividly before
-us those delicious morning hours in Venice
-when the green tide has just raced up the Grand
-Canal, when a fresh wind is lifting and curling
-all the loose sails and fluttering pennons, and
-when the gondoliers are straining at the oars, as
-their light craft is caught and blown from side
-to side upon the rippling water. The sky
-occupies much of his space, he makes searching
-studies of it, and his favourite effect is a
-flash of light shooting across a piled-up mass
-of clouds. The line of the horizon is low, and
-he exhibits great mastery in painting the wide
-lagoons, but he also paints rough seas, and is
-one of the few masters of his day—perhaps
-the only one—who succeeds in representing a
-storm at sea.</p>
-
-<p>Often as he paints the same subjects he never
-becomes mechanical or photographic. We may
-sometimes tire of the monotony of Canale’s
-unerring perspective and accurate buildings, but
-Guardi always finds some new rendering, some
-fresh point of interest. Sometimes he gives us
-a summer day, when Venice stands out in light,
-her white palaces reflected in the sun-illumined
-water; sometimes he is arrested by old churches
-bathed in shadow and fusing into the rich, dark
-tones of twilight. His boats and figures are
-introduced with great spirit and <em>brio</em>, and are
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>alive with that handling which a French critic
-has described as his <em>griffe endiablée</em>.</p>
-
-<p><a name="della" id="della"></a></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
-<img src="images/img379.jpg" width="550" height="400" alt="image" title="" />
-</div>
-<p class="caption"><em>Francesco Guardi.</em> S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE. <em>London.</em><br />
-(<em>Photo, Mansell and Co.</em>)</p>
-
-<p>His masterly and spirited painting of crowds
-enables him to reproduce for us all those public
-ceremonies which Venice retained as long as
-the Republic lasted: yearly pilgrimages of the
-Doge to Venetian churches, to the Salute to
-commemorate the cessation of the plague, to
-San Zaccaria on Easter Day, the solemn procession
-on Corpus Christi Day, receptions of
-ambassadors, and, most gorgeous of all, the Feast
-of the Wedding of the Adriatic. He has faithfully
-preserved the ancient ceremonial which
-accompanied State festivities. In the “Fête
-du Jeudi Gras” (Louvre) he illustrates the acrobatic
-feats which were performed before Doge
-Mocenigo. A huge Temple of Victory is
-erected on the Piazzetta, and gondoliers are seen
-climbing on each other’s shoulders and dancing
-upon ropes. His motley crowds show that the
-whole population, patricians as well as people,
-took part in the feasts. He has also left many
-striking interiors: among others, that of the
-Sala del Gran Consiglio, where sometimes as
-many as a thousand persons were assembled, the
-“Reception of the Doge and Senate by Pius IV.”
-(which formed one of the series ordered by
-Pietro Edwards), or the fine “Interior of a
-Theatre,” exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts
-in 1911, belonging to a series of which another
-is at Munich.</p>
-
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p><p>In his landscapes Guardi does not pay very
-faithful attention to nature. The landscape
-painters of the eighteenth century, as Mr. Simonson
-points out, were not animated by any very
-genuine impulse to study nature minutely. It
-was the picturesque element which appealed to
-them, and they were chiefly concerned to reproduce
-romantic features, grouped according to
-fancy. Guardi composes half fantastic scenes,
-introducing classic remains, triumphal arches,
-airy Palladian monuments. His <em>capricci</em> include
-compositions in which Roman ruins, overgrown
-with foliage, occupy the foreground of a painting
-of Venetian palaces, but in which the combination
-is carried out with so much sparkle and
-nervous life and such charm of style, that it is
-attractive and piquant rather than grotesque.</p>
-
-<p>England is richest in Guardis, of any country,
-but France in one respect is better off, in possessing
-no less than eleven fine paintings of public
-ceremonials. Guardi may be considered the
-originator of small sketches, and perhaps the
-precursor of those glib little views which are
-handed about the Piazza at the present day.
-His drawings are fairly numerous, and are remarkably
-delicate and incisive in touch. A
-large collection which he left to his son is now
-in the Museo Correr. In his later years he was
-reduced to poverty and used to exhibit sketches
-in the Piazza, parting with them for a few
-ducats, and in this way flooding Venice with
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>small landscapes. The exact spot occupied by
-his <em>bottega</em> is said to be at the corner of the
-Palazzo Reale, opposite the Clock Tower. The
-house in which he died still exists in the
-Campiello della Madonna, No. 5433, Parrocchia
-S. Canziano, and has a shrine dedicated to the
-Madonna attached to it. When quite an old
-man, Guardi paid a visit to the home of his
-ancestors, at Mastellano in the Austrian Tyrol,
-and made a drawing of Castello Corvello on the
-route. To this day his name is remembered
-with pride in his Tyrolean valley.</p>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p class="center">SOME WORKS OF GUARDI</p>
-
-<div>
-<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
-<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Landscapes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Grand Canal; Lagoon; Cemetery Island.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Views in Venice.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Civico: Landscapes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Poldi-Pezzoli: Piazzetta; Dogana; Landscapes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Oxford.</td> <td class="td5">Taylorian Museum: Views in Venice.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Views in Venice.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Procession of the Doge to S. Zaccaria; Embarkment in
- Bucentaur; Festival at Salute; “Jeudi Gras” in Venice;
- Corpus Christi; Sala di Collegio; Coronation of Doge.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Turin.</td> <td class="td5">Cottage; Staircase; Bridge over Canal.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: The Ridotto; Parlour of Convent.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Landscapes.</td> </tr>
-<tr> <td class="td6">Wallace Collection.</td> <td class="td5">The Rialto; San Giorgio Maggiore (two);
- S. Maria della Salute; Archway in Venice; Vaulted Arcades;
- The Dogana.</td> </tr>
-
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
-<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2>
-
-
-<p>It is an advantage to the student of Italian art to be able to
-read French, German, and Italian, for though translations
-appear of the most important works, there are many interesting
-articles and monographs of minor artists which are otherwise
-inaccessible.</p>
-
-<p>Vasari, not always trustworthy, either in dates, facts, or
-opinions, yet delightfully human in his histories, is indispensable,
-and new editions and translations are constantly issued.
-Sansoni’s edition (Florence), with Milanesi’s notes, is the most
-authoritative; and for translations, those of Mrs. Foster (Messrs.
-Blashfield and Hopkins), and a new edition in the Temple
-classics (Dent, 8 vols., 2s. each vol.).</p>
-
-<p>Ridolfi, the principal contemporary authority on Venetian
-artists, who published his <em>Maraviglie dell’ arte</em> nine years
-after Domenico Tintoretto’s death, is only to be read in
-Italian, though the anecdotes with which his work abounds
-are made use of by every writer.</p>
-
-<p>Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s <em>Painting in North Italy</em> (Murray)
-is a storehouse of painstaking, minute, and, on the whole,
-marvellously correct information and sound opinion. It supplies
-a foundation, fills gaps, and supplements individual biographies
-as no other book does. For the early painters, down to the
-time of the Bellini, <em>I Origini dei pittori veneziani</em>, by Professor
-Leonello Venturi, Venice, 1907, is a large book, written with
-mastery and insight, and well illustrated; <em>La Storia della pittura
-veneziana</em> is another careful work, which deals very minutely
-with the early school of mosaics.</p>
-
-<p>In studying the Bellini, the late Mr. S. A. Strong has <em>The
-Brothers Bellini</em> (Bell’s Great Masters), and the reader should
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>not fail to read Mr. Roger Fry’s <em>Bellini</em> (Artist’s Library), a
-scholarly monograph, short but reliable, and full of suggestion
-and appreciation, though written in a cool, critical spirit.
-Dr. Hills has dealt ably with <em>Pisanello</em> (Duckworth).</p>
-
-<p>Molmenti and Ludwig in their monumental work <em>Vittore
-Carpaccio</em>, translated by Mr. R. H. Cust (Murray, 1907), and
-Paul Kristeller in the equally important <em>Mantegna</em>, translated
-by Mr. S. A. Strong (Longmans, 1901), seem to have exhausted
-all that there is to be said for the moment concerning these
-two painters.</p>
-
-<p>It is almost superfluous to mention Mr. Berenson’s two
-well-known volumes, <em>The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance</em>,
-and the <em>North Italian Painters of the Renaissance</em> (Putnam).
-They are brilliant essays which supplement every other work,
-overflowing with suggestive and critical matter, supplying
-original thoughts, and summing up in a few pregnant words
-the main features and the tendencies of the succeeding stages.</p>
-
-<p>In studying Giorgione, we cannot dispense with Pater’s
-essay, included in <em>The Renaissance</em>. The author is not always
-well informed as to facts—he wrote in the early days of criticism—but
-he is rich in idea and feeling. Mr. Herbert Cook’s <em>Life
-of Giorgione</em> (Bell’s Great Masters) is full and interesting.
-Some authorities question his attributions as being too
-numerous, but whether we regard them as authentic works of
-the master or as belonging to his school, the illustrations he
-gives add materially to our knowledge of the Giorgionesque.</p>
-
-<p>When we come to Titian we are well off. Crowe and
-Cavalcaselle’s <em>Life of Titian</em> (Murray, out of print), in two
-large volumes, is well written and full of good material, from
-which subsequent writers have borrowed. An excellent Life,
-full of penetrating criticism, by Mr. C. Ricketts, was lately
-brought out by Methuen (Classics of Art), complete with
-illustrations, and including a minute analysis of Titian’s technique.
-Sir Claude Phillips’s Monograph on Titian will appeal
-to every thoughtful lover of the painter’s genius, and Dr.
-Gronau has written a good and scholarly Life (Duckworth).</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Berenson’s <em>Lorenzo Lotto</em> must be read for its interest
-and learning, given with all the author’s charm and lucidity.
-It includes an essay on Alvise Vivarini.</p>
-
-<p>My own <em>Tintoretto</em> (Methuen, Classics of Art) gives a full
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>account of the man and his work, and especially deals exhaustively
-with the scheme and details of the Scuola di San Rocco.
-Professor Thode has written a detailed and profusely illustrated
-Life of Tintoretto in the Knackfuss Series, and the Paradiso has
-been treated at length and illustrated in great detail in a very
-scholarly <em>édition de luxe</em> by Mr. F. O. Osmaston. It is the
-fashion to discard Ruskin, but though we may allow that his
-judgments are exaggerated, that he reads more into a picture
-than the artist intended, and that he is too fond of preaching
-sermons, there are few critics who have so many ideas to give
-us, or who are so informed with a deep love of art, and both
-<em>Modern Painters</em> and the <em>Stones of Venice</em> should be read.</p>
-
-<p>M. Charles Yriarte has written a Life of Paolo Veronese,
-which is full of charm and knowledge. It is interesting to
-take a copy of Boschini’s <em>Della pittura veneziana</em>, 1797, when
-visiting the galleries, the palaces, and the churches of Venice.
-His lists of the pictures, as they were known in his day, often
-open our eyes to doubtful attributions. Second-hand copies
-of Boschini are not difficult to pick up. When the later-century
-artists are reached, a good sketch of the Venice of
-their period is supplied by Philippe Monnier’s delightful <em>Venice
-in the Eighteenth Century</em> (Chatto and Windus), which also
-has a good chapter on the lesser Venetian masters. The best
-Life of Tiepolo is in Italian, by Professor Pompeo Molmenti.
-The smaller masters have to be hunted for in many scattered
-essays; a knowledge of Goldoni adds point to Longhi’s pictures.
-Canaletto and his nephew, Belotto, have been treated by
-M. Uzanne, <em>Les Deux Canaletto</em>; and Mr. Simonson has written
-an important and charming volume on Francesco Guardi
-(Methuen, 1904), with beautiful reproductions of his works.
-Among other books which give special information are
-Morelli’s two volumes, <em>Italian Painters in Borghese and Doria
-Pamphili</em>, and <em>In Dresden and Munich Galleries</em>, translated by
-Miss Jocelyn ffoulkes (Murray); and Dr. J. P. Richter’s
-magnificent catalogue of the Mond Collection—which, though
-published at fifteen guineas, can be seen in the great art libraries—has
-some valuable chapters on the Venetian masters.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
-<h2>INDEX</h2>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li><a name="Academy" id="Academy"></a>Academy, Florence, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>
- <ul><li>Venice, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>,
- <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>,
- <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>,
- <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li>Adoration of Magi, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
-
-<li>Adoration of Shepherds, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li>
-
-<li>Agnolo Gaddi, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
-
-<li>Alemagna, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>-<a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li>
-
-<li>Altichiero, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Alvise" id="Alvise"></a>Alvise Vivarini, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>-<a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Amalteo, Pomponio, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
-
-<li>Amigoni, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li>
-
-<li>Anconæ, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
-
-<li>Angelico, Fra, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
-
-<li>Annunciation, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
-
-<li>Antonello da Messina, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
-
-<li>Antonio da Murano, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li>
-
-<li>Antonio Negroponte, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
-
-<li>Antonio Veneziano, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
-
-<li>Aretino, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
-
-<li>Ascension, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li>Augsburg, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Badile, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
-
-<li>Balestra, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
-
-<li>Baptism of Christ, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Bartolommeo" id="Bartolommeo"></a>Bartolommeo Vivarini, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
-
-<li>Basaiti, Marco, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
-
-<li>Bassano, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>-<a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li>
-
-<li>Bastiani, Lazzaro, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
-
-<li>Battoni, Pompeo, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
-
-<li>Bellini, Gentile, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>-<a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
-
-<li>Bellini, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_89">89</a>,
- <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>,
- <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>,
- <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Bellini" id="Bellini"></a>Bellini, Jacopo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>-<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
-
-<li>Belotto, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>-<a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Bembo, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
-
-<li>Benson, Mr., <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
-
-<li>Berenson, Mr., <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Bergamo, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>,
- <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
-
-<li>Berlin, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>,
- <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
-
-<li>Bissolo, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
-
-<li>Blanc, M. Charles, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
-
-<li>Bologna, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li>
-
-<li>Bonifazio, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>-<a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li>
-
-<li>Bonsignori, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li>
-
-<li>Bordone, Paris, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>-<a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li>
-
-<li>Borghese, Villa, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Boschini, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Boston, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
-
-<li>Botticelli, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Brera" id="Brera"></a>Brera, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
-
-<li>Brescia, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
-
-<li>Bridgewater House, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
-
-<li>British Museum, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
-
-<li>Broker’s patent, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li>
-
-<li>Brusasorci, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
-
-<li>Buonconsiglio, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
-
-<li>Burckhardt, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
-
-<li><em>Burlington Magazine</em>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
-
-<li>Byzantine art, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Calderari, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
-
-<li>Carlevaris, Luca, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li>
-
-<li>Caliari, Carlotto, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li>
-
-<li>Caliari, Paolo. <em>See</em> <a href="#Veronese">Veronese</a></li>
-
-<li>Campagnola, Domenico, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
-
-<li>Canal, Fabio, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Canale" id="Canale"></a>Canale, Gian Antonio, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>-<a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Canaletto. <em>See</em> <a href="#Canale">Canale</a></li>
-
-<li>Caravaggio, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li>
-
-<li>Cariani, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
-
-<li>Carpaccio, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
-
-<li>Carracci, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
-
-<li>Carriera. <em>See</em> <a href="#Rosalba">Rosalba Carriera</a></li>
-
-<li>Castagno, Andrea del, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
-
-<li>Castello, Milan, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
-
-<li>Catena, Vincenzo, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li>
-
-<li>Cathedrals, Ascoli, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>
- <ul><li>Bassano, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
- <li>Conegliano, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
- <li>Cremona, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
- <li>Murano, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
- <li>Spilimbergo, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
- <li>Treviso, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
- <li>Verona, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li>Celesti, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
-
-<li>Chelsea Hospital, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
-
-<li>Churches—
- <ul><li>Bergamo.
- <ul><li>S. Alessandro, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
- <li>S. Bartolommeo, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
- <li>S. Bernardino, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
- <li>S. Spirito, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Brescia.
- <ul><li>S. Clemente, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
- <li>SS. Nazaro e Celso, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Castelfranco.
- <ul><li>S. Liberale, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>S. Daniele.
- <ul><li>S. Antonino, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Padua.
- <ul><li>Eremitani, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
- <li>Il Santo, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
- <li>S. Giustina, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
- <li>S. Maria in Vanzo, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
- <li>S. Zeno, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Pesaro.
- <ul><li>S. Francesco, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Piacenza.
- <ul><li>Madonna di Campagna, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Ravenna.
- <ul><li>S. Domenico, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Rome.
- <ul><li>S. Maria del Popolo, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
- <li>S. Pietro in Montorio, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Venice.
- <ul><li>S. Alvise, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
- <li>SS. Apostoli, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li>
- <li>S. Barnabà, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
- <li>Carmine, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
- <li>S. Cassiano, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
- <li>SS. Ermagora and Fortunato, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
- <li>S. Fava, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li>
- <li>S. Francesco della Vigna, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
- <li>Gesuati, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
- <li>S. Giacomo dell’ Orio, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li>
- <li>S. Giobbe, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
- <li>S. Giorgio Maggiore, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
- <li>S. Giovanni in Bragora, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
- <li>S. Giovanni Crisostomo, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
- <li>S. Giovanni Elemosinario, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
- <li>SS. Giovanni and Paolo, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
- <li>S. Maria Formosa, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
- <li>S. Maria dei Frari, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>,
- <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
- <li>S. Maria Mater Domini, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
- <li>S. Maria dei Miracoli, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
- <li>S. Maria dell’ Orto, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
- <li>S. Maria della Salute, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li>
- <li>S. Mark’s, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
- <li>S. Pantaleone, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
- <li>Pietà, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li>
- <li>S. Pietro in Castello, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
- <li>S. Pietro in Murano, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>
- <li>S. Polo, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
- <li>Redentore, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
- <li>S. Rocco, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
- <li>S. Salvatore, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
- <li>Scalzi, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li>
- <li>S. Sebastiano, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
- <li>S. Spirito, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
- <li>S. Stefano, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
- <li>S. Trovaso, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
- <li>S. Vitale, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
- <li>S. Zaccaria, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Verona.
- <ul><li>S. Anastasia, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
- <li>S. Antonio, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
- <li>S. Fermo, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
- <li>S. Tomaso, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Vicenza.
- <ul><li>S. Corona, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
- <li>Monte Berico, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li></ul></li></ul></li>
-
-<li>Cima da Conegliano, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li>
-
-<li>Colombini, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li>
-
-<li>Confraternity, Carità, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>
- <ul><li>S. Mark, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li>Contarini, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
-
-<li>Cook, Sir F., <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
-
-<li>Cook, Mr. Herbert, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Correggio, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Correr" id="Correr"></a>Correr Museum (Museo Civico), <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>,
- <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li>
-
-<li>Crivelli, Carlo, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
-
-<li>Crowe and Cavalcaselle, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Crucifixion, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Dante, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
-
-<li>David, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li>
-
-<li>Doges—
- <ul><li>Barbarigo, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>
- <li>Dandolo, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
- <li>Giustiniani, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
- <li>Gradenigo, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li>
- <li>Grimani, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
- <li>Loredano, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
- <li>Mocenigo, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li>Donatello, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li>
-
-<li>Doria Gallery, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Dresden, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li>
-
-<li>Dürer, Albert, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Edwards, Pietro, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li>
-
-<li>Este, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
-
-<li>Este, Isabela d’, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Fabriano, Gentile da, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
-
-<li>Florence, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>,
- <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
-
-<li>Florentine, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
-
-<li>Florigerio, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li>
-
-<li>Fondaco dei Tedeschi, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
-
-<li>Fragonard, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
-
-<li>Fry, Mr. Roger, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Fumiani, Gianbattista, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Gaston de Foix, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
-
-<li>Giambono, Michele, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
-
-<li>Giordano, Luca, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
-
-<li>Giorgione, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>-<a href="#Page_149">149</a>,
- <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>,
- <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Giotto, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
-
-<li>Goldoni, Carlo, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Goncourt, de, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li>
-
-<li>Guardi, Francesco, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>-<a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Guariento, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
-
-<li>Guercino, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li>
-
-<li>Guido, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li>
-
-<li>Guilds, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
-
-<li>Guillaume de Guilleville, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Hampton Court, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li>
-
-<li>Hazlitt, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
-
-<li>Hogarth, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Jacobello del Fiore, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
-
-<li>Jacopo Bellini. <em>See</em> <a href="#Bellini">Bellini</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Kristeller, M. Paul, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Lancret, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
-
-<li>Last Judgment, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
-
-<li>Last Supper, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li>
-
-<li>Layard, Lady, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
-
-<li>Lazzarini, Gregorio, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
-
-<li>Leonardo, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
-
-<li>Liberi, Pietro, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li>
-
-<li>Licinio, Bernardino, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li>
-
-<li>Licinio, G. A. <em>See</em> <a href="#Pordenone">Pordenone</a></li>
-
-<li>Lippo, Fra, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="London" id="London"></a>London (National Gallery), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>,
- <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>,
- <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
-
-<li>Longhi, Pietro, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>-<a href="#Page_313">313</a></li>
-
-<li>Lorenzo di San Severino, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
-
-<li>Lorenzo Veneziano, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
-
-<li>Loreto, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
-
-<li>Lotto, Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>-<a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Louvre" id="Louvre"></a>Louvre, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>,
- <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
-
-<li>Luciani. <em>See</em> <a href="#Sebastian">Sebastian del Piombo</a></li>
-
-<li>Ludwig, Professor, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Madrid, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
-
-<li>Mansueti, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li>
-
-<li>Mantegna, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>,
- <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Marieschi, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li>
-
-<li>Martino da Udine. <em>See</em> <a href="#Pellegrino">Pellegrino</a></li>
-
-<li>Maser, Villa, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
-
-<li>Masolino, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li>Mengs, Raphael, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
-
-<li>Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
-
-<li>Milan, Ambrosiana, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>
- <ul><li>Brera. <em>See</em> <a href="#Brera">Brera</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li>Mocetto, Girolamo, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
-
-<li>Molmenti, Professor, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Mond Collection, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
-
-<li>Monnier, Philippe, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Montagna, Bartolommeo, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>-<a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
-
-<li>Morelli, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Moretto, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
-
-<li>Morto da Feltre, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
-
-<li>Munich, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
-
-<li>Murano, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
-
-<li>Museo Civico. <em>See</em> <a href="#Correr">Correr</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Naples, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
-
-<li>National Gallery. <em>See</em> <a href="#London">London</a></li>
-
-<li>Niccolo di Pietro, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
-
-<li>Niccolo Semitocolo, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Osmaston, Mr. F. O., <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li><a name="Padovanino" id="Padovanino"></a>Padovanino, Il, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
-
-<li>Padua, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>,
- <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
-
-<li>Palaces—
- <ul><li>Milan.
- <ul><li>Archinto, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li>
- <li>Clerici, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
- <li>Dugnani, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Rome.
- <ul><li>Colonna, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Strà.
- <ul><li>Pisani, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Venice.
- <ul><li>Ducal, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>,
- <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li>
- <li>Giovanelli, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
- <li>Labia, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li>
- <li>Rezzonico, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Verona.
- <ul><li>Canossa, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li></ul></li>
- <li>Würzburg, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li>Palma Giovine, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li>
-
-<li>Palma Vecchio, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
-
-<li>Paolo da Venezia, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
-
-<li>Paris. <em>See</em> <a href="#Louvre">Louvre</a></li>
-
-<li>Parma, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Pellegrino" id="Pellegrino"></a>Pellegrino, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
-
-<li>Pennacchi, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
-
-<li>Perugino, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
-
-<li>Pesaro, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
-
-<li>Pesellino, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
-
-<li>Piacenza, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
-
-<li>Piero di Cosimo, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
-
-<li>Pietà, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
-
-<li>Pintoricchio, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
-
-<li>Pisanello (Pisano), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Pordenone" id="Pordenone"></a>Pordenone, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>-<a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
-
-<li>Previtali, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Quirizio da Murano, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Raphael, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li>
-
-<li>Ravenna, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
-
-<li>Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
-
-<li>Ricci, Battista, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
-
-<li>Ricci, Marco, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li>
-
-<li>Ricci, Sebastiano, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li>
-
-<li>Richter, Dr. J. P., <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Ricketts, Mr. C., <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Ridolfi, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li>
-
-<li>Rimini, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
-
-<li>Robusti, Domenico, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li>
-
-<li>Robusti, Jacopo. <em>See</em> <a href="#Tintoretto">Tintoretto</a></li>
-
-<li>Robusti, Marietta, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
-
-<li>Romanino, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>-<a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
-
-<li>Rome, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li>
-
-<li>Rondinelli, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Rosalba" id="Rosalba"></a>Rosalba Carriera, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>-<a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
-
-<li>Rubens, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
-
-<li>Ruskin, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Sansovino, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
-
-<li>Santa Croce, Girolamo da, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
-
-<li>Sarto, Andrea del, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
-
-<li>Savoldo, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Sebastian" id="Sebastian"></a>Sebastian del Piombo, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
-
-<li>Siena, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
-
-<li>Signorelli, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
-
-<li>Simonson, Mr., <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Smith, Joseph, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li>
-
-<li>Speranza, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
-
-<li>Spilimbergo, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
-
-<li>Strong, Mr. S. A., <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Taylor, Miss Cameron, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
-
-<li>Tiepolo, Domenico, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
-
-<li>Tiepolo, G. B., <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>-<a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Tintoretto" id="Tintoretto"></a>Tintoretto, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>-<a href="#Page_251">251</a>,
- <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>-<a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Titian" id="Titian"></a>Titian, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>-<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>-<a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>,
- <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>-<a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>,
- <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>-<a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>,
- <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>-<a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li>
-
-<li>Torbido, Francesco, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
-
-<li>Treviso, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Uccello, Paolo, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
-
-<li>Urbino, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
-
-<li>Uzanne, M. O., <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Valmarana, Villa, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li>
-
-<li>Varotari. <em>See</em> <a href="#Padovanino">Padovanino</a></li>
-
-<li>Vasari, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>,
- <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li>
-
-<li>Vecellio. <em>See</em> <a href="#Titian">Titian</a></li>
-
-<li>Vecellio, Marco, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
-
-<li>Vecellio, Orazio, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
-
-<li>Vecellio, Pomponio, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
-
-<li>Velasquez, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
-
-<li>Venice. <em>See</em> <a href="#Academy">Academy</a></li>
-
-<li>Venturi, Professor Antonio, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>
-
-<li>Venturi, Professor Leonello, <a href="#Page_vi">vi</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li>
-
-<li>Verona, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
-
-<li><a name="Veronese" id="Veronese"></a>Veronese, Paolo, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>-<a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li>Vicentino, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
-
-<li>Vicenza, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>-<a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
-
-<li>Vienna, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>,
- <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li>
-
-<li>Visentini, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li>
-
-<li>Viterbo, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
-
-<li>Vivarini. <em>See</em> <a href="#Alvise">Alvise</a></li>
-
-<li>Vivarini. <em>See</em> <a href="#Bartolommeo">Bartolommeo</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Wallace Collection, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
-
-<li>Walpole, Horace, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li>
-
-<li>Watteau, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
-
-<li>Wickhoff, Dr., <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
-
-<li>Windsor, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Yriarte, M. Charles, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li>
-
-<li> </li>
-
-<li>Zanetti, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
-
-<li>Zelotti, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li>
-
-<li>Zoppo, Marco, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
-
-<li>Zucchero, Federigo, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p> </p>
-
-<hr style="width: 95%;" />
-<p> </p>
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
-
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
-These interesting particulars are given by Mr. G. MʻN. Rushforth in
-the <em>Burlington Magazine</em> for October 1911.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
-This translation is by Miss Cameron Taylor.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>
-It is this quality of unarrested movement, so conspicuous
-above all in the figure of Bacchus, which attracts us irresistibly in
-the Huntress, in Lord Brownlow’s “Diana and Actaeon.”
-The construction of the form of the goddess in this beautiful but
-little-known picture is admirable. Worn as the colour is, appearing
-almost as a monochrome, the landscape is full of atmospheric
-suggestion. It is in Titian’s latest manner, and its ample lines and
-free unimpeded motion can be due to no inferior brush.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>
-Andrea Meldola, the Sclavonian, a native of Dalmatia, landing
-in Venice, had a great struggle for existence. He drew from
-Parmegianino, and studied Giorgione and Titian. He was probably
-an assistant of Titian, and helped him, as in the “Venus and
-Adonis” of the National Gallery, which owes much to his hand.
-He fails conspicuously in form, his shadows are black, and his
-figures often vulgar, but he has a fine sense of colour, and a free,
-crisp touch. He was one of the young masters who flooded Venice
-with light, sketchy wares.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>
-“Venice and the Renaissance,” <em>Edinburgh Review</em>, 1909.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>
-Philippe Monnier, <em>Venice in the Eighteenth Century</em>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>
-It is thought that it may have been painted from his studio.</p></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<p> </p>
-<p> </p>
-<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30098 ***</div>
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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Venetian School of Painting, by Evelyn March Phillipps</title> + <style type="text/css"> + +/*<![CDATA[*/ + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + ins.translit { border-bottom: #0099FF thin solid; + text-decoration: none; } + + ul { line-height: 1.5em; text-align: left; } + ul li { list-style-type: none; } + + .notes {background-color: #dfdbdb; color: #000; padding: .5em; + margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 30%;} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + + h6 { text-align: center; font-size: 3em; + clear: both; margin-top: -.1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + } + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .tdp {padding: 10px;} + .td1 {text-align: right; padding-right: 10px;} + .td2 {text-align: left; width: 190px;} + .td3 {text-align: left; width: 150px; padding-left: 10px;} + .td4 {text-align: left; width: 140px;} + .td5 {text-align: left; text-indent: -1em; width: 510px;} + .td6 {vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 130px;} + + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} + + .box { width: 350px; + margin: 0 auto; + text-align: center; + padding: 1em; + border-style: none; } + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + a { text-decoration: none; } + + .caption {font-weight: bold; text-align: center;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + + /*]]>*/ + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30098 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Venetian School of Painting, by Evelyn +March Phillipps</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p class="notes"> +Transcriber’s Note:<br /> +<br /> +Variations in the spelling of names and recording of some +questionable dates have been left as printed in the original +text.<br /> +<br /> +Text underlined in blue indicates a transcriber's note. Hover +the cursor over the text to see the note.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>VENETIAN</h1> + +<h1>SCHOOL OF PAINTING</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 392px;"> +<img src="images/img002.jpg" width="392" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Giorgione.</em> MADONNA WITH S. +LIBERALE AND S. FRANCIS. <em>Castelfranco.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h6> +The Venetian<br /> +School of Painting</h6> + +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>EVELYN MARCH PHILLIPPS</h2> + +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<p class="center"><em>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</em></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<p class="center"><span style="font-size: larger;"><strong>BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS</strong></span><br /> +FREEPORT, NEW YORK</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><strong>First Published 1912</strong><br /> +<strong>Reprinted 1972</strong></p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: small;">INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NUMBER:<br /> +0-8369-6745-3</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: small;">LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER:<br /> +70-37907</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: small;">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /> +BY<br /> +NEW WORLD BOOK MANUFACTURING CO., INC.<br /> +HALLANDALE, FLORIDA 33009</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>Many visits to Venice have brought home +the fact that there exists, in English at least, +no work which deals as a whole with the +Venetian School and its masters. Biographical +catalogues there are in plenty, but these, though +useful for reference, say little to readers who are +not already acquainted with the painters whose +career and works are briefly recorded. “Lives” +of individual masters abound, but however excellent +and essential these may be to an advanced +study of the school, the volumes containing +them make too large a library to be easily +carried about, and a great deal of reading and +assimilation is required to set each painter in +his place in the long story. Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s +<em>History of Painting in North Italy</em> still +remains our sheet anchor; but it is lengthy, over +full of detail of minor painters, and lacks the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi"></a></span> +interesting criticism which of late years has collected +round each master. There seems room +for a portable volume, making an attempt to +consider the Venetian painters, in relation to +one another, and to help the visitor not only +to trace the evolution of the school from its +dawn, through its full splendour and to its +declining rays, but to realise what the Venetian +School was, and what was the philosophy of +life which it represented.</p> + +<p>Such a book does not pretend to vie with, +much less to supersede, the masterly treatises on +the subject which have from time to time +appeared, or to take the place of exhaustive +histories, such as that of Professor Leonello +Venturi on the Italian primitives. It should +but serve to pave the way to deeper and more +detailed reading. It does not aspire to give a +complete and comprehensive list of the painters; +some of the minor ones may not even be +mentioned. The mere inclusion of names, dates, +and facts would add unduly to the size of the +book, and, when without real bearing on +the course of Venetian art, would have little +significance. What the book does aim at is to +enable those who care for art, but may not have +mastered its history, to rear a framework on +which to found their own observations and appreciations; +to supply that coherent knowledge +which is beneficial even to a passing acquaintance +with beautiful things, and to place the unscientific +observer in a position to take greater advantage +of opportunities, and to achieve a wide and +interesting outlook on that cycle of artistic +apprehension which the Venetian School comprises, +and which marks it as the outcome and +the symbol of a great historic age.</p> + +<p>The works cited have been principally those +with which the ordinary traveller is likely to +come into contact in the chief European galleries, +and, above all, in Venice itself. The lists do not +propose to be exhaustive, but merely indicate +the principal works of the artists. Those in +private galleries, unless easy of access or of first-rate +importance, are usually eliminated. It has +not been thought necessary to use profuse illustrations, +as the book is intended primarily for +use when visiting the original works.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">PART I</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER I</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Venice and her Art</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER II</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Primitive Art in Venice</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER III</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Influences of Umbria and Verona</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER IV</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The School of Murano</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER V</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Paduan Influence</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER VI</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jacopo Bellini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER VII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Carlo Crivelli</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER VIII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Gentile Bellini and Antonello da Messina</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER IX</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alvise Vivarini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER X</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Carpaccio</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XI</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giovanni Bellini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giovanni Bellini</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XIII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cima da Conegliano and other Followers of Bellini</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">PART II</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XIV</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giorgione</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XV</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Giorgione</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XVI</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Giorgionesque</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XVII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Titian</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XVIII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Titian</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XIX</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Titian</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XX</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Palma Vecchio and Lorenzo Lotto</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXI</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Sebastian del Piombo</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bonifazio and Paris Bordone</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXIII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Painters of the Venetian Provinces</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXIV</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Paolo Veronese</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXV</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tintoretto</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXVI</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tintoretto</span> (<em>continued</em>)</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXVII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bassano</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">PART III</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXVIII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Interim</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXIX</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tiepolo</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXX</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pietro Longhi</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_309">309</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXXI</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Canale</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <th colspan="3">CHAPTER XXXII</th> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'><span class="smcap">Francesco Guardi</span></td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'> </td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td align='left'>BIBLIOGRAPHY</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td align='left'>INDEX</td> <td class="tdp"></td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_333">333</a></td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<div class='center'> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr> <td align='right'></td> <td class="td2"></td> + <td class="td3">BY</td> <td class="td4">AT</td> <td align='right'></td> </tr> +<tr> <td style="vertical-align: top;" class="td1">1.</td> <td class="td2">Madonna with S. Liberale and S. Francis</td> + <td style="vertical-align: bottom;" class="td3">Giorgione</td> <td style="vertical-align: bottom;" class="td4">Castelfranco</td> <td style="vertical-align: bottom;" align='right'><em><a href="#frontis">Frontispiece</a></em></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">2.</td> <td class="td2">Adoration of the Magi</td> + <td class="td3">Antonio da Murano</td> <td class="td4">Berlin</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">3.</td> <td class="td2">Agony in Garden</td> + <td class="td3">Jacopo Bellini</td> <td class="td4">British Museum</td> <td align='right'><a href="#agony">41</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">4.</td> <td class="td2">Procession of the Holy Cross</td> + <td class="td3">Gentile Bellini</td> <td class="td4">Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">5.</td> <td class="td2">Altarpiece of 1480</td> + <td class="td3">Alvise Vivarini</td> <td class="td4">Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#altar">60</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">6.</td> <td class="td2">Arrival of the Ambassadors</td> + <td class="td3">Carpaccio</td> <td class="td4">Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">7.</td> <td class="td2">Pietà</td> + <td class="td3">Giovanni Bellini</td> <td class="td4">Brera</td> <td align='right'><a href="#pieta">87</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">8.</td> <td class="td2">An Allegory</td> + <td class="td3">Giovanni Bellini</td> <td class="td4">Uffizi</td> <td align='right'><a href="#allegory">94</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">9.</td> <td class="td2">Fête Champêtre</td> + <td class="td3">Giorgione</td> <td class="td4">Louvre</td> <td align='right'><a href="#champ">136</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">10.</td> <td class="td2">Portrait of Ariosto</td> + <td class="td3">Titian</td> <td class="td4">National Gallery</td> <td align='right'><a href="#aris">156</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">11.</td> <td class="td2">Diana and Actaeon</td> + <td class="td3">Titian</td> <td class="td4">Earl Brownlow</td> <td align='right'><a href="#diana">161</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">12.</td> <td class="td2">Holy Family</td> + <td class="td3">Palma Vecchio</td> <td class="td4">Colonna Gallery, Rome</td> <td align='right'><a href="#holy">185</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">13.</td> <td class="td2">Portrait of Laura di Pola</td> + <td class="td3">Lorenzo Lotto</td> <td class="td4">Brera</td> <td align='right'><a href="#laura">194</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">14.</td> <td class="td2">Marriage in Cana</td> + <td class="td3">Paolo Veronese</td> <td class="td4">Louvre</td> <td align='right'><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">15.</td> <td class="td2">S. Mary of Egypt</td> + <td class="td3">Tintoretto</td> <td class="td4">Scuola di San Rocco</td> <td align='right'><a href="#egypt">258</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">16.</td> <td class="td2">Bacchus and Ariadne</td> + <td class="td3">Tintoretto</td> <td class="td4">Ducal Palace</td> <td align='right'><a href="#bacchus">261</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">17.</td> <td class="td2">Baptism of S. Lucilla</td> + <td class="td3">Jacopo da Ponte</td> <td class="td4">Bassano</td> <td align='right'><a href="#bapt">274</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">18.</td> <td class="td2">Antony and Cleopatra</td> + <td class="td3">Tiepolo</td> <td class="td4">Palazzo Labia, Venice</td> <td align='right'><a href="#cleo">304</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">19.</td> <td class="td2">Visit to the Fortune-Teller</td> + <td class="td3">Pietro Longhi</td> <td class="td4">National Gallery</td> <td align='right'><a href="#visit">310</a></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td1">20.</td> <td class="td2">S. Maria della Salute</td> + <td class="td3">Francesco Guardi</td> <td class="td4">National Gallery</td> <td align='right'><a href="#della">324</a></td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF PAINTERS</h2> + +<div class="box"> +<p> +Paolo da Venezia, <em>fl.</em> 1333-1358.<br /> +Niccolo di Pietro, <em>fl.</em> 1394-1404.<br /> +Niccolo Semitocolo, <em>fl.</em> 1364.<br /> +Stefano di Venezia, <em>fl.</em> 1353.<br /> +Lorenzo Veneziano, <em>fl.</em> 1357-1379.<br /> +Chatarinus, <em>fl.</em> 1372.<br /> +Jacobello del Fiore, <em>fl.</em> 1415-1439.<br /> +Gentile da Fabriano, 1360-1428.<br /> +Vittore Pisano (Pisanello), <em>circa</em> 1385-1455.<br /> +Michele Giambono, <em>fl.</em> 1470.<br /> +Giovanni Alemanus, <em>fl.</em> 1440-1447.<br /> +Antonio da Murano, <em>circa</em> 1430-1470.<br /> +Bartolommeo Vivarini, <em>fl.</em> 1420-1499.<br /> +Alvise Vivarini, <em>fl.</em> 1461-1503.<br /> +Antonello da Messina, <em>circa</em> 1444-1493.<br /> +Jacopo Bellini, <em>fl.</em> 1430-1466.<br /> +Jacopo dei Barbari, <em>circa</em> 1450-1516.<br /> +Andrea Mantegna, 1431-1506.<br /> +Carlo Crivelli, 1430-1493.<br /> +Bartolommeo Montagna, 1450-1523.<br /> +Francesco Buonsignori, 1453-1519.<br /> +Gentile Bellini, <em>circa</em> 1427-1507.<br /> +Giovanni Bellini, 1426-1516.<br /> +Lazzaro Bastiani, <em>fl.</em> 1470-1508.<br /> +Vittore Carpaccio, <em>fl.</em> 1478-1522.<br /> +Girolamo da Santa Croce.<br /> +Mansueti, <em>fl.</em> 1474-1510.<br /> +Giovanni Battista da Conegliano (Cima), 1460-1517.<br /> +Vincenzo Catena, <em>fl.</em> 1495-1531.<br /> +Bissolo, 1464-1528.<br /> +Marco Basaiti, <em>circa</em> 1470-1527.<br /> +Andrea Previtali, <em>fl.</em> 1502-1525.<br /> +Bartolommeo Veneto, <em>fl.</em> 1505-1555.<br /> +N. Rondinelli, <em>fl.</em> 1480-1500.<br /> +Girolamo Savoldo, 1480-1548.<br /> +Giorgio Barbarelli (Giorgione), 1478-1511.<br /> +Giovanni Busi (Cariani), <em>circa</em> 1480-1544.<br /> +Tiziano Vecellio (Titian), 1477-1576.<br /> +Palma Vecchio, 1480-1528.<br /> +Lorenzo Lotto, 1480-1556.<br /> +Martino da Udine (Pellegrino di San Daniele).<br /> +Morto da Feltre, <em>circa</em> 1474-1522.<br /> +Romanino, 1485-1566.<br /> +Sebastian Luciani (del Piombo), 1485-1547.<br /> +Giovanni Antonino Licinio (Pordenone), 1483-1540.<br /> +Bernardino Licinio, <em>fl.</em> 1520-1544.<br /> +Alessandro Bonvicino (Moretto), <em>circa</em> 1498-1554.<br /> +Bonifazio de Pitatis (Veronese), <em>fl.</em> 1510-1540.<br /> +Paris Bordone, 1510-1570.<br /> +Jacopo da Ponte (Bassano), 1510-1592.<br /> +Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto), 1518-1592.<br /> +Paolo Caliari (Veronese), 1528-1588.<br /> +Domenico Robusti, 1562-1637.<br /> +Palma Giovine, 1544-1628.<br /> +Alessandro Varotari (Il Padovanino), 1590-1650.<br /> +Gianbattista Fumiani, 1643-1710.<br /> +Sebastiano Ricci, 1662-1734.<br /> +Gregorio Lazzarini, 1657-1735.<br /> +Rosalba Carriera, 1675-1757.<br /> +G. B. Piazetta, 1682-1754.<br /> +Gianbattista Tiepolo, 1696-1770.<br /> +Antonio Canale (Canaletto), 1697-1768.<br /> +Belotto, 1720-1780.<br /> +Francesco Guardi, 1712-1793.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>VENICE AND HER ART</strong></p> + + +<p>Venetian painting in its prime differs altogether +in character from that of every other part of +Italy. The Venetian is the most marked and +recognisable of all the schools; its singularity +is such that a novice in art can easily, in a +miscellaneous collection, sort out the works +belonging to it, and added to this unique character +is the position it occupies in the domain +of art. Venice alone of Italian States can boast +an epoch of art comparable in originality and +splendour to that of her great Florentine rival; +an epoch which is to be classed among the +great art manifestations of the world, which has +exerted, and continues to exert, incalculable +power over painting, and which is the inspiration +as well as the despair of those who try to +master its secret.</p> + +<p>The other schools of Italy, with all their +superficial varieties of treatment and feeling, +depended for their very life upon the extent to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +which they were able to imbibe the Florentine +influence. Siena rejected that strength and +perished; Venice bided her time and suddenly +struck out on independent lines, achieving a +magnificent victory.</p> + +<p>Art in Florence made a strictly logical +progress. As civilisation awoke in the old Latin +race, it went back in every domain of learning +to the rich subsoil which still underlay the ruin +and the alien structures left by the long barbaric +dominion, for the Italian in his darkest hour +had never been a barbarian; and as the mind was +once more roused to conscious life, Florence +entered readily upon that great intellectual +movement which she was destined to lead. +Her cast of thought was, from the first, realistic +and scientific. Its whole endeavour was to +know the truth, to weigh evidences, to elaborate +experiments, to see things as they really were; +and when she reached the point at which art was +ready to speak, we find that the governing motive +of her language was this same predilection for +reality, and it was with this meaning that her +typical artists found a voice. No artist ever +sought for truth, both physical and spiritual, +more resolutely than Giotto, and none ever spoke +more distinctly the mind of his age and country; +and as one generation follows another, art in +Tuscany becomes more and more closely allied +to the intellectual movement. The scientific +predilection for <em>form</em>, for the representation +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +of things as they really are, characterises not +Florentine painting alone, but the whole of +Florentine art. It is an art of contributions +and discoveries, marked, it is needless to say, at +every step by dominating personalities, positively +as well as relatively great, but with each member +consciously absorbed in “going one better” than +his predecessors, in solving problems and in +mastering methods. Florentine art is the outcome +of Florentine life and thought. It is part of +the definite clear-cut view of thought and reason, +of that exactitude of apprehension towards +which the whole Florentine mind was bent, and +the lesser tributaries, as they flowed towards +her, formed themselves on her pattern and +worked upon the same lines, so that they +have a certain general resemblance, and their +excellence is in proportion to the thoroughness +with which they have learned their lesson.</p> + +<p>The difference which separates Venetian from +the rest of Italian painting is a fundamental one. +Venice attains to an equally distinguished place, +but the way in which she does it and the +character of her contribution are both so +absolutely distinct that her art seems to be the +outcome of another race, with alien temperament +and standards. Venice had, indeed, a history and +a life of her own. Her entire isolation, from her +foundation, gave her an independent government +and customs peculiar to herself, but at the same +time her people, even in their earliest and most +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +precarious struggles, were no barbarians who +had slowly to acquire the arts of civilised life. +Among the refugees were persons of high birth +and great traditions, and they brought with them +to the first crazy settlement on the lagoons some +political training and some idea of how to reconstruct +their shattered social fabric. The Venetian +Republic rose rapidly to a position of influence +in Europe. Small and circumscribed as its area +was, every feature and sentiment was concentrated +and intensified. But one element above all permeates +it and sets it apart from other European +States. The Oriental element in Venice must +never be lost sight of if we wish to understand +her philosophy of art.</p> + +<p>There are some grounds, seriously accepted +by the most recent historians, for believing that +the first Venetian colonists were the descendants +of emigrants who in prehistoric times had +established themselves in Asia and who had +returned from thence to Northern Italy. “These +colonists,” says Hazlitt, “were called Tyrrhenians, +and from their settlements round the mouth of +the Po the Venetian stock was ultimately +derived.” If the tradition has any truth, we +think with a deeper interest of that instinct for +commerce which seems to have been in the +very blood of the early Venetians. Did it, +indeed, come down to them from the merchants +of Tyre and Carthage? From that wonderful +trading race which stretched out its arms all +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +over Europe and penetrated even to our own +island? From the first, Venice cut herself adrift, +as far as possible, from Western ties, but she +turned to Eastern people and to intercourse with +the East with a natural affinity which savours +of racial instinct. All her greatness was derived +from her Asiatic trade, and her bazaars, heaped +with Eastern riches, must have assumed a deeply +Oriental aspect. Her customs long retained +many details peculiar to the East. The people +observed a custom for choosing and dowering +brides, which was of Asia. The national +treatment of women was akin to that of an +Oriental State; Venetian women lived in a +retirement which recalled the life of the harem, +only appearing on great occasions to display their +brocades and jewels. Girls were closely veiled +when they passed through the streets. The +attachment of men to women had no intellectual +bias, scarcely any sentiment, but “went +straight to the mark: the enjoyment of physical +beauty.” The position of women in Venice was +a great contrast to that attained by the Florentine +lady of the Renaissance, who was highly educated, +deeply versed in men and in affairs, the fine flower +of culture, and the queen of a brilliant society. +The love for colour and gorgeous pageantry +was of Semitic intensity and seemed insatiable, +and the gratification of the senses was a +deliberate State policy. But passionate as was +the spirit of patriotism, enthusiastic the love and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +loyalty of the people, the civic spirit was absent. +The masses were contented to live under a despotic +rule and to be little despots in their own houses. +In the twelfth century the people saw power pass +into the hands of the aristocracy, and as long as +the despotism was a benevolent one, the event +aroused no opposition. Like Orientals, the +Venetians had wild outbursts, and like them +they quieted down and nothing came of them. +As Mr. Hazlitt remarks, “their occasional +resistance to tyranny, though marked by deeds +of horrid and dark cruelty, left no deep or +enduring traces behind it. It established no +principle. It taught no lesson.” Venice was a +Republic only in name. The whole aspect of +her government is Eastern. Its system of +espionage, its secret tribunals, its swift and +silent blows,—these are all Oriental traits, and +the East entering into her whole life from +without found a natural home awaiting it. We +should be mistaken, however, in thinking that +the Venetians in their great days were enervated +and lapped in the sensuality which we are apt to +associate with Eastern ideals. Sensuality did in +the end drain the life out of her. “It is the +disease which attacks sensuousness, but it is not +the same thing.” The Venetians were by nature +men with a deep capacity for feeling, and it is +this deep feeling which has so large a share in +Venetian art.</p> + +<p>The painters of Venice were of the people +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +and had no wide intellectual outlook at its +most splendid moment, such as was possessed by +those men who in Florence were drawn into the +company of the Medici and their court of +scholars, and who all their lives were in the +midst of a society of large aims and a free public +spirit, in which men took their share of the +responsibilities and honours of a citizen’s life. +The merchant-patrons of Venice are quite uninterested +in the solving of problems. They +pay a price, and they want a good show of colour +and gilding for their money. Presently they +buy from outside, and a half-hearted imitation +of foreigners is the best ambition of Venetian +artists. Art, it has been said, does not declare +itself with true spontaneity till it feels behind it +the weight and unanimity of the whole body +of the people. That true outburst was long in +coming, but its seeds were fructifying deep in +a congenial soil. They were fostered by the +warmth and colour of Oriental intercourse, and +at last the racial instinct speaks with no uncertain +accent in the great domain of art, and +speaks in a new and unexpected way; as +splendid as, yet utterly unlike, the grand intellectual +declaration of Florence.</p> + +<p>Let us bear in mind, then, that Venice in all +her history, in all her character, is Eastern +rather than Western. Hers is the kingdom of +feeling rather than that of thought, of emotion +as opposed to intellect. Her whole story tells +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +of a profoundly emotional and sensuous apprehension +of the nature of things; and till the time +comes when her artists are inspired to express +that, their creations may be interesting enough, +but they fail to reveal the true workings of +her mind. When they do, they find a new +medium and use it in a new way. Venetian +colour, when it comes into its kingdom, speaks +for a whole people, sensuous and of deep feeling, +able for the first time to utter itself in art.</p> + +<p>We have to divide the history of the +Venetian School into three parts. The first +extends from the primitives to the end of +Giovanni Bellini’s life. He forms a link +between the first and second periods. The +second begins with Giorgione and ends with +Tintoretto and Bassano, and is the Venetian +School proper. Thirdly, we have the eighteenth-century +revival, in which Tiepolo is the most +conspicuous figure, and which is in an equal +degree the expression of the life of its time.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>PRIMITIVE ART IN VENICE</strong></p> + + +<p>The school of Byzantium, so widespread in its +influence, was particularly strong in Venice, +where mosaics adorned the cathedral of Torcello +from the ninth century and St. Mark’s became +a splendid storehouse of Byzantine art. The +earliest mosaic on the façade of St. Mark’s was +executed about the year 1250, those in the +Baptistery date during the reign of Andrea +Dandolo, who was Doge from 1342 to 1354. +Yet though the life of Giotto lies between these +two dates, and his frescoes at Padua were within +a few hours’ journey, there is no sign that the +great revolution in painting, which was making +itself felt in every principal centre of Italy, had +touched the richest and most peaceful of all her +States.</p> + +<p>Yet local art in Venice was no outcome of +Byzantinism. It rose as that of the mosaicists +fell, but its rise differs from that of Florence +and Siena in being for long almost imperceptible. +Artists were looked upon merely as artisans in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +all the cities of Italy, but in Venice before any +other city they had been placed among the +craftsmen. The statute of the Guild of Siena +was not formulated till 1355; that of Venice is +the earliest of which we have any record, and +bears the date of 1272. There is scarcely a +word to indicate that pictures in the modern +sense of the term existed. Painters were +employed on the adornment of arms and of +household furniture. Leather helmets and +shields were painted, and such banners as we +see in Paolo Uccello’s battlepieces. Painted +chests and <em>cassoni</em> were already in demand, dishes +and plates for the table and the surface of the +table itself were treated in a similar way. +Special regulations dealt with all these, and it +is only at the end of the list that anconæ are +mentioned. The ancona was a gilded framework, +having a compartment containing a +picture of the Madonna and Child, and others +with single figures of the saints, and these +were the only pictures proper produced at this +date. The demand for anconæ was, however, +large, and they were very early placed, not only +in the churches, but in the houses of patricians +and burghers. Constant disputes arose between +the painters and the gilders. Pictures were +habitually painted upon a gold ground, but +the painters were forbidden to gild the backgrounds +themselves. “Gilding is the business +of the gilder, painting that of the painter,” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +says a contemporary record. “Now the gilder +contends that if a frame has to be gilt and +then touched with colour, he is entitled to +perform both operations, but the painter disputes +this right, and maintains that the gilder should +return it to him when the addition of painting +is desired.” It was, however, finally decided by +law that each should exercise both professions, +when one or the other played a subordinate +part in the finished work. Though the art +of mosaic was falling into decay as painting +began to emerge, yet the commercial manufactory +of Byzantine Madonnas, which had been +established as early as 600, went on, on the Rialto, +without any variation of the traditional forms.</p> + +<p>Florence very early discarded the temptation +to cling to material splendour, but as we pass +into the Hall of the Primitives in the Venetian +Academy, we see at once that Venetian art, +in its earlier stages, has more to do with the gilder +than the painter. The Holy Personages are +merely accessories to the gorgeous framework, +the embossed ornaments, the real jewels, which +were in favour with the rich and magnificent +patrons. There is no sign of any feeling for +painting as painting, no craving after the study +of form as the outcome of intellectual activity, +no zest of discovery, such as made the painter’s +life in Florence an excitement in which the +public shared. What little Venice imbibes of +these things is from outside influence, after due +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +lapse of time. A prosperous, luxurious city of +merchants and statesmen, she was too much +bound up in the transactions and sensations of +actual life to develop any abstract and thoughtful +ideals.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the first painting we can discover +which shows any sign of independent effort is the +series which Paolo da Venezia painted on the back +of the Pala d’ Oro, over the high altar of St. Mark, +when it was restored in the fourteenth century. +This reveals an artist with some pictorial aptitude +and one alive to the subjects that surround him. +It tells the story of St. Mark’s corpse transported +to Venice. The first panel contains a group of +cardinals of varying types and expressions; in +another the disciple listening to St. Mark’s teaching, +and crouching with his elbows on his knees, +has a true, natural touch. The dramatic feeling +here and there is considerable. The scene of the +guards watching the imprisoned Saint through +the window and seeing the shadow of two heads, +as the Saviour visits him, imparts a distinct +emotion; and there is force as well as feeling for +decorative composition in the panel in which the +Saint’s body lies at the feet of the sailors, while +his vision appears shining upon the sails.</p> + +<p>Except for the exaggerated insistence on the +gilded elaborations of the early ancona, there is +not much to differentiate the early art of Venice +from that of other centres; but we notice that it +persevered longer in the material and mechanical +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +art of the craftsman. Tuscan taste made little +impression, and many years elapsed before work +akin to that of Giotto attracted attention and was +admired and imitated. A man like Antonio +Veneziano met with the fate of the innovator in +Venice. He had too much of the simplicity of +the Tuscan and was compelled to carry his work +to Pisa, where his naïf and humorous narratives +still delight us in the Campo Santo. It was in +1384 that he was employed to finish the frescoes +of the life of S. Ranieri, which had been left uncompleted +at Andrea da Firenze’s death, and the +fondness for architecture and surroundings in the +Florentine taste, which secured him a welcome, +may, as Vasari says, be derived from Agnolo +Gaddi, who had already visited Padua and +Venice.</p> + +<p>In the last years of the fourteenth century +tributary streams begin to feed the feeble main +current. In 1365 Guariento, a Paduan, was +employed by the State to paint a huge fresco of +Paradise in the Hall of the Gran Consiglio of +the Ducal Palace. This, which lay hid for +centuries under the painting by Tintoretto, was +uncovered in 1909 and found to be in fairly +good preservation. It can now be seen in a side +room. It tells us that Guariento had to some +extent been influenced by Giotto. The thrones +have long Gothic pendatives, the faces have more +the Giottesque than the Byzantine cast and show +that the old traditions were crumbling.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +When painting in Venice first begins to +live a life of its own, Jacobello del Fiore stands +out as the most conspicuous of the indigenous +Venetians. His father had been president +of the Painters’ Guild. Jacopo himself was +president from 1415 to 1436. He was a rich +and popular member of the State and a man +of high character. His works, to judge by the +specimens left, hardly attained the dignity of +art, though in the banner of “Justice,” in the +Academy, the space is filled in a monumental +fashion and the figure of St. Gabriel with the +lily has something grand and graceful. We +trace the same treatment of flying banners and +draperies and rippling hair in the fantastic but +picturesque S. Grisogono in the left transept of +San Trovaso. Jacobello’s will, executed in 1439 +in favour of his wife Lucia and his son, Ercole, +with provision for a possible posthumous son, +shows him to have been a man of considerable +possessions. He owned a slave and had other +servants, a house, money, and books. Among his +fellow-workers who are represented in Venice +are Niccolo Semitocolo, Niccolo di Pietro, and +Lorenzo Veneziano. The important altarpiece +by the last, in the Academy, has evidently +been reconstructed; two Eternal Fathers hover +over the Annunciation, and the Saints have +been restored to the framework in such wise +that the backs of many of them are turned +on the momentous central event. In the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +“Marriage of St. Catherine,” in the same +gallery, Lorenzo gets more natural. The Child, +in a light green dress with gold buttons, has a +lively expression, and looks round at His Mother +as if playing a game. The chapel of San Tarasio +in San Zaccaria contains an ancona of which the +central panel was only inserted in 1839, and is +identical with Lorenzo’s other work. One of +the finest and most elaborate of all the anconæ is +in San Giovanni in Bragora, and is also the work +of Lorenzo. In this, as well as in that of San +Tarasio, the Mother offers the Child the apple, +signifying the fruit of the Tree of Jesse and +symbolical of the Incarnation. This incident, +which is found thus early in art, was evidently +felt to raise the group of the Mother and Child +from a representation of a merely earthly relationship +to a spiritual scene of the deepest meaning +and the highest dignity.</p> + +<p>Niccolo di Pietro has several early works of +the last decade of the fourteenth century, from +which we gather that he began as a Byzantine, +but that he imitated Guariento and was tentatively +drawn to the Giottesque movement, but +not, we may remember, before Giotto had been +dead for some sixty years. Niccolo di Pietro has +been confounded with Niccolo Semitocolo, but +it is now realised that they were two distinct +masters. The most important work of Michele +Giambono which has come down to us is the +signed ancona with five saints, now in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +Venetian Academy. It is unusual to find a saint +in the central panel instead of the Madonna. +The saint is on a larger scale than his companions, +and has hitherto passed as the Redeemer, +but Professor Venturi has identified him as +St. James the Great. He has the gold scallop-shell +and pilgrim’s staff. It is clear from his size +and position that the ancona has been painted for +an altar specially dedicated to this Apostle.</p> + +<p>The saints on the right are S. Michael and +S. Louis of Toulouse. Between S. John the Evangelist +and S. James is a monastic figure which +has evidently changed places with S. John +at some moment of restoration. If the two +figures are transposed, their attitudes become intelligible. +S. John is inculcating a message +inscribed in his open book, while the monk is +displaying his humble answer on his own page. +The use in it of the term <em>servus</em> suggests that +he is a Servite, though the want of the nimbus +precludes the idea that he is one of the founders. +It is probable that he is S. Filipo Benizzi, who, +though considered as a saint from the time of +his death, was not canonised for several centuries.</p> + +<p>The Mond Collection includes a glowing +picture by Giambono; a seated figure clad in +rich vestments and holding an orb, probably +representing a “Throne,” one of the angelic +orders of the celestial +Hierarchy.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +Works are still in existence which may be +ascribed to one or other of these masters, or +of which no attribution can be made, but we +know nothing positive of any other artists of the +time which preceded the influence of Gentile da +Fabriano. Nothing leads us to suppose that +the Venetian School in its origin had any pretension +to be a school of colour, or that it could +claim anything like real excellence at a time +when the Republic first became alive to the +movement which was going on in other parts of +Italy, and decided to call in foreign talent.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Paolo da Venezia.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">St. Mark’s: The Pala d’ Oro.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Death of the Virgin.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Lorenzo da Venezia.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Correr Museum: Saviour giving Keys to St. Peter.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Ancona.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Two Saints.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Nicoletto Semitocolo.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Biblioteca Archivescovo: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Stefano da Venezia.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Coronation of Virgin, with false signature of Semitocolo.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Jacobello del Fiore.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Justice.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Trovaso: S. Grisogono.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Niccolo di Pietro.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dei Miracoli: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Michele Giambono.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: St. James the Great and other Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: A “Throne.”</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>INFLUENCES OF UMBRIA AND VERONA</strong></p> + + +<p>Gentile da Fabriano, the Umbrian master, +when he reached Venice in the early years of +the fifteenth century, was already a man of note. +He had received his art education in Florence, +and he brought with him fresh and delicate +devices for the enrichment of painting with +gold, which, derived as it was from the Sienese +assimilation of Byzantine methods, was very +superior in fancy and refinement to anything +that Venice had to show. He was a man of a +gentle, mystic temperament, but he was accustomed +to courts, and a finished master whose +technique and artistic value was far beyond anything +that the local painters were capable of. +He spent some years in Venice, adorning the +great hall with episodes from the legend of +Barbarossa; one of these, which is specially +cited, was of the battle between the Emperor and +the Venetians. Gentile was working till about +1414, and the walls, finished by Pisanello, were +covered by 1416. After this Gentile remained +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +some time in Bergamo and Brescia, and settled +in Florence about 1422. The year after reaching +Florence, he painted the famous “Adoration +of the Magi,” now in the Florentine Academy. +Even after leaving Venice his fame survived; +pictures went from his workshop in the Popolo +S. Trinità, and he sent back two portraits after +he had returned to his native Fabriano.</p> + +<p>We have no positive record of Gentile and +Vittore Pisano, commonly called Pisanello, +having met in Venice, but there is every +evidence in their work that they did so, and +that one overlapped the other in the paintings +for the Ducal Palace.</p> + +<p>The School of Verona already had an honourable +record, and its Guild dates from 1303. +The following are its rules, the document of +which is still preserved, while that of Venice +has been lost:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><span class="smcap">Rules of the Veronese Guild</span> (<em>abridged</em>)</p> + +<p>1. No one to become a member who had not +practised art for twelve years.</p> + +<p>2. Twelve artists to be elected members.</p> + +<p>3. The reception of a new member depends on his +being a senior.</p> + +<p>4. The members are obliged in the winter season +to take upon themselves the instruction of +all the pupils in turn.</p> + +<p>5. A member is liable to be expelled for theft.</p> + +<p>6. Each member is bound to extend to another +fraternal assistance in necessity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +7. To maintain general agreement in any controversies.</p> + +<p>8. To extend hospitality to strange artists.</p> + +<p>9. To offer to one another reciprocal comfort.</p> + +<p>10. To follow the funerals of members with +torches.</p> + +<p>11. The President is to exercise reference authority.</p> + +<p>12. The member who has the longest membership +to be President.</p></div> + +<p>There were also by-laws, which provided +that no master should accept a pupil for less +than three years, and this acceptance had to +be definitely registered by the public notary, a +son, brother, grandson, or nephew being the +only exceptions. No master might receive +an apprentice who should have left another +master before his time was out, unless with that +master’s free consent. There were penalties for +enticing away a pupil, and others to be enforced +against pupils who broke the agreement. Severe +restrictions existed with regard to the sale of +pictures, no one but a member of the Guild +being allowed to sell them. No one might +bring a work from any foreign place for purposes +of sale. It might not even be brought +to the town without the special permission of +the <em>Gastaldiones</em>, or trustees of the Guild, and +those trustees were permitted to search for and +destroy forged pictures. Every painter, therefore, +had to subordinate his interests and inclinations +to the local school. It helps us to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +understand why the individual character of the +different masters is so perceptible, and one of +the primary causes of this must have been the +careful training of the pupils in the master’s +workshop.</p> + +<p>The fresco left by Altichiero, Pisanello’s first +master, in the Church of S. Anastasia in Verona, +shows how worthily a Veronese painter was at +this early time following in the footsteps of +Giotto. Three knights of the Cavalli family +are presented by their patron saints to the +Madonna. The composition has a large simplicity, +a breadth of feeling which is carried +into each gesture. The knights with their +raised helmets, in the pattern of horses’ heads, +are full of reality, the Madonna is sweet and +dignified, and the saints are grand and stately. +The picture has a delightful suavity and ease, +and the colouring has evidently been lovely. +The setting is in good proportion and more +satisfactory than that of the Giottesques. From +the series of frescoes in S. Antonio, Verona, +we gather that while Venice was still limited +to stiff anconæ, the Veronese masters were +managing crowds of figures and rendering distances +successfully. Altichiero puts in homely +touches from everyday life with a freedom +which shows he has not yet mastered the +principles of selection or the dignified fitness +which guided the great masters; as, for instance, +in the case of the old woman, among the spectators +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +of the Crucifixion, who shows her grief by blowing +her nose. He lets himself be drawn off by all +manner of trivial detail and of gay costume; but +again in such frescoes as S. Lucia, or the “Beheading +of St. George,” in the Paduan chapel of the +Santo, he proves how well he understands the +force of solid, simply-draped figures, direct in +gesture and expression, while the decorative use +he makes of lances against the background was +long afterwards perhaps imitated, but hardly +surpassed, by Tintoretto.</p> + +<p>Pisanello, who followed quickly upon +Altichiero and his assistant, Avanzi, exhibits +the same chivalresque and courtly inclinations +which commended Gentile da Fabriano to the +splendour-loving Venetians. Verona, under the +peaceful but gallant government of the Scaligeri, +had long been the home of all knightly +lore, and the artists had been employed to +decorate chapels for the families of the great +nobles. Among these, Pisanello had attained a +high place. Though very few of his paintings +remain, they all show these influences, and his +subtly modelled medals establish him as a +master of the most finished type. A much +destroyed fresco in S. Anastasia, Verona, portrays +the history of St. George and the Dragon. +In the St. George we probably see the portrait +of the great personage in whose honour the +fresco was painted. He is mounting his horse, +which, seen from behind, reminds us of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +fore-shortened chargers of Paolo Uccello. The +rescued princess, also a portrait, wears a magnificent +dress and an elaborate headgear in the +fashion of the day. Other horses, fiery and +spirited, are grouped around, and in the band of +cavaliers, beyond St. George, every head is +individualised; one is beautiful, another brutal, +and so on through the seven. A greyhound and +spaniel in the foreground are superbly painted, +the background is excellent, and a realistic touch +is given by the corpses which dangle unheeded +from the trees outside the castle-gate. A ruined, +but fortunately not restored, “Annunciation” in +S. Fermo, has a simple, slender figure of the +Virgin sitting by her white bed, and the angel, +with great sweeping, rushing wings and bowed, +child-like head with fair hair, is a most sweet +and keen figure, thrilling and convincing, in +contrast to all the dead, over-worked frescoes +round the church. All these paintings are too +small to be the least effective at the height at +which they are placed, and can only be seen +with a good glass. Pisanello’s art is not well +adapted to wide, frescoed walls, and he seems to +have enjoyed painting miniature panels, such as +the two we possess. In these he is full of +originality, and shows his love for the knightly +life, the life of courts, in the armed <em>cap-à-pied</em> +figure of St. George, whose point-device armour +is crowned by a wide Tuscan hat and feather. +The artist’s knowledge and love of animals and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +wild nature comes out in them, and his interest +in beauty and chivalry as opposed to the outworn +conventionalities of ecclesiastic demands.</p> + +<p>We shall be able to trace the influence of +both the Umbrian and the Veronese painter +on men like Antonio di Murano and Jacopo +Bellini, and it is important to note the likeness +of the two to one another. In Gentile’s +“Adoration” we have on the one hand the +Holy Family and the gay pageant of the kings, +of which we could find the prototype in +many an Umbrian panel. On the other we see +those contrasting elements which were struggling +in Pisanello; the delight in flowers and animals, +in gaily apparelled figures, in dogs and horses. +The two have no lasting effect, but though they +created no actual school, they gave a stimulus to +Venetian art, and started it on a new tack, +enabling it to open its channels to fresh ideas. +During the time they were in Venice, Jacobello +del Fiore shows some signs of adapting the new +fashion to his early style, and the horse of +S. Grisogono is very like that of Gentile in +the “Adoration,” or like Pisano’s horses. +Michele Giambono is actually found in collaboration, +in the chapel of the Madonna da +Mascoli in St. Mark’s, with such a virile +painter as the Florentine, Andrea del Castagno, +who is evidently responsible for God the Father +and two of the Apostles; but Castagno must +have been thoroughly antipathetic to the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +Venetians, and though he may have taught +them the way to draw, he has not left any +traces of a following.</p> + +<p>Facio, writing in 1455, speaks of Gentile’s +work in the Ducal Palace as already decaying, +while Pisanello’s was painted out by Alvise +Vivarini and Bellini.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Gentile da Fabriano.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Adoration of the Magi.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Altichiero.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Capella S. Felice, S. Antonio: Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Capella S. Giorgio, S. Anastasia: The Cavalli Family.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pisanello.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">S. Anastasia: St. George and the Dragon.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">S. Fermo: Annunciation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. George and S. Jerome; S. Eustace and the Stag.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE SCHOOL OF MURANO</strong></p> + + +<p>The important little town of Murano, a satellite +of Venice, lies upon an island, some ten minutes’ +row from the mother State, distinct from which +it preserved separate interests and regulations. +Its glass manufacture was safeguarded by the +most stringent decrees, which forbade members +of the Guild to leave the islet under pain of +death. Its mosaics, stone work, and architecture +speak of an early artistic existence, and we +recognise the justice of the claim of Muranese +painters to be the first to strike out into a more +emancipated type than that of the primitives. +The painter Giovanni of Murano, called +Giovanni Alemanus or d’ Alemagna, names +between which Venetian jealousy for a time +drew an imaginary distinction, had certainly +received his early education in Germany, and +betrays it by his heavier ornamentation and more +Gothic style; but he was a fellow-worker with +Antonio of Murano, the founder of the great +Vivarini family, and the Academy contains several +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +large altarpieces in which they collaborated. +“Christ and the Virgin in Glory” was painted +for a church in Venice in 1440, and has an +inscription with both names on a banderol across +the foreground. The Eternal Father, with His +hands on the shoulders of the Mother and Son, +makes a group of which we find the origin in +Gentile da Fabriano’s altarpiece in the Brera, +and it is probable that one if not both masters +had been studying with the Umbrian and +absorbing the principles he had brought to +Venice. It is easy to trace the influence of +Giovanni d’ Alemagna, though not always +easy to pick out which part of a picture +belongs to him and which to Antonio working +under his influence. In S. Pantaleone is +a “Coronation of the Virgin,” with Gothic +ornaments such as are not found in purely +Italian art at this period, but the example in +which both masters can be most closely followed +is the great picture in the Academy, the +“Madonna enthroned,” where she sits under +a baldaquin surrounded by saints. Here the +Gothic surroundings become very florid, and +have a gingerbread-cake effect, which Italian +taste would hardly have tolerated. Many +features are characteristic of the German; the +huge crown worn by the Mother, the floriated +ornament of the quadrangle, the almost baroque +appearance of the throne. Through it all, +heavily repainted as it is, shines the dawn of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +the tender expression which came into Venetian +art with Gentile.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img050.jpg" width="550" height="358" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Antonio da Murano.</em> ADORATION OF THE +MAGI. <em>Berlin.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Hanfstängl.</em>)</p> + +<p>Giovanni d’ Alemagna and Antonio da Murano +were no doubt widely employed, and when the +former died Antonio founded and carried on a +real school in Venice. In 1446 he was living in +the parish of S. Maria Formosa with his wife, +who was the daughter of a fruit merchant, and +the wills of both are still preserved in the parish +archives. Gentile da Fabriano had set the +example for gorgeous processions with gay dresses +and strange animals; winding paths in the background +and foreshortened limbs prove that attention +had been drawn to Paolo Uccello’s studies +in perspective, while many figures and horses +recall Pisanello. A striking proof of the sojourn +of Gentile and Pisanello in Venice is found in +an “Adoration of Magi,” now ascribed to +Antonio da Murano, in which the central group, +the oldest king kissing the Child’s foot, is very +like that in Gentile’s “Adoration,” but the foreshortened +horses and the attendants argue the +painter’s knowledge of Pisanello’s work. A comparison +of the architecture in the background +with that in the “St. George” in S. Anastasia +shows the same derivation, and the dainty cavalier, +who holds a flag and is in attendance on the +youngest king, is reminiscent of St. George and +St. Eustace in Pisanello’s paintings in the National +Gallery, so that in this one picture the influences +of the two artists are combined.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +Antonio took his younger brother, Bartolommeo, +into partnership, and the title of da +Murano was presently dropped for the more +modern designation of Vivarini. Both brothers +are fine and delicate in work, but from the outset +of their collaboration the younger man is +more advanced and more full of the spirit of the +innovator. In his altarpiece in the first hall of +the Academy the Nativity has already a new +realism; Joseph leans his head upon his hand, +crushing up his cheek. The saints are particularly +vivid in expression, especially the old hermit +holding the bell, whose face is brimming with +ardent feeling.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Giovanni d’ Alemanus and Antonio da Murano.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Christ and the Virgin in Glory; Virgin enthroned, with Saints.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonio da Murano.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Adoration of Magi.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE PADUAN INFLUENCE</strong></p> + + +<p>And now into this dawning school, employed +chiefly in the service of the Church, with its +tentative and languid essays to understand +Florentine composition, resulting in what is +scarcely more than a mindless imitation, and +with its rather more intelligent perception of the +Humanist qualities of Pisanello’s work, there +enters a new factor; or rather a new agency +makes a slightly more successful attempt than +Gentile and Castagno had done to help the +Venetians to realise the supreme importance of +the human figure, its power in relation to other +objects to determine space, its modelling and +the significance of its attitude in conveying +movement. Giotto had been able to present all +these qualities in the human form, but he had +done so by the light of genius, and had never +formulated any sufficient rules for his followers’ +guidance. In Ghiberti’s school, at the beginning +of the fifteenth century, the fascination of the +antique in art was making itself felt, but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Donatello had escaped from the artificial trammels +it threatened to exercise, and had carried +the Florentine school with him in his profound +researches into the human form itself. +Donatello had been working in Padua for ten +years before Pisanello’s death, and in an indirect +way the Venetians were experiencing some after-results +of the systematising and formulating of the +new pictorial elements. Though the intellectual +life had met with little encouragement among +the positive, practical inhabitants of Venice, in +Padua, which had been subject to her since 1405, +speculative thought and ideal studies were in +full swing. There was no re-birth in Venice, +whose tradition was unbroken and where “men +were too genuinely pagan to care about the echo +of a paganism in the remote past.” St. Mark +was the deity of Venice, and “the other twelve +Apostles” were only obscurely connected with +her religious life, which was strong and orthodox, +but untroubled by metaphysical enthusiasms and +inconvenient heresies. Padua, on the other hand, +was absorbed in questions of learning and +religion. A university had been established here +for two centuries. The abstract study of the +antique was carried on with fervour, and the +memory of Livy threw a lustre over the city +which had never quite died out. It seemed +perfectly right and respectable to the Venetians +that the <em>savants</em>, lying safely removed from the +busy stream of commercial life, should cultivate +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>inquiries into theology and the classics, which +would only have been a hindrance to their own +practical business; but such, as it was well known, +were of absorbing interest in the circles which +gathered round the Medici in Florence. The +school of art, which was now arising in Padua, +was fed from such sources as these. The love of +the antique was becoming a fashion and a guiding +principle, and influenced the art of painting more +formally than it could succeed in doing among +the independent and original Florentines.</p> + +<p>Francesco Squarcione, though, as Vasari says, +he may not have been the best of painters, has +left work (now at Berlin) which is accepted as +genuine and which shows that he was more +than the mere organiser he is sometimes called. +He had travelled in Greece, and was apparently +a dealer, supplying the demand for classic fragments, +which was becoming widespread. When +he founded his school in Padua he evidently +was its leading spirit and a powerful artistic influence. +His pupils, even the greatest, were +long in breaking away from his convention, +and few of them threw it off entirely, even in +after life. That convention was carried with +undeviating thoroughness into every detail. +Draperies are arranged in statuesque folds, +designed to display every turn of the form +beneath; the figures are moulded with all the +precision and limitations of statuary. The very +landscape becomes sculpturesque, and rocks of a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>volcanic character are constructed with the +regularity of masonry. The colour and technique +are equally uncompromising, and the surface +becomes a beautiful enamel, unyielding, definite +in its lines, lacquer-like in its firmness of finish, +while the Gothic forms, which had hitherto been +so prevalent, were replaced by more or less +pedantic adaptations from Roman bas-reliefs. +This system of design was practised most +determinedly in Padua itself, but it soon spread +to Venice. Squarcione himself was employed +there after 1440, and though Antonio da Murano +clung to the old archaic style he saw the Paduan +manner invading his kingdom, and his own +brother became strongly Squarcionesque.</p> + +<p>The two brothers of Murano come most +closely together in an altarpiece in the gallery of +Bologna, where the framework is more simple +than Alemanus’s German taste would have permitted, +and the Madonna and Child have some +natural ease, and the delicacy of feeling of primitive +art. Bartolommeo, when he breaks away and +sets out to paint by himself, is crude and strong, but +full of vital force. In his altarpiece of 1464, in +the Academy, he gives his saints reality by taking +them off their pedestals and making them stand +upon the ground, and though they are still +isolated from one another in the partitions of an +ancona, their sparkling eyes, individual features, +and curly beards give them a look of life. The +draperies, thin and clinging, with little rucked +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>folds, which display the forms, and the drawing +of the bony structure, exaggerated in the arms +and legs, are Squarcionesque. The rocks and +stones, too, show the Paduan convention. In +several of his other altarpieces, Bartolommeo +introduces rich ornaments and swags of fruit, +such as Donatello had first brought to Padua, +or which Paduan artists delighted to copy from +classic columns. Antonio’s manner to the end +is the local Venetian manner, infused as it was +with the soft and charming influence of Gentile +da Fabriano and Pisanello, but Bartolommeo +adopts the new and more ambitious style. +Though not a very good painter, and inclined +to be puffy and shapeless in his flesh forms, he +was the head of a crowd of artists, and works of +his school, signed <em>Opus factum</em>, went all over +Italy, and are found as far south as Bari. Works +of his pupils are numerous; the “St. Mark enthroned” +in the Frari is as good if not better +than the master’s own work, and the triptych in +the Correr Museum is a free imitation.</p> + +<p>Round this early school gathered such +painters as Antonio da Negroponte and Quirizio +da Murano, who were both working in 1450. +Negroponte has left an enthroned Madonna in +S. Francesco della Vigna, which is one of the +most beautiful examples of colour and of the +fanciful charm of the Renaissance that the early +art of Venice has to show. The Mother and +Child are placed in a marble shrine, adorned +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>with antique reliefs, rich wreaths of fruit swag +above her head, a little Gothic loggia is full +of flowers and fruit, and birds are perched on +cornucopias. On either side, four badly drawn +little angels, with ugly faces and awkwardly +foreshortened forms, foreshadow the beautiful, +music-making angels which became such a +feature of North Italian art. The Divine +Mother, adoring the Child lying across her +knees, has an exquisite, pensive face, conceived +with all the delicacy and simplicity of early art. +It seems quite possible, as Professor Leonello +Venturi suggests, that we have here the early +master of Crivelli, in whom we find the love +of fruit garlands, of chains of beads and rich +brocades carried to its farthest limits, who takes +keen pleasure in introducing the ugly but lively +little angels, and who gives the same pensive and +almost mincing expression to his Madonnas.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonio da Murano and Bartolommeo Vivarini.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bologna.</td> <td class="td5">Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bartolommeo Vivarini.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Altarpiece, 1464; Two Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: Madonna and four Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Madonna and two Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Formosa: Triptych.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">S. Ambrose and Saints.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonio da Negroponte.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco della Vigna: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>JACOPO BELLINI</strong></p> + + +<p>While Venice was assimilating the spirit of the +school of Squarcione, which in the next few +years was to be rendered famous by Mantegna, +another influence was asserting itself, which was +sufficient to counteract the hard formalism of +Paduan methods.</p> + +<p>When Gentile da Fabriano left Venice, he +carried with him, and presently established with +him in Florence, a young man, Jacopo Bellini, +who had already been working with him and +Pisanello, and who was an ardent disciple of the +new naturalistic and humanist movement. Both +Gentile and his apprentice were subjected to annoyance +from the time they arrived in Florence, +where the strict regulations which governed the +Guilds made it very difficult for any newcomer +to practise his art. The records of a police case +report that on the 11th of June 1423 some +young men, among them, one, Bernabo di San +Silvestri, the son of a notary, were observed +throwing stones into the painter’s room. His +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>assistant, Jacopo Bellini, came out and drove the +assailants away with blows, but Bernabo, accusing +Jacopo of assault, the latter was committed to +prison in default of payment. After six months’ +imprisonment, a compromise of the fine and a +penitential declaration set him at liberty. The +accounts declare that Gentile took no steps to +be of service to his follower; but Jacopo soon +after married a girl from Pesaro, and his first +son was christened after his old master, which +does not look as though they were on unfriendly +terms. Jacopo travelled in the Romagna, and +was much esteemed by the Estes of Ferrara, +but he was back in Venice in 1430. He has +left us only three signed works, and one or two +more have lately been attributed to him, but +they give very little idea of what an important +master he was.</p> + +<p><a name="agony" id="agony"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;"> +<img src="images/img062.jpg" width="428" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Jacopo Bellini.</em> AGONY IN GARDEN—DRAWING. <em>British Museum.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>His Madonna in the Academy has a round, +simple type of face, and in the Louvre Madonna, +which is attributed but not signed, it is easy to +recognise the same arched eyebrows and half-shut, +curved eyelids. In this picture, where the +Madonna blesses the kneeling Leonello d’ Este, we +see how Pisanello acted on Jacopo and, through +him, on Venetian art. The connection between +the two masters has been established in a very +interesting way by Professor Antonio Venturi’s +discovery of a sonnet, written in 1441, which +recounts how they painted rival portraits of +Leonello, and how Bellini made so lively a likeness +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>that he was adjudged the first place. The +landscape in the Louvre picture is advanced in +treatment, and with its gilded mountain-tops, its +stag and its town upon the hill-side, is full of +reminiscences of Pisanello, especially of the “St. +George” in S. Anastasia. We come upon such +traces, too, in Jacopo’s drawings, and it is by +his two sketch-books that we can best judge of +his greatness. One of these is in the British +Museum; the other, in the Louvre, was discovered +not many years ago in the granary of a +castle in Guyenne. These drawings reveal Jacopo +as one of the greatest masters of his day. He is +larger, simpler, and more natural than Pisanello, +and he apparently cares less for the human figure +than for elaborate backgrounds and surroundings. +Many of his designs we shall refer to again when +we come to speak of his two sons. His “Supper +of Herod” reminds us of Masolino’s fresco at +Castiglione d’ Olona. He sketches designs for +numbers of religious scenes, treated in an original +and interesting manner. A “Crucifixion” has +bands of soldiers ranged on either side, an +“Adoration of the Magi” has a string of camels +coming down the hill, the executioners in a +“Scourging” wear Eastern head-dresses. In a +sketch for a “Baptism of Christ” tall angels +hold the garments in the early traditional way; +on one side two play the lute and the violin, +while the two on the other side have a trumpet +and an organ. He has sketches for the Ascension, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>Resurrection, Circumcision, and Entombment, +repeated over and over again with variations, +and one of S. Bernardino preaching in Venice +(where he was in 1427). Jacopo delights even +more in fanciful and mythological than in sacred +subjects. A tournament with spectators, a Faun +riding a lion, a “Triumph of Bacchus” with +panthers, are among such essays. The fauns +pipe, the wine-god bears a vase of fruit. His +love of animals is equal to that of Pisanello, +and S. Hubert and the stag with the crucifix +between its horns is directly reminiscent of the +Veronese. His horses, of which there are +immense numbers, sometimes look as if copied +from ancient bas-reliefs. His treatment of +single nude figures is often poor and weak +enough, and his rocks have the flat-topped, +geological formation of the Paduan School, but +no one who so drank in every description of +lively scene about him could have been in any +danger of becoming a mere archeological type, +and it was from this pitfall that he rescued +Mantegna. To judge by his drawings, Jacopo +did not overlook any source of art open to him; +he delights in the rich research of the Paduans as +much as in the varieties of wild nature and all +the incidents of contemporary life first annexed +by Pisanello. He is often very like Gentile da +Fabriano, he makes raids into Uccello’s domains +of perspective, he is frankly mundane and draws +a revel of satyrs and centaurs with a real interpretation +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>of the lyrical and pagan spirit of the +Greeks, and he has an idealism of the soul, +which found its full expression in his son, +Giovanni. We cannot call Jacopo Bellini the +founder of the Venetian School, for its makings +existed already, but it was his influence on +his sons which, above all, was accountable for +the development of early excellence. His long, +flowing lines have a sweep and a fanciful grace +which form an absolute antidote to the definite, +geometrical Paduan convention. In Jacopo we +see the thorough assimilation of those foreign +elements which were in sympathy with the +Venetian atmosphere, and while up to now +Venice had only imbibed influences, she was +soon to create for herself an artistic <em>milieu</em> +and to become the leader of the movement of +painting in the north of Italy.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Jacopo Bellini.</em></p> +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Annunciation and Predelle.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Christ on Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Crucifixion.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">British Museum: Sketch-book.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Leonello d’ Este: Sketch-book.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>CARLO CRIVELLI</strong></p> + + +<p>We must turn aside from the main stream when +we come to speak of Carlo Crivelli, who, +important master as he was, occupies a place +by himself. A pupil of the Vivarini and perhaps, +as we have noted, of Antonio Negroponte, +Crivelli was profoundly influenced by the +Paduans, from whom he learned that metallic, +finished quality of paint which he carried to +perfection. Crivelli shows intellect, individuality, +even genius, in the way in which he grapples +with his medium and produces his own reading, +and the circumstances of his life were such as to +throw him in upon himself and to preserve his +originality. His little early “Madonna and +Child” at Verona is linked with that of Negroponte +by the elaborate festoons, strings of beads, +and large-patterned brocades used in the surroundings, +and has those ugly, foreshortened +little <em>putti</em>, holding the instruments of the +Passion, of the type elaborated by Squarcione +and Marco Zoppo, and which, in their improved +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>state, we are accustomed to think of as +Mantegnesque.</p> + +<p>When Crivelli was thirty-eight years old, he +was condemned to six months’ imprisonment and +to a fine of two hundred lire for an outrage on +a neighbour’s wife. Perhaps it was to escape +from an unenviable reputation that he left Venice +soon after and set up painting in the Marches, +where he lived from 1468 to 1473. He then +went on to Camerino in Umbria, where his great +triptych, now in the Brera, was painted, and a +few years later he was in Ascoli, with a commission +for an Annunciation in the Cathedral. +This is the picture now in the National Gallery, +in which the Bishop holds a model of the +Duomo. After 1490 he worked in little towns +in the Marches, and is not mentioned after 1493. +He does not seem ever to have come back to +Venice.</p> + +<p>Shut up in the Marches, where there was +little strong local talent, and where he could not +keep up with the progress that was taking place +in Venice, he was obliged himself to supply the +artistic movement. He kept the Squarcionesque +traditions to the end, but moulded them by his +own love of rich and exuberant decoration. Moreover, +he was of a very intense religious bias, and +this finds a deeply touching and mystical expression, +more especially in his Pietàs. The love +of gilded patterns and fanciful detail was deep-seated +in all the Umbrian country. His altarpieces +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>were intended as sumptuous additions to +rich churches, and were consequently arranged, +with many divisions, in the old Muranese manner. +His great ancona, in the National Gallery, is a +marvel of elaborate ornament and enamel-like +painting. The Madonna is delicate, almost +affected in her refinement. Her long fingers +hold the Child’s garment with the extreme of +dainty precision, the croziers and rings of the +saints and bishops are embossed with gold and +real jewels. The flowers in the panel of “The +Immaculate Conception,” which hangs beside it, +are twisted into heads of mythological beasts and +grotesques or cherubs; but Crivelli has plenty +of strength, and his male saints have vigorous, +bony limbs and fierce fanatical eyes. It is, however, +in his colour that he charms us most, and +though he does not touch the real fount, he +is of all the earlier school the most remarkable +for subtle tender tones and lovely harmonies of +olive-greens and faded rose and cream embossed +with gold.</p> + +<p>Crivelli continued executing one great ancona +after another, limiting his progress to perfecting +his technique, and his influence was most deeply +felt by such Umbrian painters as Lorenzo di San +Severino and Niccola Alunno. The honours paid +him testify to the reputation he acquired. He +was created a knight and presented with a golden +laurel wreath. But though he never, that we can +hear of, revisited his native State, he always adds +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span><em>Venetus</em> to the signature on his paintings, a fact +which tells us that far from Venice and in +provincial districts, her prestige was felt and +gave his work an enhanced commercial value. +He had no after-influence upon the Venetian +School, and in this respect is interesting as +an example of the tenacity exercised by the +Squarcionesque methods, when, unchecked by +any counter-attraction, they came to act upon a +very different temperament; for in his love of +grace and beauty and of rich effects, and especially +in his intensity of mystic feeling, Crivelli is a +true Venetian and has no natural affinity with +the classic spirit of the Paduans.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">SS. Jerome and Augustine.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Ascoli.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Altarpiece and Pietà.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and six Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà; The Blessed Ferretti; Madonna and Saints; Annunciation; Ancona in thirteen compartments; The Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson: Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sir Francis Cook: Madonna enthroned.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: SS. Peter and Paul.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lord Northbrook: Madonna; Resurrection; Saints; Crucifixion; Madonna; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: SS. James, Bernardino, and Pellegrino; SS. Anthony Abbot, Jerome, and Andrew.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Poldi-Pezzoli: S. Francis in Adoration.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Vatican: Pietà.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>GENTILE BELLINI AND ANTONELLO DA MESSINA</strong></p> + + +<p>What, then, is the position which art has +achieved in Venice a decade after the middle of +the fourteenth century, and how does she compare +with the Florentine School? The Florentines, +Fra Angelico, Andrea del Castagno, and +Pesellino were lately dead. Antonio Pollaiuolo +was in his prime, Fra Lippo was fifty-four, +Paolo Uccello was sixty-three. But though the +progress in the north had been slower, art both +in Padua and Venice was now in vigorous progress. +Bartolommeo Vivarini was still painting +and gathering round him a numerous band of +followers; Mantegna was thirty, had just completed +the frescoes in the Eremitani Chapel and +the famous altarpiece in S. Zeno; and Gentile +and Giovanni Bellini were two and four years +his seniors.</p> + +<p>Francesco Negro, writing in the early years +of the sixteenth century, speaks of Gentile as the +elder son of Jacopo Bellini. Giovanni is thought +to have been an illegitimate son, as Jacopo’s +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>widow only mentions Gentile and another son, +Niccolo, in her will. There is every reason to +believe that, as was natural, the two brothers were +the pupils and assistants of their father. A +“Madonna” in the Mond Collection, the +earliest known of Gentile’s works, shows him +imitating his father’s style; but when his sister, +Niccolosia, married Mantegna in 1453, it is not +surprising to find him following Mantegna’s +methods for a time, and a fresco of St. Mark +in the Scuola di San Marco, an important commission +which he received in 1466, is taken +direct from Mantegna’s fresco at Padua.</p> + +<p>As the Bellini matured, they abandoned the +Squarcionesque tradition and evolved a style of +their own; Gentile as much as his even more +famous brother. Gentile is the first chronicler +of the men and manners of his time. In 1460 he +settled in Venice, and was appointed to paint the +organ doors in St. Mark’s. These large saints, +especially the St. Mark, still recall the Paduan +period. They have festoons of grapes and apples +hung from the architectural ornaments, and the +cast of drapery, showing the form beneath, +reminds us of Mantegna’s figures. But Gentile +soon becomes an illustrator and portrait painter. +Much of his work was done in the Scuola of +St. Mark, where his father had painted, and this +was destroyed by fire in 1485. Early, too, is the +fine austere portrait of Lorenzo Giustiniani, in +the Academy. In 1479 an emissary from the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>Sultan Mehemet arrived in Venice and requested +the Signoria to recommend a good painter and +a man clever at portraits. Gentile was chosen, +and departed in September for Constantinople. +He painted many subjects for the private apartments +of the Sultan, as well as the famous +portrait now in the possession of Lady Layard. +It would be difficult for a historic portrait to +show more insight into character. The face is +cold, weary, and sensual, with all the over-refined +look of an old race and a long civilisation, +and has a melancholy note in its distant +and satiated gaze. The Sultan showed Gentile +every mark of favour, loaded him with presents, +and bestowed on him the title of Bey. He +returned home in 1493, bringing with him +many sketches of Eastern personages and the +picture, now in the Louvre, representing the +reception of a Venetian Embassy by the Grand +Vizier. Some five years before Gentile’s commission +to Constantinople Antonello da Messina +had arrived in Venice, and the spread and +popularisation of oil-painting had hastened the +casting off of outworn ecclesiastical methods and +brought the painters nearer to the truth of life. +Antonello did not actually introduce oils to the +notice of Venetian painters, for Bartolommeo +Vivarini was already using them in 1473, but +he was well known by reputation before he +arrived, and having probably come into contact +with Flemish painters in Naples, he had had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>better opportunities of seizing upon the new +technique, and was able to establish it both in +Milan and in Venice. A large number of +Venetians were at this time resident in Messina: +the families of Lombardo, Gradenigo, Contarini, +Bembo, Morosini, and Foscarini were among those +who had members settled there. Many of these +were patrons of art, and probably paved the way +to Antonello’s reception in Venice. At first all +the traits of Antonello’s early work are Flemish: +the full mantles, white linen caps and tuckers, the +straight sharp folds and long wings of the angels +have much of Van Eyck, but when he gets to +Venice in 1475, its colour and life fascinate him, +and a great change comes over his work. His +portraits show that he grasped a new intensity +of life, and let us into the character of the men +he saw around him. His “Condottiere,” in the +Louvre, declares the artist’s recognition of that +truculent and formidable being, full of aristocratic +disdain, the product of a daring, unscrupulous +life. The “Portrait of a Humanist,” in +the Castello in Milan, is classic in its deepest +sense; and in the Trivulzio College at Milan an +older man looks at us out of sly, expressive eyes, +with characteristic eyebrows and kindly, half-cynical +mouth. It was not wonderful that these +portraits, combined with the new medium, +worked upon Gentile’s imagination and determined +his bent.</p> + +<p>The first examples of great canvases, illustrating +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>and celebrating their own pageants, must +have mightily pleased the Venetians. Scenes in +the style of the reception of the Venetian +ambassadors were called for on all hands, and +when the excellence of Gentile’s portraits was +recognised, he became the model for all Venice. +When his own and his father’s and brother’s +paintings perished by fire in 1485, he offered +to replace them “quicker than was humanly +possible” and at a very low price. Giovanni, +who had been engaged on the external decorations, +was ill at the time, but the Signoria was +so pleased with the offer that it was decided to +let no one touch the work till the two brothers +were able to finish it. Gentile still painted +religious altarpieces with the Virgin and Child +enthroned with saints, but most of his time was +devoted to the production of his great canvases. +Some of these have disappeared, but the “Procession” +and “Miracle of the Cross,” commissioned +by the school of S. Giovanni Evangelista, +are now in the Academy, and the third canvas, +executed for the same school, “St. Mark preaching +at Alexandria,” which was unfinished at the +time of his death, and was completed by his +brother, is in the Brera.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img075.jpg" width="550" height="267" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Gentile Bellini.</em> PROCESSION OF THE HOLY CROSS. <em>Venice.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>These great compositions of crowds bring +back for us the Venice of Gentile’s day as no +verbal description can do. There is no especial +richness of colour; the light is that of broad day +in the Piazza and among the luminous waterways +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>of the city. We can see the scene any day +now in the wide square, making allowance for +the difference of costume. The groups are set +about in the ample space, with the wonderful +cathedral as a background. St. Mark’s has been +painted hundreds of times, but no one has ever +given such a good idea of it as Gentile—of its +stateliness and beauty, of its wealth of detail; and +he does so without detracting from the general +effect, for St. Mark’s, though the keynote of the +whole composition, is kept subservient, and is +part of the stage on which the scene is enacted. +The procession passes along, carrying the relics, +attended by the waxlights and the banners. +Behind the reliquary kneels the merchant, +Jacopo Salò, petitioning for the recovery of his +wounded son. Then come the musicians; the +spectators crowd round, they strain forward to +see the chief part of the cortège, as a crowd +naturally does. Some watch with reverence, +others smile or have a negligent air. The faces +of the candle-bearers are very like those we +may see to-day in a great Church procession: +some absorbed in their task, or uplifted by inner +thoughts; others looking curiously and sceptically +at the crowd. Gentile tries in his crowds +to bring together all the types of life in Venice, +all the officials and the ecclesiastical world, the +young and old. With a few strokes he creates +the individual and also the type;—the careless +rover; the responsible magistrate; the shrewd, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>practical man of business; the young men, full +of their own plans, but pausing to look on at +one of the great religious sights of their city. +In the “Finding of the Cross” he produces the +effect of the whole city <em>en fête</em>. It was a sight +which often met his eyes. The Doge made no +fewer than thirty-six processions annually to +various churches of the city, and on fourteen of +these occasions he was accompanied by the whole +of the nobles dressed in their State robes. Every +event of importance was seized on by the Venetian +ladies as an opportunity for arraying themselves +in the richest attire, cloth of gold and velvet, +plumes and jewels. Gentile has massed the ladies +of Queen Catherine Cornaro’s Court around their +Queen upon the left side of the canal. The +light from above streams upon the keeper of the +School, who holds the sacred relic on high. All +round are the old, irregular Venetian houses, and +in the crowd he paints the variety of men he +saw around him every day in Venice. Yet even +in this animated scene he retains his old quattrocento +calm. The groups are decorously assisting: +only here and there he is drawn off to some +small detail of reality, such as an oarsman +dexterously turning his boat, or the maid letting +the negro servant pass out to take a header into +the canal. The spectators look on coolly at one +more of the oft-seen, miraculous events. The +committee, kneeling at the side, is a row of +unforgettable portraits, grave, benign, sour, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>austere, with bald head or flowing hair. In this +composition he triumphs over all difficulties of +perspective; our eye follows the canals, and the +boats pass away under the bridge in atmospheric +light. All the joy of Venice is in that play of +light on broad brick surfaces, light which is +cast up from the water and dances and shimmers +on the marble façades.</p> + +<p>Gentile made his will in 1502, as well as +others in 1505 and 1506. He left word that he +was to be buried in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and +begged his brother Giovanni to finish the work +in the Scuola, in return for which he is to receive +their father’s sketch-book. The unfinished piece +is the “St. Mark preaching at Alexandria,” and +it shows Gentile still developing his capacity as a +painter. It is pale in colour but brilliant in sunlight. +The mass of white given by the head-dresses +of the Turkish women is cleverly subdued +so as not to detract from the effect of the sunlight. +The thronged effect of the great square is studied +with more than his usual care, and the faces have +all the old individuality. The foremost figures in +the crowd have a colour and richness which we +may attribute to Giovanni’s hand.</p> + +<p>Gentile was always fully employed, and the +detailed paintings of functions became very +popular; but he was a far less modern painter +than his brother, and, in fact, they represent +two distinct artistic generations, though Gentile’s +work was so much the most elaborate and, as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>the quattrocento would have thought, the most +ambitious.</p> + +<p>Gentile is essentially the historic painter, yet +his is a grave, sincere art, and he has an unerring +instinct for the right incidents to include. He +cuts out all unseemly trivialities, his actors are +stern, powerful men, the treatment is historic +and contemporary, but not gossipy. We realise +the look of the Venice of his day, in all its tide +of human nature, but we also feel that he never +forgot that he was chronicling the doings of a +city of strong men, and that he must paint them, +even in their hours of relaxation and emotion, so +as to convey the real dignity and power which +underlay all the events of the Republic.</p> + +<p>We gather from his will and that of his wife +that they had no children, which perhaps makes +the more natural the affectionate terms upon +which he remained all through his life with +his brother. Their artistic sympathies must +have differed widely. Gentile’s love for historical +research, for costume and for pageants, found +no echo in the deeper idealism of Giovanni—indeed, +his offer of the famous sketch-book, as an +inducement to the latter to finish his last great +work, seems to hint that it was an exercise out +of his brother’s line; but he knew that Giovanni +was a great painter, and did not trust it, as we +might have expected, to his assistants, Giovanni +Mansueti and Girolamo da Santacroce.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Gentile Bellini.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. Peter Martyr; Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Preaching of St. Mark.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Doge Lorenzo Giustiniani; Miracle of True Cross; Procession of True Cross; Healing by True Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard. Portrait of Sultan.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Antonello da Messina.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Antwerp.</td> <td class="td5">Crucifixion, 1475.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Three Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">The Saviour, 1465; Portrait; Crucifixion, 1477.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Messina.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints, 1473.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Condottiere.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Humanist.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Ecce Homo.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at the Column.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>ALVISE VIVARINI</strong></p> + + +<p>Contemporary with Giovanni Bellini were +artists still firmly attached to the past, who were +far from suspecting that he was to outstrip them.</p> + +<p>One of Antonio de Murano’s sons, Luigi or +Alvise Vivarini, grew up to follow his father’s +profession, and was enrolled in the school of his +uncle, Bartolommeo. The latter being an enthusiastic +follower of Squarcione, Alvise was at +first trained in Paduan principles. Jacopo Bellini’s +efforts had done something to counteract the +hard, statuesque Paduan manner, and had rendered +Mantegna’s art more human and less stony, +but Jacopo could not prevent Squarcionesque +painters from importing into Venice the style +which he disliked so much. Bartolommeo threw +in his lot with the Paduans, and his school, especially +when reinforced by Alvise, maintained +its reputation as long as it only had to compete +with local talent. The Vivarinis had now been +firmly established in Venice for two generations, +and were the best-known and most popular of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>her painters. Albert Dürer, on his first visit, +admired them more than the Bellini. When, +however, Gentile and his brother set up in +Venice, a hot rivalry arose between them and +the old Muranese School. The Bellini had come +with their father from Padua, with all its new +and scientific fashions. They had all the prestige +of relationship with Mantegna, and they shared +the patronage of his powerful employers. The +striking historical compositions of Gentile were +at once in demand by the great confraternities. +Bartolommeo had never been very successful in +his dealing with oil-painting, though he had +dabbled in it for some years before Antonello da +Messina came his way, but the perception with +which the Bellini at once grasped the new +technique gave them the victory. We have +only to compare the formless contours of much +of Bartolommeo Vivarini’s work, the bladder-like +flesh-painting of the Holy Child, with the +clear luminous colour and firm delicate touch of +Gentile, to see that the one man is leagues ahead +of the other.</p> + +<p>Alvise Vivarini had more natural affinity +with his father than with his uncle. He +never becomes so exaggerated in his forms as +Bartolommeo. The expression of his faces is +much deeper and more inward, and he has something +of the devotional sweetness of early art. +His first known work is an ancona of 1475 at +Montefiorentino, in a lonely Franciscan monastery +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>on the spurs of the Apennines. In the centre of +the five panels the Madonna sits with her hands +pressed palm to palm, in adoration of the Child +asleep across her knees. The painter here follows +the tradition of his father and uncle, especially +in the Bologna altarpiece, in which they +collaborated in 1450. Four saints stand on +either side, framed in Gothic panels; it is all in +the old way, and it is only by degrees that we +see there is more sweetness in the expression, +better modelling in the figures, and a slenderer, +more graceful outline than the earlier anconæ +can show. Only five years after this ancona at +Montefiorentino, with its stiff rows of isolated +saints, we have the altarpiece in the Academy +“of 1480,” which was painted for a church in +Treviso, and here a great change is immediately +apparent. The antiquated division into panels +has disappeared, nothing is left of the artificial, +Squarcionesque decorations, the attitudes are +simple, and the scene is a united one. The +Madonna’s outstretched hand, the suggestion of +“Ecce Agnus Dei,” makes an appeal which +draws the attention of all the saints to one point, +and it is made plain that the one idea pervades +the entire assembly. The curtain, which +symbolises the sanctuary, still hangs behind the +throne, but the gold background is abandoned. +Alvise has not indeed, as yet, imagined any landscape +or constructed an interior, but he lightens +the effect by two arched windows which let in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>sky. The forms are characteristic of his idea of +drawing the human figure; they have the long +thighs with the knees low down, which we +are accustomed to find, and he constructs a +very fine and sharply contrasted scheme of light +and shade. There is no trace of the statuesque +Paduan draperies. The Virgin’s brocaded +mantle is simply draped, and the robes of the +saints hang in long straight folds. No doubt +Alvise, though nominally the rival of the Bellini, +has more affinity with them, particularly with +Giovanni, than with the Paduan artists, and as +time goes on it is evident that he paints with +many glances at what they were doing. In the +altarpiece in Berlin he constructs an elaborate +cupola above the Virgin, such as Bellini was +already using. His saints are full of movement. +In the end he begins to attitudinise and to display +those artificial graces which were presently +accentuated by Lotto.</p> + +<p><a name="altar" id="altar"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img085.jpg" width="550" height="490" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Alvise Vivarini.</em> ALTARPIECE OF 1480. <em>Venice.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>In 1488 the two Bellini had for some time +been employed in the Sala del Gran Consiglio +by the Council of Ten. Alvise, with his busy +school, had hoped, but hitherto in vain, to be +invited to enter into competition with them. +At length he wrote the following letter:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">To the Most Serene the Prince and the Most +Excellent Signoria</span>—I am Alvise of Murano, a +faithful servant of your Serenity and of this most +illustrious State. I have long been anxious to exercise +my skill before your Sublimity and prove that continued +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>study and labour on my part have not been useless. +Therefore offer, as a humble subject, in honour and +praise of that celebrated city, to devote myself, without +return of payment or reward, to the duty of producing +a canvas in the +<ins class="translit" title="Possibly should be Sala del Gran Consiglio">Sala del Gran Consiio</ins>, +according to the +method at present in use by the two brothers Bellinii, +and I ask no more for the said canvas than that I should +be allowed the expenses of the cloth and colours as well +as the wages of the journeymen, in the manner that has +been granted to the said Bellinii. When I have done I +shall leave to your Serenity of his goodness to give me in +his wisdom the price which shall be adjudged to be just, +honest, and appropriate, in return for the labour, which +I shall be enabled, I trust, to continue to the universal +satisfaction of your Serenity and of all the excellent +Government, to the grace of which I most heartily +commend myself.</p></div> + +<p>The “method at present in use” was presumably +the oil-painting established by Antonello, +which was now being made use of to replace +the decorations in fresco and tempera which +Guariento, Pisanello, and Gentile da Fabriano +had executed, and which were constantly decaying +and suffering from the sea air and the dampness +of the climate. The Council accepted +Alvise’s offer with little delay, and he was told to +paint a picture for a space hitherto occupied by +one of Pisanello’s, and was given a salary of sixty +ducats a year, something less than that drawn +by Giovanni Bellini. Unfortunately his work, +scenes from the history of Barbarossa, perished +in the great fire of 1577.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>Venice is rich in works which show us what +sort of painter was at the head of the Muranese +School at the time when it rivalled that of the +Bellini. Alvise has two reading saints on either +side of the altarpiece of 1480, and of these the +Baptist is one of his best figures, “admirably +expressive of tension and of brooding thought.” +It is large and free in stroke, and particularly +advanced in the treatment of the foliage. Close +by hangs a character-study of St. Clare; type +of a strenuous, fanatical old woman, one which +belongs not only to the period, but will be +recognised by every student of human nature. +Formidable and even cruel is her unflinching +gaze; she is such a figure as might have stood +for Scott’s Prioress, and looks as little likely to +show mercy to an erring member of her order. +In contrast, there is the exquisite little “Madonna +and Child” with the two baby angels, still +shown as a Bellini in the sacristy of the +Church of the Redentore. It is the most +absolutely simple and direct picture of the kind +painted in Venice. The baby life is more perfect +than anything that Gian. Bellini produced, +and if much less intellectual than his Madonnas, +there is all the tender charm of the primitives, +combined with a freedom of drapery and a +softness of form which could not be surpassed. +The two little angels are more mundane in +spirit than those of the school of Bellini; they +have nothing of the mystical quality, though +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>we are reminded of Bellini, and the painting +is an exercise in his manner. In the sacristy +of San Giobbe is an early Annunciation, which +is now definitely assigned to Alvise. It has the +old tender sentiment, and the carnations of its +draperies are of a lovely tint. The priests of +S. Giovanni in Bragora were great patrons of +the school of the Vivarini, for here, besides +several works by Bartolommeo and his assistants, +is a little Madonna in a side chapel, which may +be compared with the Redentore picture. The +Mother sits inside a room, with the Child lying +across her knees in the same pose. The two +arched openings in the background of the 1480 +altarpiece have become windows, through which +we look out on a charming landscape of lake and +mountain. In the same church a “Resurrection” +is not to be overlooked. It was executed in +1498, and some of the grace and beauty of the +sixteenth century has crept into it. Against the +pink flush of dawn stands the swaying figure of +the risen Christ, and below appear the heads of +the two guards, looking up, surprised and joyful. +It is perhaps the very earliest example of that +soft and sensuous feeling, that rhapsody of +sensation which was presently to sweep like a +flood over the art of Venice. “What a time +must the dawn of the sixteenth century have been +when a man of seventy, and not the most vigorous +and advanced of his age, had the freshness and +youthful courage to greet it; nay, actually to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>depict its magic and glamour as Alvise does in +the ‘Resurrection’! Giorgione is here anticipated +in the roundness and softness of the figures, +and in the effect of light. Titian’s Assunta is +foreshadowed in the fervour of the guards’ +expressions.” Alvise, if he never thoroughly +mastered the structure of the nude, and if his +forms keep throughout some touch of the +archaic, some awkwardness in the thickness +of the figures, with their round heads, long +thighs, and uncertain proportions, is yet extraordinarily +refined and tender in sentiment, his +line has a natural flow and beauty, and the +heads of his Madonnas and saints cannot be +surpassed in loveliness.</p> + +<p>His death came when the noble altarpiece to +St. Ambrogio in the Frari was still unfinished, +and it was completed by his assistant, Marco +Basaiti. The execution is heavy and probably +of Basaiti, but the venerable doctor is a grand +figure, and the two young soldier saints on his +right and left hand are striking examples of +the beauty we claim for him. The architectural +plan is very elaborate, but altogether successful. +The group is set beneath an arched vault +supported by columns and cornices. Overhead, +behind a balustrade, is placed a coronation of +the Virgin. The many figures are grouped so +as not to interfere with each other, and the +sword of St. George, the crozier of St. Gregory, +and the crook of St. Ambrose break up the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>composition and give length and line. The +faces of the saints are extremely beautiful, +and the two angels making music below +compare well with those of the Bellinesque +School.</p> + +<p>The portraits Alvise has left add to his +reputation, and remind us of those of Antonello +da Messina, particularly in the vital expression +of the eyes, though they are without Antonello’s +intense force. The “Bernardo di Salla” and the +“Man feeding a Hawk,” though some critics +still ascribe them to Savoldo, have features which +make their attribution to Alvise almost certainly +correct. Indeed, the resemblance of +Bernardo to the Madonna in the 1480 altarpiece +cannot escape the most unscientific observer. +There is the same inflated nostril, the peculiarly +curved mouth, and vivacious eyes.</p> + +<p>Among the followers of Alvise, Marco +Basaiti, Bartolommeo Montagna, and Lorenzo +Lotto are the most distinguished. Others less +direct are Giovanni Buonconsiglio and Francesco +Bonsignori, while Cima da Conegliano was for +a short time his greatest pupil. We shall return +to these later.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna enthroned, with six Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Youth.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Bonomi-Cereda Collection: Portrait of a Man.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Francis and Bernardino.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Bernardo di Salla.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Seven panels of single Saints; Madonna and six Saints, 1480.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: S. Ambrose enthroned.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Madonna adoring Child; Resurrection and Predelle.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Redentore: Sacristy: Madonna and Child, with Angels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Windsor.</td> <td class="td5">Man feeding a Hawk.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>CARPACCIO</strong></p> + + +<p>Vittore Carpaccio was Gentile Bellini’s most +faithful pupil. He and his master stand apart +in having, before the arrival of the Venetian +School proper, captured an aspect and a charm +inspired by the natural beauty of the City of +the Sea. Gentile, as we have seen, paints her +historic appearance, and Carpaccio gives us +something of the delight we feel to-day in her +translucent waters and her ample, sea-washed +spaces flooded with limpid light. While +others were absorbed in assimilating extraneous +influences, he goes on his own way, painting, +indeed, the scenes that were asked for, but +painting them in his own manner and with his +own enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Pageant-pictures had been the demand of the +Venetian State from very early days. The +first use of painting had been that made by the +Church to glorify religion, and very soon the +State had followed, using it to enhance the love +which Venetians bore to their city, and to bring +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>home to them the consciousness of its greatness +and glory. Pageants and processions were an +integral part of Venetian life. The people +looked on at them, often as they occurred, with +more pride and sense of proprietorship than a +Londoner does at a coronation procession or at +the King going in state to open Parliament. The +Venetian loved splendour and beauty and the +story of the city’s great achievements, and +nothing provided so welcome a subject for the +decoration of the great public halls as portrayals +of the events which had made Venice famous. +Artists had been employed to produce these as +early as the end of the fourteenth century, and +those of the Bellini and Alvise Vivarini (which +perished in the great fire) were a rendering on +modern lines of the same subjects, satisfying the +more advanced feeling for truth and beauty.</p> + +<p>Besides the Church and the public Government, +we have already seen the “Schools,” as +they were called, becoming important employers. +These schools were the great organised confraternities +in the cause of charity and mutual +help, which sprang up in Venice in the fifteenth +century. That of St. Mark was naturally the +foremost, but others were banded each under +their patron saint. Each attracted numbers of +rich patrons, for it was the fashion to belong +to the confraternities. Riches and endowments +rolled in, and halls for meeting and for transacting +business were built, and were adorned +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>with pictures setting forth the legends of their +patron saints. We have already seen Gentile +Bellini employed in the schools of San Marco +and San Giovanni, and now the schools of St. +Ursula and St. George gave commissions to +Carpaccio, or perhaps it would be more correct +to say that Gentile, having become pre-eminent +in this art, provided employment for his pupil +and assistant, and that by degrees Carpaccio +became a <em>maestro</em> on his own account.</p> + +<p>A host of second-rate painters were plying +side by side, disciples first of one master, then +drawn off to become followers of a second; +assimilating the influence first of one workshop +and then of another. Carpaccio has been lately +identified as a pupil of Lazzaro Bastiani, who +had a school in Venice, and the recent attribution +to this painter of the “Doge before the +Madonna,” in the National Gallery, gives some +countenance to the contention that he was held +to be of great excellence in his time.</p> + +<p>Though some historians advance the suggestion +that Carpaccio was a native of Capo +d’Istria, there is little proof that he was not, +like his father Pietro, born a Venetian. He +seems to have worked in Venice all his life, +his first work being dated 1490 and his last +1520. In 1527 his wife, Laura, declared herself +a widow.</p> + +<p>The narrative art needed by the confraternities +was supplied in perfection by Carpaccio, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>and one of his earliest independent commissions +was the important one of decorating the School +of St. Ursula. Devotion to St. Ursula was a +monopoly of the school. No one else had +a right to collect offerings in her name or to +put up an image to her. The legend afforded +an opportunity for painting varied and dramatic +scenes, of which Carpaccio takes full advantage, +and the cycle is one of the freshest and most +characteristic things that has come down to us +from the quattrocento. Problems are not conspicuous. +The mediocre masters who have +educated the painter have made little impression +on him. He is entirely occupied in delight in +his subject and in telling his story. The story +of St. Ursula, told briefly, is that she was the +daughter of the King of Brittany. The King +of England sends his ambassadors to beg her +hand for his son, Hereo. Ursula discusses the +proposal with her father, and makes the conditions +that Hereo, who is a heathen, shall be +baptized, and that the betrothed couple must +before marriage visit the Pope and the sacred +shrines. After taking leave of their parents, the +Prince and Princess depart on their expedition, +but Ursula has had a vision in her sleep in +which an angel has announced her martyrdom. +She is accompanied on her journey by 11,000 +virgins, and they are received by Pope Cyriacus +in Rome. The Pope then makes the return +journey with them as far as Cologne, where, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +however, they are assaulted and massacred by +the Huns, after which Ursula is accorded a +splendid funeral, and is canonised. The thirteen +scenes in which the story is told are arranged +on nine canvases, and the painter has not executed +them in the chronological order, some +of the latest events being the least complete in +artistic skill. Professor Leonello Venturi assigns +the following dates to the list:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. The ambassadors of the King of England meet +those of the King of Brittany to ask for the hand of +Ursula. Probably painted from 1496-98.</p> + +<p>2. (On same canvas) Ursula discusses the proposal +with her father. 1496-98.</p> + +<p>3. The King of Brittany dismisses the ambassadors. +1496-98.</p> + +<p>4. The ambassadors return to the King of England. +1496-98.</p> + +<p>5. An angel appears to Ursula in her sleep. 1492.</p> + +<p>6, 7, 8. The betrothed couple take leave of their +respective parents, and the Prince meets Ursula. 1495.</p> + +<p>9. The betrothed couple and the 11,000 virgins +meet the Pope. 1492.</p> + +<p>10. They arrive at Cologne. 1490.</p> + +<p>11, 12. The massacre by the Huns. The Funeral. +1495.</p> + +<p>13. The saint appears in glory, with the palm of +martyrdom, venerated by the 11,000 virgins and received +in heaven by the Eternal Father. 1491.</p></div> + +<p>No. 10 is a small canvas, such as might +naturally have been chosen for a first experiment. +The heads are large with coarse features, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>the proportions of the figures are poor. The +face of the saint in glory (No. 13), plump and +without much expression, is of the type of +Bastiani’s saints. It may be assumed that such +a great scheme of decoration would not have +been entrusted to any one who was not already +well known as an independent master, but +perhaps Carpaccio, who would have been about +thirty when the work was begun, was still principally +engrossed with the conventional, ecclesiastical +subject. The heads of the virgins pressing +round the saint appear to be portraits, and were +very possibly those of the wives and daughters +of members of the confraternity.</p> + +<p>The improvement that takes place is so rapid +that we can guess how congenial the painter +found the task and how quickly he adapted his +already trained talent. In No. 5 he takes +delight in the opportunity for painting a little +domestic scene,—the bedroom of a young +Venetian girl, perhaps a sister of his own. +The comfortable bed, the dainty furniture, +are carefully drawn. The clear morning light +streams into the room. The saint lies peacefully +asleep, her hand under her head, her long +eyelashes resting upon her cheek: the whole is +an idyll, full of insight into girlish life. The +tiny slippers made, no doubt, one of the details +that caught his eye. The crown lying on the +ledge of the bed is an arbitrary introduction, +as naïf as the angel. In the funeral scene the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>luminous light is diffused over all, the young +saint lies upon her bier and is followed by priest +and deacon, the crowd is composed with truth +to nature, the draperies and garments are brought +into harmony with the sky and background, and +in all those that follow we find this quality of +light. The landscape behind the massacre has +gained in natural character, the city is at some +distance, houses and churches are half buried in +woods; the setting is much more natural than are +the quaint and elegant pages who occupy it, and +who are drawing their crossbows and attacking +the martyrs with leisurely nonchalance. The +panel in which the betrothed couple meet shows +a great advance, and this and the succeeding ones +of the ambassadors, which were painted between +1495 and 1498, must have crowned Carpaccio’s +reputation. He paints Venice in its most fascinating +aspect; the enamelled beauty of its marbles, +its sky and sea, its palaces and ships, the rich +and picturesque dresses men wore in the streets, +the barge glowing with rich velvets. He evinces +a fairy-tale spirit which we may compare with +the work of Pintoricchio. His Prince, kneeling +in a white and gold dress, with long fair +curls, is a real fairy prince; Ursula, in her red +dress and puffed sleeves, her rippling, flaxen hair +and strings of pearls, is a princess of story. +Carpaccio’s art is simple and garrulous in feeling, +his conception is as unpassionate as the fancies +of a child, but he has a true love for these gay +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>crowds; Venice going upon her gallant way—her +solid, worthy citizens, men of substance, +shrewd and valuable, taking their pleasure +seriously with a sense of responsibility. They +throng the streets and cross over the bridges, +every figure is full of freedom and vitality. +The arrival and dismissal of the ambassadors +are the best of all the scenes. In the middle +of the great stage King Maurus of Brittany sits +upon a Venetian terrace. In the colonnade to +the left is gathered a group of Venetian personages, +members of the Loredano family, which +was a special patron of St. Ursula’s Guild, and +gave this panel. The types are all vividly +realised and differentiated: the courtier looking +critically at the arrivals; the frankly curious +bourgeoisie; the man of fashion passing with +his nose in the air, disdaining to stare too +closely; the fop with his dogs and their dwarf +keeper. Far beyond stretch the lagoons; the +sea and air of Venice clear and fresh. What +is noticeable even now in an Italian crowd, the +absence of women, was then most true to life, for +except on special occasions they were not seen +in the streets, but were kept in almost Oriental +seclusion. The dismissal of the ambassadors +affords the opportunity for drawing an interior +with the street visible through a doorway. A +group at the side, of a man dictating a letter +and the scribe taking down his words, writing +laboriously, with his shoulders hunched and his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>head on one side, is excellent in its quiet reality. +The same life-like vivacity is displayed in Ursula’s +consultation with her father. The old nurse +crouched upon the steps is introduced to break +the line and to throw back the main group. +Carpaccio has already used such a figure in the +funeral scene, and Titian himself adopts his +suggestion.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img102.jpg" width="550" height="263" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Carpaccio.</em> ARRIVAL OF THE AMBASSADORS. <em>Venice.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>Carpaccio is not a very great painter, but a +charming one. His treatment of light and +water, of distant hills and trees, shows a sense +of peace and poetry, and though he is influenced +by Gentile’s splendid realistic heads, the +type which appeals to him is gentler and more +idealised. His fancy is caught by Oriental +details, to which Gentile would naturally have +directed his attention, and of which there was +no lack in Venice at this time. All his episodes +are very clearly illustrated, and his popular brush +was kept busily employed. He took a share with +other assistants in the series which Gentile was +painting in S. Giovanni Evangelista. In 1502 +the Dalmatians inhabiting Venice resolved to +decorate their school, which had been founded +fifty years earlier, for the relief of destitute +Dalmatian seamen in Venice. The subjects +were to be selected from the lives of the Saviour +and the patron saints of Dalmatia and Albania, +St. Jerome, St. George of the Sclavonians, and St. +Tryphonius. The nine panels and an altarpiece +which Carpaccio delivered between 1502 and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>1508 still adorn the small but dignified Hall of +the school. His “Jerome in his Study” has +nothing ascetic, but shows a prosperous Venetian +ecclesiastic seated in his well-furnished library +among his books and writings. He is less +successful in his scenes from the life of Christ; +the Gethsemane is an obvious imitation of +Mantegna; but when he leaves his own style he +is weak and poor, and imaginary scenes are quite +beyond him. In the death and interment of St. +Jerome he gives a delightful impression of the +peace of the old convent garden, and in the scene +where the lion introduced by the saint scatters +the terrified monks he lets a sense of humour +have free play. The monks in their long +garments, escaping in all directions, are really +comical, and in conjunction with the ingratiating +smile of the lion, the scene passes into the region +of broad farce. We divine the same sense of the +comic in the scene in St. Ursula’s history, where +the 11,000 virgins are hurrying in single file +along a winding road which disappears out of +the picture. In the principal scene in the life +of St. George, Carpaccio again achieves a masterpiece. +The force and vivacity of the saint in +armour charging the dragon, lingers long in the +memory. The long, decorative lines of lance +and war-horse and dragon throw back the whole +landscape. The details show an almost childish +delight in the realisation of ghoulish horrors. +He rather injures his “Triumph of St. George” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>by his anxiety to bring in the Temple of Solomon +at Jerusalem; the flying flags distract the eye, +and the whole scene is one of confusion, broken +up into different parts, while the dragon is +reduced to very unterrifying insignificance. His +series for the school of the Albanians dealt with +the life of the Virgin, who was their special +patron. Its remains are at Bergamo, Milan, and +in the Academy. The single figures in the +“Presentation,” the priest and maiden, are +excellent. A child at the side of the steps, +leading a unicorn, emblem of chastity, shows +once more what a hold this use of a figure had +taken of him. In the “Visitation” the figures +are too much scattered, and the fantastic buildings +attract more attention than the women. He +still produced altarpieces, and the Presentation +of the Infant Christ in the Temple, which he +was called upon to paint for San Giobbe, where +one of Bellini’s most famous altarpieces stood, +challenged him to put forth all his strength. He +never produced anything more simple and noble +or more worthy of the cinque-cento than this +altarpiece (now in the Academy). It surpasses +Bellini’s arrangement in the way in which the +personages are raised upon a step, while the dome +overhead and the angel musicians below give +them height and dignity. The contrast between +the infant and the youthful woman and the +old men is purposely marked. Such a contrast +between youth and age is a very favourite one. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Bellini, in the same church, draws it between +SS. Sebastian and Job, and Alvise Vivarini, in his +last painting, balances a very youthful Sebastian +with St. Jerome. This is the most grandiose, +the least of a <em>genre</em> picture of all Carpaccio’s +creations, although he does make Simeon into a +pontiff with attendant cardinals bearing his train. +One of his last works is the S. Vitale over the +high altar of the church of that name, where +we forgive the wooden appearance of the horse +which the saint rides for the sake of the simple +dignity of the rider and the airy effect given by +the balcony overhead. Nor must we forget that +study of the “Two Courtesans” in the Museo +Civico, full of the sarcasm of a deep realism. +It conveys to us the matter-of-fact monotony of +the long, hot days, and the women and the animals +with which they are beguiling their idle hours +are painted with the greatest intelligence. It +carries us back to another phase of life in +Carpaccio’s Venice, seen through his observant, +humorous eyes, and if there is nothing in his +colour distinctive of the impending Venetian +richness, it is still arresting in its brilliant +limpidity; it seems drawn straight from the +transparent canals and radiant lagoons.</p> + +<p>We apprehend the difference at once in +Bastiani and in Mansueti, who essay the same +sort of compositions. They studied grouping +carefully, and it must have seemed easy enough +to paint their careful architecture and to place +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>citizens in costume with appropriate action in a +“Miracle of the Cross,” or the “Preaching of St. +Mark”; but these pictures are dry and crowded, +they give no illusion of truth, there is none of +the careless realism of Carpaccio’s crowds,—of +incidents taking place which are not essential to +the story, and, as in life, are only half seen, but +which have their share in producing a full and +varied illusion. The scenes want the air and +depth in which Carpaccio’s pictures are enveloped. +We are not stimulated and charmed, taken into +the outer air and refreshed by these heavy personages, +standing in rows, painted in hot, dry +colour, and carrying no conviction in their +glance and action.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Consecration of Stephen.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Ferrara.</td> <td class="td5">Death of Virgin.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Presentation of Virgin; Marriage of Virgin; St. Stephen disputing.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">St. Stephen preaching.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Stuttgart.</td> <td class="td5">Martyrdom of St. Stephen.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: The History of St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins; Presentation in the Temple.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Visitation; Two Courtesans.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio degli Schiavone: History of SS. George and + Tryphonius; Agony in the Garden; Christ in the House of + the Pharisee; History of St. Jerome.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Vitale: Altarpiece to S. Vitale.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard. Death of the Virgin; St. Ursula taking leave of her Father.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Christ adored by Angels.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>GIOVANNI BELLINI</strong></p> + + +<p>The difference between Gian. Bellini and his +accomplished brother, that which makes us so +conscious that the first was the greater of the +two and which sets him in a later artistic generation +than Gentile, is a difference of mind. Such +pageant-pictures as we hear that Giovanni was +engaged upon have all been destroyed. We may +suspect that their composition was not particularly +congenial to him, and that the strictly +religious pictures and the small allegorical +studies, by which we must judge him, were +more after his heart. It is his poetic and ideal +feeling which adds so strongly to his claim to be +a great artist; it was this which drew all men +to him and enabled him so powerfully to influence +the art of his day in Venice.</p> + +<p>Jacopo’s wife, Anna, in a will of 1429, leaves +everything to her two sons, Gentile and Niccolo. +Giovanni was evidently not her son, but Vasari +speaks of him as the elder of the two, so that it +is very possible that he was an illegitimate child, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>brought up, after the fashion that so often +obtained, in the full privileges of his father’s +house. Documents show that Jacopo Bellini +was living in Venice in 1437, first near the +Piazza, and afterwards in the parish of San Lio. +He was a member of S. Giovanni Evangelista, +and probably one of the leading artists of the +city. His two sons helped him in his great +decorative works, and also went with him to +Padua, where he painted the Gattamalata Chapel. +Their relative position is suggested by a document +of 1457, which records that the father +received twenty-one ducats for “three figures, +done on cloth, put in the Great Hall of the +Patriarch,” only two of which were to go to +the son. In 1459 Gian. Bellini’s signature first +appears on a document, and at about this time +we may suppose that he and his brother began to +execute small commissions on their own account. +On these visits to Padua the intimacy must +have sprung up, which led to Mantegna’s +marriage in 1453 with Jacopo’s daughter. At +Padua, too, Bellini, in company with Mantegna, +drank in the inspiration left there by Donatello, +the greatest master that either of +them encountered. It was the humanistic and +naturalistic side of Donatello which touched +Giovanni Bellini, more than all his classic lore. +It chimed in, too, with his father’s graceful and +fanciful quality, and there is no doubt that the +Venetian painters soon exercised a marked influence +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>on Mantegna. They “fought for him with +Squarcione,” and even in the Eremitani frescoes +he begins to lose his purely statuesque type and +to become frankly Renaissance. In the later +scenes of the series a pergola with grapes, a +Venetian campanile and doorway replace his +classic towers and arches of triumph. In the +“Martyrdom of St. James” the couple walking by +and paying no attention whatever to the tragic +event, are very like the people whom Gentile +introduces in his backgrounds.</p> + +<p>There are few documents more interesting +in the history of art than the two pictures of +the “Agony in the Garden,” executed by the +brothers-in-law, about 1455, from a design by +Jacopo in the British Museum sketch-book. +Jacopo draws the mound-like hill, Christ kneeling +before the vision of the Chalice, the figures +wrapt in slumber, and the distant town. In few +pictures up to this time is the landscape conceived +in such sympathy with the figures. As +we look at this sketch and examine the two +finished compositions, which it is so fortunate +to find in juxtaposition in the National Gallery, +we surmise that the two artists agreed to +carry out the same idea and each to give his +version of Jacopo’s suggestion, and very curious +it is to see the rendering each has produced.</p> + +<p>Mantegna has made use of the most formal +and Squarcionesque contours in his surroundings. +The rocks are of an unnatural, geological structure. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>The towers of Jerusalem are defined in elaborate +perspective, and a band of classic figures fills the +middle distance. The sleeping forms of the +disciples are laid about like so many draped +statues taken from their pedestals. The choir +of child angels is solid and leaves nothing to the +imagination, and if it were not for the beautifully +conceived Christ, the whole composition would +leave us quite unmoved. On the other hand, +we can never look at Bellini’s version without +a fresh thrill. He, like Mantegna, has followed +Jacopo’s scheme of winding roads and the city +“set on a hill,” and has drawn the advancing +band of soldiers; but, independent of all details, +he gives us the vision of a poet. The still dawn +is breaking over the broadly painted landscape, +the rosy shafts of light are colouring the sky +and casting their magic over every common +object, and, lonely and absorbed, the Sacred +Figure kneels, wrapt into the Heavenly Vision, +which is hardly more definite than a stronger +beam of light upon the radiance. One of the +disciples, at least, is a successful and natural +study of a tired-out man, whose head has fallen +back and whose every limb has relaxed in sleep. +Bellini is less assured, less accomplished than +Mantegna, but he is able to touch us with the +pathos of both natural and spiritual feeling.</p> + +<p>Even earlier than this picture, critics place +the “Crucifixion” and “Transfiguration” of the +Museo Correr and our own “Salvator Mundi.” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>In 1443, when Giovanni was a young man of +four or five and twenty, San Bernardino had +held a great revival at Padua, and the whole of +Venice had thronged to hear him. It is very +possible, as Mr. Roger Fry suggests in his <em>Life +of Bellini</em>, that Giovanni’s emotional temperament +had been worked upon by the preacher’s +eloquence, and the very poignant feelings of +love and pity which his early art expresses were +the deliberate consequence of his sympathy with +the deep religious mysteries expounded.</p> + +<p>In the two pictures in the Correr, Bellini is +still going with the Paduan current. In both we +have the winding roads so characteristic of his +father, but the rocks in the “Transfiguration” +have the jointed, arbitrary character of Mantegna’s +and the draperies are plastered to the forms +beneath; yet the figures here have a beauty and +a dignity which no reproduction seems able to +convey. The feeling is already more imposing +than the execution. Christ and the two prophets +tower up against the belt of clouds, the central +figure conveying a sense of pathetic isolation; +while below, St. John’s attitude betrays a state of +tension, the feet being drawn up and contorted. +This picture prepares us for the overwhelming +emotion we find in the “Redeemer” and the +group of Pietàs. The treatment of the Christ +was a development of the early <em>motif</em> of angels +flying forward on either side of the Cross, but +here the sacred blood pouring into the chalice +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>is also sacramental and connected with the intensified +religious fervour which had led to the +foundation of the Franciscan and Dominican +orders, illustrations of which are met with in +the miniatures and wood-engravings of fifteenth-century +books of devotion. The accessories, the +antique reliefs, the low wall, the distant buildings, +have an allegorical meaning underlying each one, +and common to trecento and, in a less degree, to +quattrocento art. Paradise regained is signified +by the paved court with the open door, in contradistinction +to the Hortus Clausus, or enclosed +court; the type of the old covenant. In one of +the bas-reliefs Mucius Scaevola thrusts his hand +into the fire, the ancient type of heroic readiness +to suffer. The other represents a pagan sacrifice, +foreshadowing the sacrifice upon the Cross. +Figures in the background are leaving a ruined +temple and making their way towards the new +Christian city, fortified and crowned with a +church tower, and in the midst of all this +symbolism, Christ and the attendant angel are +placed, vibrating with nervous feeling.</p> + +<p>During the next few years, Bellini devoted +himself to two subjects of the highest devotional +order. These are the Madonna and Child, the +great exercise in every age for painters, and the +Pietà, which he has made peculiarly his own.</p> + +<p><a name="pieta" id="pieta"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img116.jpg" width="550" height="428" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Giovanni Bellini.</em> PIETÀ. <em>Brera, Milan.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Brogi.</em>)</p> + +<p>Close by, at Padua, Giotto had left a rendering +of the last subject, so full of passionate sorrow +that it is hardly possible that it should not, if only +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>half consciously, have stimulated the artistic +sensibilities of the most sensitive of painters; but +Bellini’s pathos shrinks from all exaggeration. +He conceives grief with the tenderest insight. +His interest in the subject was so intense that he +never left the execution to others, and though +not a single one bears his signature, yet each is +entirely by his own hand. Besides the Pietà at +Milan, which is perhaps the best known, there is +one in the Correr Museum, another in the Doge’s +Palace, and yet others at Rimini and at Berlin. +The version he adopts, which places the Body of +Christ within the sarcophagus, was a favourite in +North Italy. Donatello uses it in a bas-relief +(now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), but +whether he brought or found the suggestion in +Padua nothing exists to show. Jacopo has left +sketches in which the whole group is within the +tomb, and this rendering is followed by Carpaccio, +Crivelli, Marco Zoppo, and others. It is never +found in trecento art, and is probably traceable +to the Paduan impulse to make use of classic +remains.</p> + +<p>Giovanni Bellini’s Pietàs fall into two groups. +In one, the Christ is placed between the Virgin +and St. John, who are embodiments of the agony +of bereavement. In the other, the dead Redeemer +is supported by angels, who express the +amazement and grief of immortal beings who see +their Lord suffering an indignity from which they +are immune.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>Mary and St. John <em>inside</em> the sarcophagus +shows that they are conceived mystically; Mary +as the Church, and St. John as the personification +of Christian Philosophy—a significance frequently +attached to these figures. Such a picture was designed +to hang over the altar, at which the mystical +sacrifice of the Mass was perpetually offered.</p> + +<p>In his treatment of the Brera example Bellini +has shaken off the Paduan tradition, and is forming +his own style and giving free play to his own +feeling. The winding roads and evening sky, +barred with clouds, are the accessories he used in +the “Agony in the Garden,” but the figures are +treated much more boldly; the drapery falls in +broad masses, and scarcely a trace is left of +sculpturesque treatment. Careful as is the study +of the nude, everything is subordinated to the +emotion expressed by the three figures: the +helpless, indifferent calm of the dead, the tender +solicitude of the Mother, the wandering, dazed +look of the despairing friend. Here there is +nothing of beautiful or pathetic symbol; the +group is intense with the common sorrow of all +the world. Mary presses the corpse to her as if +to impart her own life, and gazes with anguished +yearning on the beloved face. Bellini seems to +have passed to a more complex age in his analysis +of suffering, yet here is none of the extravagance +which the primitive masters share with the +Caracci: his restraint is as admirable as his +intensity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p><p>In the Rimini version the tender concern +and questioning surprise of the attendant angels +contrast with the inert weight of the beautiful +dead body they support. Their childish limbs +and butterfly wings make a sinuous pattern +against the lacquered black of the ground-work, +and Mr. Roger Fry makes the interesting suggestion +that the effect, reminiscent of Greek vase-painting, +and the likeness of the Head of Christ +to an old bronze, may, in a composition painted +for Sigismondo Malatesta, be no mere accident, +but a concession to the patron’s enthusiasm for +classic art.</p> + +<p>In 1470 Bellini received his first commission +in the Scuola di San Marco. Gentile had been +employed there since 1466 on the history of the +Israelites in the desert. Bellini agreed to paint +“The Deluge and the Ark of Noah” with all its +attendant circumstances, but of these, except +from Vasari’s descriptions, we can form no idea. +These great pageant-pictures had become identified +with the Bellini and their following, while +the production of altarpieces was peculiarly the +province of the Vivarini. Here Bellini effected +a change, for sacred subjects best suited the restrained +and simple perfection of his style, and +afforded the most sympathetic opening for his +idealistic spirit. For the next twenty years or +more, however, he was unavoidably absorbed in +public work, for we hear of his being given the +direction of that which Gentile left unfinished +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>in the Ducal Palace when he went to the East in +1479. In 1492, Giovanni being ill, Gentile superintended +the work for him, and in that year he +was appointed to paint in the Hall of the Grand +Council, at an annual salary of sixty ducats. +Other commissions were turned out of the <em>bottega</em> +he had set up with his brother in 1471, and +between that year and 1480 he went to Pesaro +to paint the important altarpiece that still holds +its place there. It is in some ways the greatest +and most powerful thing that Bellini ever accomplished. +The central figures and the attendant +saints have a large gravity and carefully studied +individuality. St. Jerome, absorbed in his theological +books, an ascetic recluse, is admirably +contrasted with the sympathetic, cultured St. +Paul. The landscape, set in a marble frame, +is a gem of beauty, and proves what an appeal +nature was making to the painter. The predella, +illustrating the principal scenes in the lives of +the saints around the altar, is full of Oriental +costumes. The horses are small Eastern horses, +very unlike the ponderous Italian war-horse, +and the whole is evidently inspired by the +sketches which Gentile brought back on his +return from Constantinople in 1481.</p> + +<p>Looking from one to another of the cycle of +Madonna pictures which Bellini produced, and +of which so many hang side by side in the +Academy, we are able to note how his conception +varied. In one of the earliest the Child +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>lies across its Mother’s knee, in the attitude +borrowed from his father and the Vivarini, from +whom, too, he takes the uplifted hands, placed +palm to palm. The earlier pictures are of the +gentle and adoring type, but his later Madonnas +are stately Venetian ladies. He gives us a +queenly woman, with full throat and stately +poise, in the Madonna degli Alberi, in which +the two little trees are symbols of the Old and +New Testament; or, again, he paints a lovely +intellectual face with chiselled and refined +features, and sad dark eyes, and contrasts it +dramatically with the bluff St. George in +armour; and there is another Madonna between +St. Francis and St. Catherine, a picture which +has a curious effect of artificial light.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>GIOVANNI BELLINI</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p> + + +<p>In 1497 the Maggior Consiglio of the Venetian +Republic appointed Bellini superintendent of the +Great Hall, and conferred on him the honourable +title of State Painter. In this capacity he was +the overseer of all public works of painting, and +was expected to devote a part of his time to the +decoration of the Hall. Sansovino enumerates +nine of his historical paintings, which had been +painted before the State appointment, all having +reference to the visit of Pope Alexander; but +though he must have been much engrossed, he +seems to have suspended the work from time to +time, for between 1485 and 1488 he painted the +large altarpiece in the Frari, that at San Pietro +in Murano, and the one in the Academy, which +was painted for San Giobbe. Of these three, the +last shows the greatest advance and is fullest of +experiment. The Madonna is a grand ecclesiastical +figure. It has been said with truth +that it is a picture which must have afforded +great support and dignity to the Church. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>Infant has an expression of omniscience, and the +Mother gazes out of the picture, extending +invitation and encouragement to the advancing +worshippers. The religious feeling is less profound; +the artist has been more absorbed +in the contrast between the beautiful, youthful +body of St. Sebastian and that of St. Giobbe, +older but not emaciated, and with the exquisite +surface that his now complete mastery of oil-painting +enabled him to produce. This technique +has evidently been a great delight, and +is here carried to perfection; the skin of St. +Sebastian gleams with a gloss like the coat of +a horse in high condition. Everything that +architecture, sculpture, and rich material can +supply is borrowed to enhance the grandeur of +the group; but the line of sight is still close to +the bottom of the picture, and if it were not for +the exquisite grace with which the angels are +placed, the Madonna would have a broad, +clumsy effect. The Madonna of the Frari is +the most splendid in colour of all his works. +As he paints the rich light of a golden interior +and the fused and splendid colours, he seems to +pass out of his own time and gives a foretaste +of the glory that is to follow. The Murano +altarpiece is quite a different conception; instead +of the seclusion of the sanctuary, it is a smiling, +<em>plein air</em> scene: the Mother benign, the Child +soft and playful, the old Doge Barbarigo and the +patron saints kneeling among bright birds, and a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>garden and mediæval townlet filling up the +background, for which, by the way, he uses the +same sketch as in the Pesaro picture. It says +much for his versatility that he could within a +short time produce three such different versions.</p> + +<p>Among Bellini’s most fascinating achievements +in the last years of the fifteenth century are +his allegorical paintings, known to us by the +“Pélerinage de l’Âme” in the Uffizi and the +little series in the Academy. The meaning of +the first has been unravelled by Dr. Ludwig +from a mediæval poem by Guillaume de +Guilleville, a Cistercian monk who wrote about +1335, and it is interesting to see the hold it has +taken on Bellini’s mystic spirit. The paved +space, set within the marble rail, signifies, as in +the “Salvator Mundi,” the Paradise where souls +await the Resurrection. The new-born souls +cluster round the Tree of Life and shake its +boughs. The poem says:</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 2em;"> +There is no pilgrim who is not sometimes sad<br /> +Who has not those who wound his heart,<br /> +And to whom it is not often necessary<br /> +To play and be solaced<br /> +And be soothed like a child<br /> +With something comforting.<br /> +Know that those playing<br /> +There in order to allay their sorrow<br /> +Have found beneath that tree<br /> +An apple that great comfort gives<br /> +To those that play with it.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +</p><p> </p> + +<p><a name="allegory" id="allegory"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img125.jpg" width="550" height="341" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Giovanni Bellini.</em> AN ALLEGORY. <em>Florence.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p><p>This may be an allusion to sacramental comfort. +St. Peter and St. Paul guard the door, +beside which the Madonna and a saint sit in holy +conversation. A very beautiful figure on the +left, wrapped in a black shawl, requires explanation, +and it has been suggested that it is the +donor, a woman who may have lost husband and +children, and who, still in life, is introduced, +watching the happiness of the souls in Paradise. +SS. Giobbe and Sebastian, who might have +stepped out of the San Giobbe altarpiece, are +obviously the patron saints of the family, and St. +Catherine, at the Virgin’s side, may be the donor’s +own saint. This picture, with its delicious +landscape bathed in atmospheric light, is a +forerunner of those Giorgionesque compositions +of “pure and unquestioning delight in the +sensuous charm of rare and beautiful things” +in which the artistic nature is even more engrossed +than with the intellectual conception, +and within its small space Bellini seems to have +enshrined all his artistic creed. The allegories +in the Academy are also full of meaning. They +are decorative works, and were probably painted +for some small cabinet. They seem too small +for a cassone. They are ruined by over-painting, +but still full of grace and fancy. The figure in +the classic chariot, bearing fruit, in the encounter +between Luxury and Industry, is drawn from +Jacopo’s triumphant Bacchus. Fortune floats in +her barque, holding the globe, and the souls +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>who gather round her are some full of triumphant +success, others clinging to her for comfort, while +several are sinking, overwhelmed in the dark +waters. “Prudence,” the only example of a +female nude in Bellini’s works, holds a looking-glass. +Hypocrisy or Calumny is torn writhing +from his refuge. The Summa Virtus is an ugly +representation of all the virtues; a waddling +deformity with eyes bound holds the scales of +justice; the pitcher in its hand means prudence, +and the gold upon its feet symbolises charity. +The landscape, both of this and of the “Fortune,” +resembles that which he was painting in his +larger works at the end of the century. Soon +after 1501 Bellini entered into relations with +Isabela d’Este, Marchioness of Gonzaga. That +distinguished collector and connoisseur writes +through her agent to get the promise of a +picture, “a story or fable of antiquity,” to be +placed in position with the allegories which +Mantegna had contributed to her “Paradiso.” +Bellini agreed to supply this, and received twenty-five +ducats on account. He seems, however, to +have felt that he would be at a disadvantage in +competing with Mantegna on his own ground, +and asks to be allowed to choose his subject. +Isabela was unwillingly obliged to content herself +with a sacred picture, and a “Nativity” was +selected. She is at once full of suggestions, +desiring to add a St. John Baptist, whom Bellini +demurs at introducing except as a child, but in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>April 1504 the commission is still unaccomplished, +and Isabela angrily demands the return +of her money. This brings a letter of humble +apology from Bellini, and presently the picture +is forwarded. Lorenzo of Pavia writes that it is +quite beautiful, and that “though Giovanni has +behaved as badly as possible, yet the bad must +be taken with the good.” The joy of its +acquisition appeased Isabela, who at once began +to lay plans to get a further work out of Bellini, +and in 1505 Bembo wrote to her that he would +take a fresh commission always providing he +might fix the subject. From the catalogue of +her Mantovan pictures we gather that the picture +“sul asse” (on panel) represented the “B.V., +il Putto, S. Giovanni Battista, S. Giovanni +Evangelista, S. Girolamo, and Santa Caterina.”</p> + +<p>The great altarpieces which remain strike us +less by their research, their preoccupation with +new problems of paint or grouping, than by +their intense delight in beauty. Bellini was +now nearly eighty years old, and in 1504 the +young Giorgione had proclaimed a revolution +in art with his Castelfranco Madonna. In +composition and detail the Madonna of San +Zaccaria is in some degree a protest against the +Arcadian, innovating fashion of approaching a +religious scene, of which the Church had long +since decided on the treatment, yet Bellini +cannot escape the indirect suggestion of the +new manner. The same leaven was at work +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>in him which was transforming the men of a +younger generation. In this altarpiece, in the +Baptism at Vicenza, in others, perhaps, which +have perished, and above all in the hermit saint +in S. Giovanni Crisostomo he is linked in feeling +and in treatment with the later Venetian School.</p> + +<p>The new device, which he adopts quite +naturally, of raising the line of sight, sets the +figures in increased depth. For the first time +he gives height and majesty to the young +Mother by carrying the draperies down over the +steps. He realises to the full the contrast +between the young, fragile heads of his girl-saints +and the dark, venerable countenances of +the old men. The head of S. Lucy, detaching +itself like a flower upon its stem, reminds us of +the type which we saw in his Watcher in the +sacred allegory of the Uffizi. The arched, +dome-like niche opens on a distance bathed in +golden light. Bellini keeps the traditions of +the old hieratic art, but he has grasped a new +perfection of feeling and atmosphere. Who the +saints are matters little; it is the collective +enjoyment of a company of congenial people +that pleases us so much. The “Baptism” in +S. Corona, at Vicenza, painted sixteen years later +than Cima’s in S. Giovanni in Bragora, is in +frank imitation of the younger man. Christ and +the Baptist, traditional figures, are drawn without +much zest, in a weak, conventional way, +but the artist’s true interest comes out in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>beauty of face and gesture of the group of +women holding the garments, and above all in +the sombre gloom of the distance, which replaces +Cima’s charming landscape, and which keys the +whole picture to the significance of a portent. +In the enthronement of the old hermit, S. +Chrysostom himself, painted in 1513, Bellini +keeps his love for the golden dome, but he lets +us look through its arch, at rolling mountain +solitudes, with mists rising between their folds. +The geranium robe of the saint, an exquisite, +vivid bit of colouring, is caught by the golden +sunset rays, the fine ascetic head stands out +against the evening sky, and in the faces of the +two saints who stand on either side of the aged +visionary Bellini has gone back to all his old +intensity of religious feeling, a feeling which +he seemed for a time to have exchanged for a +more pagan tone.</p> + +<p>In 1507, at Gentile’s death, Giovanni undertook, +at his brother’s dying request, to finish +the “Preaching of St. Mark,” receiving as a +recompense that coveted sketch-book of his +father’s, from which he had adopted so many +suggestions, and which, though he was the +eldest, had been inherited by the legitimate son.</p> + +<p>In the preceding year Albert Dürer had +visited Venice for the second time, and Bellini +had received him with great cordiality. Dürer +writes, “Bellini is very old, but is still the best +painter in Venice”; and adds, “The things I +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>admired on my last visit, I now do not value at +all.” Implying that he was able now to see +how superior Bellini was to the hitherto more +highly esteemed Vivarini.</p> + +<p>At the very end of Bellini’s life, in 1514, +the Duke of Ferrara paid him eighty-five ducats +for a painting of “Bacchanals,” now at Alnwick +Castle; which may be looked upon as an +open confession by one who had always considered +himself as a painter of distinctively +religious works, that such a gay scene of feasting +afforded opportunities which he could not resist, +for beauty of attitude and colour; but the gods, +sitting at their banquet in a sunny glade, are +almost fully draped, and there is little of the +<em>abandon</em> which was affected by later painters. +The picture was left unfinished, and was later +given to Titian to complete. In his capacity as +State Painter to the Republic, it was Bellini’s +duty to execute the official portraits of the +Doges. During his long life he saw eleven +reigns, and during four he held the State +appointment. Besides the official, he painted +private portraits of the Doges, and that of +Doge Loredano, in the National Gallery, is one of +the most perfect presentments of the quattrocento. +This portrait, painted by one old man of another, +shows no weakening in touch or characterisation. +It is as brilliant and vigorous as it is direct and +simple. The face is quiet and unexaggerated; +there is no unnatural fire and feeling, but an air +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>of accustomed dignity and thought, while the +technique has all the perfection of the painter’s +prime.</p> + +<p>In 1516 Giovanni was buried in the Church +of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, by the side of his +brother Gentile. To the last he was popular +and famous, overwhelmed with attentions from +the most distinguished personages of the city. +Though he had begun life when art showed +such a different aspect, he was by nature so +imbued with that temperament, which at the +time of his death was beginning to assert itself +in the younger school, that he was able to +assimilate a really astonishing share of the new +manner. He is guided by feeling more than +by intellect. All the time he is working out +problems, he is dominated by the emotion of +his subject, but his emotion, his pathos, are +invariably tempered and restrained by the calm +moderation of the quattrocento. The golden +mean still has command of Bellini, and never +allows his feelings, however poignant, to degenerate +into sentimentality or violence.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Morelli: Two Madonnas.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà (L.); Dead Christ.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Allegory; The Souls in Paradise (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Doge (L.); Madonna (L.); Agony in Garden (E.); Salvator Mundi (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Pietà (E.); Madonna; Madonna, 1510.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Mond Collection.</td> <td class="td5">Dead Christ; Madonna (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Murano.</td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro: Madonna with Saints and Doge Barbarigo, 1488.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Sala Grande: Transfiguration.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Pesaro.</td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rimini.</td> <td class="td5">Dead Christ (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Three Madonnas; Five small allegorical paintings (L.); + Madonna with SS. Catherine and Magdalene; Madonna with + SS. Paul and George; Madonna with five Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Crucifixion (E.); Transfiguration (E.); Dead Christ; Dead Christ with Angels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale, Sala di Tre: Pietà (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: Triptych; Madonna and Saints, 1488.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Crisostomo: S. Chrysostom with SS. Jerome and Augustine, 1513.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dell’ Orto: Madonna (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Zaccaria: Madonna and Saints, 1505.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">S. Corona: Baptism, 1510.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>CIMA DA CONEGLIANO AND OTHER FOLLOWERS +OF BELLINI</strong></p> + + +<p>The rising tide of feeling, the growing sense +of the joy of life and the apprehension of pure +beauty, which was strengthening in the people +and leading up to the great period of Venetian +art, flooded round Bellini and recognised its expression +in him. He was more popular and had a +larger following among the artists of his day than +either Gentile or Carpaccio with their frankly +mundane talent. Whatever Giovanni’s State works +may have been, his religious paintings are the +ones which are copied and adapted and studied +by the younger band of artists, and this because +of their beauty and notwithstanding their conventional +subjects. Gentile’s pageant-pictures +have still something cold and colourless, with a +touch of the archaic, while Giovanni’s religious +altarpieces evince a new freedom of handling, a +modern conception of beautiful women, a use of +that colour which was soon to reign triumphant. +As far as it went indeed, its triumph was already +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>assured; as Giovanni advanced towards old age, +it was no longer of any use for the young +masters of the day to paint in any way save +the one he had made popular, and one artist +after another who had begun in the school of +Alvise Vivarini ended as the disciple of Giovanni +Bellini.</p> + +<p>It was the habit of Bellini to trust much to +his assistants, and as everything that went out of +his workshop was signed by his name, even if it +only represented the use of one of his designs, or +a few words of advice, and was “passed” by the +master, it is no wonder that European collections +were flooded with works, among which only +lately the names of Catena, Previtali, Pennacchi, +Marco Belli, Bissolo, Basaiti, Rondinelli, and +others begin to be disentangled.</p> + +<p>Only one of his followers stands out as a +strong and original master, not quite of the first +class, but developing his own individuality while +he draws in much of what both Alvise and +Bellini had to give. Cima da Conegliano, +whose real name was Giovanni Battista, always +signs himself <em>Coneglianensis</em>: the title of Cima, +“the Rock,” by which he is now so widely +known, having first been mentioned in the +seventeenth century by Boschini, and perhaps +given him by that writer himself. He was a +son of the mountains, who, though he came early +to Venice, and lived there most of his life, never +loses something of their wild freshness, and to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>the end delights in bringing them into his +backgrounds. He lived with his mother at +Conegliano, the beautiful town of the Trevisan +marches, until 1484, when he was twenty-five, +and then came down to Vicenza, where he fell +under the tuition of Bartolommeo Montagna, a +Vicentine painter, who had been studying both +with Alvise and Bellini. Cima’s “Madonna +with Saints,” painted for the Church of St. +Bartolommeo, Vicenza, in 1489, shows him still +using the old method of tempera, in a careful, +cold, painstaking style, yet already showing his +own taste. The composition has something of +Alvise, yet that something has been learned +through the agency of Montagna, for the figures +have the latter’s severity and austere character +and the colour is clearer and more crude than +Alvise’s. It is no light resemblance, and he +must have been long with Montagna. In the +type of the Christ in Montagna’s Pietà at +Monte Berico, in the fondness for airy porticoes, +in the architecture and main features of his +“Madonna enthroned” in the Museo Civico at +Vicenza, we see characteristics which Cima +followed, though he interpreted them in his +own way. He turns the heavy arches and +domes that Alvise loved, into airy pergolas, +decked with vines. He gives increasing importance +to high skies and to atmospheric distances. +When he got to Venice in 1492, he began to +paint in oils, and undertook the panel of S. John +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>Baptist with attendant saints, still in the Church +of S. Madonna dell’ Orto. The work of this is +rather angular and tentative, but true and fresh, +and he comes to his best soon after, in the +“Baptism” in S. Giovanni in Bragora, which +Bellini, sixteen years later, paid him the compliment +of copying. It was quite unusual to choose +such a subject for the High Altar, and could +only be justified by devotion to the Baptist, +who was Cima’s own name-saint as well as +that of the Church. Cima is here at his very +highest; the composition is not derived from +any one else, but is all the conception of an +ingenuous soul, full of intuition and insight. +The Christ is particularly fine and simple, +unexaggerated in pose and type; the arm of the +Baptist is too long, but the very fault serves to +give him a refined, tentative look, which makes +a sympathetic appeal. The attendant angels look +on with an air of sweet interest. The distant +mountains, the undulating country, the little +town of Conegliano, identified by the castle on +its great rock, or <em>Cima</em>, are Arcadian in their +sunny beauty. The clouds, as a critic has pointed +out, are full of sun, not of rain. The landscape +has not the sombre mystery of Titian’s, but is +bright with the joyous delight of a lover of +outdoor life. As Cima masters the new medium +he becomes larger and simpler, and his forms +lose much of their early angularity. A confraternity +of his native town ordered the grand +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>altarpiece which is still in the Cathedral there, +and in this he shows his connection with Venice; +the architecture is partly taken from St. Mark’s, +the lovely Madonna head recalls Bellini, and a +group of Bellinesque angels play instruments at +the foot of the throne. Cima is, however, never +merged in Bellini. He keeps his own clearly +defined, angular type; his peculiar, twisted curls +are not the curls of Bellini’s saints, his treatment +of surface is refined, enamel-like, perfectly +finished, but it has nothing of the rich, broken +treatment which Bellini’s natural feeling for +colour was beginning to dictate. Cima’s pale +golden figures have an almost metallic sharpness +and precision, and though they are full of +charm and refinement, they may be thought +lacking in spontaneity and passion. To 1501 +belongs the “Incredulity of St. Thomas,” now +in the Academy, but painted for the Guild of +Masons. It is a picture full of expression and +dignity, broad in treatment if a little cold in its +self-restraint. Cima seems to have not quite +enough intellect, and not quite enough strong +feeling. However, the little altarpiece of the +Nativity, in the Church of the Carmine in +Venice, has a richer, fuller touch, and this +foreshadows the work he did when he went to +Parma, where his transparent shadows grow +broader and stronger, and his figures gain in +ease and freedom. He never loses the delicate +radiance of his lights, and his types and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>his architecture alike convey something of a +peculiarly refined, brilliant elegance.</p> + +<p>Like all these men of great energy and +prolific genius, Cima produced an astonishing +number of panels and altarpieces, and no doubt +had pupils on his own account, for a goodly list +could be made of pictures in his style, but not +by his own hand, which have been carried by +collectors into widely-scattered places. His +exquisite surface and finish and his marked +originality make him a difficult master to imitate +with any success. His latest work is dated +1508, but Ridolfi says he lived till 1517, and it +seems probable that he returned to his beloved +Conegliano and there passed his last years.</p> + +<p>If Cima possessed originality, Vincenzo of +Treviso, called Catena, gained an immense reputation +by his industry and his power of imitating +and adopting the manner of Bellini’s School. In +those days men did not trouble themselves much +as to whether they were original or not. They +worked away on traditional compositions, frankly +introducing figures from their master’s cartoons, +modifying a type here, making some little experiment +or arrangement there, and, as a French critic +puts it, leaving their own personality to “hatch +out” in due time, if it existed, and when it was +sufficiently ripened by real mastery of their art. It +is here that Catena fails; beginning as a journeyman +in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, at a salary +of three ducats a month, he for long failed to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>acquire the absolute mastery of drawing which +was possessed by the better disciples of the +schools. But he is painstaking, determined to +get on, and eager to satisfy the continually +increasing demand for work. His draperies are +confused and unmeaning, his faces round, with +small features, inexpressive button mouths, and +weak chins, and his flesh tints have little of +the glow which is later the prerogative of every +second-rate painter. Yet Catena succeeds, like +many another careful mediocre man, in securing +patronage, and as the sixteenth century opened +he gained the distinction from Doge Loredano +of a commission to paint the altarpiece for the +Pregadi Chapel of the Sala di Tre, in the Ducal +Palace. He adapts his group from that of +Bellini in the Cathedral of Murano, bringing +in a profile portrait of the kneeling Doge, of +which he afterwards made numerous copies, one +of which was for long assigned to Gentile and +one to Giovanni Bellini.</p> + +<p>That Catena is not without charm, we discern +in such a composition as his “Martyrdom of St. +Cristina,” in S. Maria Mater Domini, in which +the saint, a solid, Bellinesque figure, kneels +upon the water, in which she met her death, +and is surrounded by little angels, holding up +the millstone tied round her neck, and laden +with other instruments of her martyrdom. +Catena borrows right and left, and tries to +follow every new indication of contemporary +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>taste. For instance, he remarks the growing +admiration for colour, and hopes by painting +gay, flat tints, in bright contrast, to produce the +desired effect.</p> + +<p>It is evident that he made many friends +among the rich connoisseurs of the time, and +that his importance was out of proportion to +his real merit. Marcantonio Michele, writing +an account of Raphael’s last days to a friend in +Venice, and touching on Michelangelo’s illness, +begs him to see that Catena takes care of +himself, “as the times are unfavourable to great +painters.” Catena had acquired and inherited +considerable wealth; he came of a family of +merchants, and resided in his own house in San +Bartolommeo del Rialto. He lived in unmarried +relations with Dona Maria Fustana, the daughter +of a furrier, to whom he bequeaths in his will +300 ducats and all his personal effects. As a +careful portrait-painter, with a talent for catching +a likeness, he was in constant demand, and in +some of his heads—that of a canon dressed in +blue and red, at Vienna, and especially in one of +a member of the Fugger family, now at Dresden—he +attains real distinction. And in his last +phase he does at length prove the power that +lies behind long industry and perseverance. +Suddenly the Giorgionesque influence strikes +him, and turning to imbibe this new element, +he produces that masterpiece which throws a +glamour over all his mediocre performances; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>his “Warrior adoring the Infant Christ,” in +the National Gallery, is a picture full of charm, +rich and romantic in tone and spirit. The +Virgin and the Child upon her knee are of his +dull round-eyed type, the form and colours of +her draperies are still unsatisfactory, but the +knight in armour with his Eastern turban, the +romantic young page, holding his horse, are +pure Giorgionesque figures. Beautiful in themselves, +set in a beautiful landscape glowing +with light and air, the whole picture exemplifies +what surprising excellence could be +suddenly attained by even very inferior artists, +who were constantly associating with greater +men, at a moment when the whole air was, as +it were, vibrating with genius.</p> + +<p>Catena was very much addicted to making +his will, and at least five testaments or codicils +exist, one of them devising a sum of money +for the benefit of the School of Painters in +Venice, and another leaving to his executor, Prior +Ignatius, the picture of a “St. Jerome in his +Cell,” which may be the one in our national +collection, which remained in Venice till +1862. It is painted in his gay tones, imitating +Basaiti and Lotto, and brings in the partridge of +which he made a sort of sign manual.</p> + +<p>Cardinal Bembo writes in 1525 to Pietro +Lippomano, to announce that, at his request, he +is continuing his patronage of Catena:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Though I had done all that lay in my power for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>Vincenzo Catena before I received your Lordship’s +warm recommendation in his favour, I did not hesitate, +on receipt of your letter, to add something to the first +piece I had from him, and I did so because of my love +and reverence for you, and I trust that he will return +appropriate thanks to you for having remembered that +you could command me.</p></div> + +<p>Marco Basaiti was alternately a journeyman +in different workshops and a master on his own +account. For long the assistant and follower of +Alvise Vivarini, we may judge that he was also +his most trusted confidant, for to him was left +the task of completing the splendid altarpiece to +S. Ambrogio, in the Frari. His heavy hand is +apparent in the execution, and the two saints, +Sebastian and Jerome, in the foreground, have +probably been added by him, for they have the +air of interlopers, and do not come up to the rest +of the company in form and conception. The +Sebastian, with his hands behind his back and +his loin cloth smartly tied, is quite sufficiently +reminiscent of Bellini’s figure of 1473 to make +us believe that Basaiti was at once transferring +his allegiance to that reigning master. In his +earlier phase he has the round heads and the +dry precise manner of the Muranese. In his +large picture in the Academy, the “Calling of +the Sons of Zebedee,” he produces a large, +important set piece, cold and lifeless, without +one figure which arrests us, or lingers in +the memory. “The Christ on the Mount” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>is more interesting as having been painted for +San Giobbe, where Bellini’s great altarpiece +was already hanging, and coming into competition +with Bellini’s early rendering of the same +scene. Painted some thirty years later, it is +interesting to see what it has gained in +“modernness.” The landscape and trees are +well drawn and in good colour, and the saints, +standing on either side of a high portico, have +dignity. In the “Dead Christ,” in the Academy, +he is following Bellini very closely in the flesh-tints +and the <em>putti</em>. The <em>putti</em>, looking thoughtfully +at the dead, is a <em>motif</em> beloved of Bellini, +but Basaiti cannot give them Bellini’s pathos +and significance; they are merely childish and +seem to be amused.</p> + +<p>In 1515 Basaiti has entered upon a new +phase. He has felt Giorgione’s influence, and +is beginning to try what he can do, while still +keeping close to Bellini, to develop a fuller touch, +more animated figures, and a brilliant effect of +landscape. He runs a film of vaporous colour +over his hard outlines and makes his figures +bright and misty, and though underneath they +are still empty and monotonous, it is not surprising +that many of his works for a time passed +as those of Bellini. Though he is a clever +imitator, “his figures are designed with less +mastery, his drawing is a little less correct, +his drapery less adapted to the under form. +Light and shade are not so cleverly balanced, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>colours have the brightness, but not the true +contrast required. In landscape he proceeds +from a bleak aridity to extreme gaiety; he does +not dwell on detail, but his masses have neither +the sober tint nor the mysterious richness +conspicuous in his teacher ... he is a clever +instrument.” Both Previtali and Rondinelli +were workers with Basaiti in Bellini’s studio. +Previtali occasionally signed himself Andrea +Cordeliaghi or Cordella, and has left many +unsigned pictures. He copies Catena and +Lotto, Palma and Montagna; but for a time his +work went forth from Bellini’s workshop signed +with Bellini’s name. In 1515, in a great altarpiece +in San Spirito at Bergamo, he first takes +the title of Previtali, compiling it in the +cartello with the monogram already used as +Cordeliaghi. There are traces of many other +minor artists at this period, all essaying the +same manner, copying one or other of the +masters, taking hints from each other. The +Venetian love of splendour was turning to the +collection of works of art, and the work of +second-class artists was evidently much in +demand and obtained its meed of admiration. +Bissolo was a fellow-labourer with Catena in the +Hall of the Ducal Palace in 1492; he is soft +and nerveless, but he copies Bellini, and has +imbibed something of his tenderness of spirit.</p> + +<p>It will be seen from this list how difficult it +is to unravel the tale of the false Bellinis. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>master’s own works speak for themselves with +no uncertain voice, but away from these it is +very difficult to pronounce as to whether he had +given a design, or a few touches, or advice, and +still more difficult to decide whether these were +bestowed on Basaiti in his later manner, or on +Previtali or Bissolo, or if the teaching was handed +on by them in a still more diluted form to +the lesser men who clustered round, much of +whose work has survived and has been masquerading +for centuries under more distinguished +names. It is sometimes affirmed that the loss +of originality in the endeavour to paint like +greater men has been a symptom of decay in +every school in the past. It is interesting to +notice, therefore, that in every great age of +painting there has always been an undercurrent +of imitation, which has helped to form a stream +of tradition, and which, as far as we can see, has +done no harm to the stronger spirits of the time.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Cima.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with four Saints; Two Madonnas.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Conegliano.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Madonna and Saints, 1493.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">The Saviour; Presentation of Virgin.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Two Madonnas; Incredulity of S. Thomas; S. Jerome.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Six pictures of Saints; Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Parma.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints; Another; Endymion; Apollo and Marsyas.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Madonna with SS. John and Paul; Pietà; Madonna + with six Saints; Incredulity of S. Thomas; Tobias and the Angel.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Carmine: Adoration of the Shepherds.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Baptism, 1494; SS. Helen and Constantine; Three Predelle; Finding of True Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Giovanni and Paolo: Coronation of the Virgin.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dell’ Orto: S. John Baptist and SS. Paul, Jerome, Mark, and Peter.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard. Madonna with SS. Francis and Paul; Madonna with SS. Nicholas of Bari and John Baptist.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Jerome and John, 1489.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Vincenzo Catena.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Christ at Emmaus.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Fugger; Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Warrior adoring Infant Christ (L.); S. Jerome in his Study (L.); Adoration of Magi (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson: Holy Family.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lord Brownlow: Nativity.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: Madonna, Saints, and Donors (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Venetian Ambassadors at Cairo.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Madonna, Saints, and Doge Loredan (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli Palace: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Mater Domini: S. Cristina.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Trovaso: Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Canon.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Marco Basaiti.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">The Saviour, 1517; Two Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà; Altarpiece; S. Sebastian; Madonna (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. Jerome; Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Ambrosiana: Risen Christ.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Murano.</td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro: Assumption.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait, 1521; Madonna with SS. Liberale and Peter.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Saints; Dead Christ; Christ in the Garden, 1510; Calling of Children of Zebedee, 1510.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Madonna and Donor; Christ and Angels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Salute: S. Sebastian.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Calling of Children of Zebedee, 1515.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Andrea Previtali.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Pentecost; Marriage of S. Catherine; Altarpiece; Madonna, 1514; Madonna with Saints and Donors.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna and Saint.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Count Moroni: Madonna and Saints; Family Group.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Alessandro in Croce: Crucifixion, 1524.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Spirito: S. John Baptist and Saints, 1515; Madonna and four Female Saints, 1525.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Marriage of S. Catherine.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Donor (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Christ in Garden, 1512.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Oxford.</td> <td class="td5">Christchurch Library: Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Christ in Limbo; Crossing of the Red Sea.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Redentore: Nativity; Crucifixion.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Stoning of Stephen; Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>N. Rondinelli.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna with four Saints and three Angels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Ravenna.</td> <td class="td5">Two Madonnas with Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Domenico: Organ Shutters; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: Madonna; Madonna with Saints and Donors.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli Palace: Two Madonnas.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bissolo.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Dead Christ; Madonna and Saints; Presentation in Temple.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora: Triptych.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Redentore: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Mater Domini: Transfiguration.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lady Layard: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>GIORGIONE</strong></p> + + +<p>When we enter a gallery of Florentine paintings, +we find our admiration and criticism expressing +themselves naturally in certain terms; we are +struck by grace of line, by strenuous study of +form, by the evidence of knowledge, by the +display of thought and intellectual feeling. The +Florentine gestures and attitudes are expressive, +nervous, fervent, or, as in Michelangelo and +Signorelli, alive with superhuman energy. But +when looking at pictures of the Venetian School +we unconsciously use quite another sort of +language; epithets like “dark” and “rich” +come most freely to our lips; a golden glow, +a slumberous velvety depth, seem to engulf +and absorb all details. We are carried into the +land of romance, and are fascinated and soothed, +rather than stimulated and aroused. So it is with +portraits; before the “Mona Lisa” our intelligence +is all awake, but the men and women of +Venetian canvases have a grave, indolent serenity, +which accords well with the slumber of thought.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>Up to the beginning of the sixteenth century +the painters of Venice had not differed very +materially from those of other schools; they +had gradually worked out or learned the technicalities +of drawing, perspective and anatomy. +They had been painting in oils for twenty-five +years, and they betrayed a greater fondness for +pageant-pictures than was felt in other States of +Italy. Florence appoints Michelangelo and Leonardo +to decorate her public palace, but no great +store is set by their splendid achievements; their +work is not even completed. The students fall +upon the cartoons, which are allowed to perish, +instead of being treasured by the nation. Gentile +Bellini and Carpaccio and the band of State +painters are appreciated and well rewarded. +These men have reproduced something of the +lucent transparency, the natural colour of Venice, +but it is as if unconsciously; they are not fully +aiming at any special effect. Year after year +the Venetian masters assimilate more or less +languidly the influences which reach them +from the mainland. They welcome Guariento +and Gentile da Fabriano, they set themselves to +learn from Veronese or Florentine, the Paduans +contribute their chiselled drawing, their learned +perspective, their archeological curiosity. Yet +even early in the day the Venetians escape from +that hard and learned art which is so alien +to their easy, voluptuous temperament. Jacopo +Bellini cannot conform to it, and his greatest son +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>is ready to follow feeling and emotion, and in +his old age is quick to discover the first flavour +of the new wine. If Venetian art had gone +on upon the lines we have been tracing up +to now, there would have been nothing very +distinctive about it, for, however interesting and +charming Alvise and Carpaccio, Cima and the +Bellini may be, it is not of them we think when +we speak of the Venetian School and when we +rank it beside that of Florence, while Giovanni +Bellini alone, in his later works, is not strong +enough to bear the burden.</p> + +<p>The change which now comes over painting +is not so much a technical one as a change of +temper, a new tendency in human thought, and +we link it with Giorgione because he was the +channel through which the deep impulse first +burst into the light. We have tried to trace the +growth of the early Venetian School, but it does +not develop logically like that of Florence; it +is not the result of long endeavour, adding one +acquisition and discovery to another. Venetian +art was peculiarly the outcome of personalities, +and it did not know its own mind till the +sixteenth century. Then, like a hidden spring, +it bubbles irresistibly to the surface, and the spot +where it does so is called by the name of a man.</p> + +<p>There are beings in most great creative +epochs who, with peculiar facility, seem to +embody the purpose of their age and to yield +themselves as ready instruments to its design. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>When time is ripe they appear, and are able, +with perfect ease, to carry out and give voice +to the desires and tendencies which have been +straining for expression. These desires may owe +their origin to national life and temperament; +it may have taken generations to bring them to +fruition, but they become audible through the +agency of an individual genius. A genius is +inevitably moulded by his age. Rome, in the +seventeenth century, drew to her in Bernini a +man who could with real power illustrate her +determination to be grandiose and ostentatious, +and, at the height of the Renaissance, Venice +draws into her service a man whose sensuous +feeling was instilled, accentuated, and welcomed +by every element around him.</p> + +<p>More conclusively than ever, at this time, +Venice, the world’s great sea-power, was in her +full glory as the centre of the world’s commerce +and its art and culture. Vasco da Gama had +discovered the sea route to India in 1498, but +the stupendous effect which this was to exert +on the whole current of power did not become +apparent all at once. Venice was still the +great emporium of the East, linked to it by a +thousand ties, Oriental in her love of Eastern +richness.</p> + +<p>It would be exaggerating to say that the +Venetians of the sixteenth century could not +draw. As there were Tuscans who understood +beautiful harmonies of colour, so there were +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>Venetians who knew a good deal about form; +but the other Italians looked upon colour as a +charming adjunct, almost, one might say, as +an amiable weakness: they never would have +allowed that it might legitimately become the +end and aim in painting, and in the same way +form, though respected and considered, was +never the principal object of the Venetians. +Up to this time Venice had fed her emotional +instincts by pageants and gold and velvets and +brocades, but with Giorgione she discovered +that there was a deeper emotional vehicle than +these superficial glories,—glowing depths of +colour enveloped in the mysterious richness of +chiaroscuro which obliterated form, and hid +and suggested more than it revealed.</p> + +<p>Giorgione no longer described “in drawing’s +learned tongue”; he carried all before him +by giving his direct impression in colour. He +conceives in colour. The Florentines cared little +if their finely drawn draperies were blue or +red, but Giorgione images purple clouds, their +dark velvet glowing towards a rose and orange +horizon. He hardly knows what attitudes his +characters take, but their chestnut hair, their +deep-hued draperies, their amber flesh, make a +moving harmony in which the importance of +exact modelling is lost sight of. His scenes are +not composed methodically and according to +the old rules, but are the direct impress of the +painter’s joy in life. It was a new and audacious +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>style in painting, and its keynote, and absolutely +inevitable consequence, was to substitute for +form and for gay, simple tints laid upon it, the +quality of chiaroscuro. We all know how +the shades of evening are able to transform +the most commonplace scene; the dull road +becomes a mysterious avenue, the colourless +foliage develops luscious depths, the drab and +arid plain glows with mellow light, purple +shadows clothe and soften every harsh and ugly +object, all detail dies, and our apprehension of +it dies also. Our mood changes; instead of +observing and criticising, we become soothed, +contemplative, dreamy. It is the carrying of +this profound feeling into a colour-scheme by +means of chiaroscuro, so that it is no longer +learned and explanatory, but deeply sensuous +and emotional, that is the gift to art which +found full voice with Giorgione, and which +in one moment was recognised and welcomed +to the exclusion of the older manner, because +it touched the chord which vibrated through +the whole Venetian temperament.</p> + +<p>And the immediate result was the picture of +<em>no subject</em>. Giorgione creates for us idle figures +with radiant flesh, or robed in rich costumes, +surrounded by lovely country, and we do not ask +or care why they are gathered together. We +have all had dreams of Elysian fields, “where +falls not any rain, nor ever wind blows +loudly,” where all is rest and freedom, where +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>music blends with the plash of fountains, and +fruits ripen, and lovers dream away the days, and +no one asks what went before or what follows +after. The Golden Age, the haunt of fauns and +nymphs: there never has been such a day, or +such a land: it is a mood, a vision: it has +danced before the eyes of poets, from David to +Keats and Tennyson: it has rocked the tired +hearts of men in all ages: the vision of a resting-place +which makes no demands and where the +dwellers are exempt from the cares and weakness +of mortality. Needless to say, it is an ideal born +of the East; it is the Eastern dream of Paradise, +and it speaks to that strain in the temperament +which recognises that life cannot be all thought, +but also needs feeling and emotion. And for the +first time in all the world the painter of Castelfranco +sets that vague dream before men’s eyes. +The world, with its wistful yearnings and questionings, +such as Leonardo or Botticelli embodied, +said little to his audience. Here was their natural +atmosphere, though they had never known it +before. These deep, solemn tones, these fused +and golden lights are what Giorgione grasps +from the material world, and as he steeps his +senses in them the subject counts but little in +the deep enjoyment they communicate. We, +who have seen his manner repeated and developed +through thousands of pictures, find it difficult to +realise that there had been nothing like it before, +that it was a unique departure, that when Bellini +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>and Titian looked at his first creations they must +have experienced a shock of revelation. The +old definite style must have seemed suddenly +hard and meagre, and every time they looked on +the glorious world, the deep glow of sunset, the +mysterious shades of falling night, they must +have felt they were endowed with a sense to +which they had hitherto been strangers, but +which, it was at once apparent, was their true +heritage. They had found themselves, and in +them Venice found her real expression, and +with Giorgione and those who felt his impetus +began the true Venetian School, set apart from +all other forms of art by its way of using and +diffusing and intensifying colour.</p> + +<p>When Giorgione, the son of a member of +the house of Barbarelli and a peasant girl of +Vedelago, came down to Venice, we gather +that he had nothing of the provincial. Vasari, +who must often have heard of him from Titian, +describes him as handsome, engaging, of distinguished +appearance, beloved by his friends, a +favourite with women, fond of dress and amusement, +an admirable musician, and a welcome guest +in the houses of the great. He was evidently +no peasant-bred lad, but probably, though +there is no record of the fact, was brought up, +like many illegitimate children, in the paternal +mansion. His home was not far from the +lagoons, in one of the most beautiful places it is +possible to imagine, on a lovely and fertile plain +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>running up to the Asolean hills and with the +Julian Alps lying behind. We guess that he +received his education in the school of Bellini, +for when that master sold his allegory of the +“Souls in Paradise” to one of the Medici, to +adorn the summer villa of Poggio Imperiale, +there went with it the two small canvases now +in the Uffizi, the “Ordeal of Moses” and the +“Judgment of Solomon,” delightful little +paintings in Giorgione’s rich and distinctive style, +but less accomplished than Bellini’s picture, and +with imperfections in the drawing of drapery +and figures which suggest that they are the +work of a very young man. The love of the +Venetians for decorating the exterior of their +palaces with fresco led to Giorgione being largely +employed on work which was unhappily a +grievous waste of time and talent, as far as +posterity is concerned. We have a record of +façades covered with spirited compositions and +heraldic devices, of friezes with Bacchus and +Mars, Venus and Mercury. Zanetti, in his +seventeenth-century prints, has preserved a noble +figure of “Fortitude” grasping an axe, but beyond +a few fragments nothing has survived. Before +he was thirty Giorgione was entrusted with the +important commission of decorating the Fondaco +dei Tedeschi. This building, which we hear of +so often in connection with the artists of Venice, +was the trading-house for German, Hungarian, +and Polish merchants. The Venetian Government +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>surrounded these merchants with the most +jealous restrictions. Every assistant and servant +connected with them was by law a Venetian, and, +in fact, a spy of the Republic. All transactions +of buying and selling were carried out by Venetian +brokers, of whom some thirty were appointed. +As time went on, some of these brokerships must +have resolved themselves into sinecure offices, +for we find Bellini holding one, and certainly +without discharging any of the original duties, +and they seem to have become some sort of State +retainerships. In 1505 the old Fondaco had been +burnt to the ground, and the present building +was rising when Giorgione and Titian were boys. +A decree went forth that no marble, carving, or +gilding were to be used, so that painting the outside +was the only alternative. The roof was on in +1507, and from that date Giorgione, Titian, and +Morto da Feltre were employed in the adornment +of the façade. Vasari is very much exercised +over Giorgione’s share in these decorations. “One +does not find one subject carefully arranged,” +he complains, “or which follows correctly the +history or actions of ancients or moderns. As for +me, I have never been able to understand the +meaning of these compositions, or have met +any one able to explain them to me. Here one +sees a man with a lion’s head, beside a woman. +Close by one comes upon an angel or a Love: +it is all an inexplicable medley.” Yet he is +delighted with the brilliancy of the colour and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>the splendid execution, and adds, “Colour gives +more pleasure in Venice than anywhere else.”</p> + +<p>Among other early work was the little +“Adoration of the Magi,” in the National +Gallery, and the so-called “Philosophers” at +Vienna. According to the latest reading, this +last illustrates Virgil’s legend that when the +Trojan Æneas arrived in Italy, Evander pointed +out the future site of Rome to the ancient seer +and his son. Giorgione, in painting the scene, +is absorbed in the beauty of nature. It is his +first great landscape, and all accessories have been +sacrificed to intensity of effect. He revels in +the glory of the setting sun, the broad tranquil +masses of foliage, the long evening shadows, +and the effect of dark forms silhouetted against +the radiant light.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>GIORGIONE</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p> + + +<p>When Giorgione was twenty-six he went back +to Castelfranco, and painted an altarpiece for the +Church of San Liberale. In the sixteenth +century Tuzio Costanza, a well-known captain +of Free Companions, who had made his fortune +in the wars, where he had been attached to +Catherine Cornaro, followed the dethroned queen +from Cyprus, and when she retired to Asolo, +settled near her at Castelfranco. His son, +Matteo, entered the service of the Venetian +Republic, and became a leader of fifty lances; but +Matteo was killed at the battle of Ravenna in +1504, and Costanza had his son’s body embalmed +and buried in the family chapel.</p> + +<p>Nothing is known of the details of this +commission, but we are not straining the bounds +of probability by assuming that in a little town +like Castelfranco, hardly more than a village, +the two youths must have been well known to +each other, and that this acquaintance and the +familiarity of the one with the appearance of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>the other may have been the determining cause +which led the bereaved father to give the commission +to the young painter, while the tragic +circumstances were such as would appeal to an +ardent, enthusiastic nature. A treasure of our +National Gallery is a study made by Giorgione +for the figure of San Liberale, who is represented +as a young man with bare head and crisp, golden +locks, dressed in silver armour, copied from the +suit in which Matteo Costanza is dressed in +the stone effigy which is still preserved in the +cemetery at Castelfranco. At the side of the +stone figure lies a helmet, resembling that on the +head of the saint in the altarpiece.</p> + +<p>In Giorgione’s group the Mother and Child +are enthroned on high, with St. Francis and St. +Liberale on either hand. The Child’s glance is +turned upon the soldier-saint, a gallant figure +with his lance at rest, his dagger on his hip, +his gloves in his hand, young, high-bred, with +features of almost feminine beauty. The picture +is conceived in a new spirit of simplicity of +design, and shows a new feeling for restraint in +matters of detail. It is the work of a man who +has observed that early morning, like late evening, +has a marvellous power of eliminating all +unessential accessories and of enveloping every +object in a delicious scheme of light. Repainted, +cleaned, restored as the canvas is, it is still full of +an atmosphere of calm serenity. It is not the +ecstatic, devotional reverie of Perugino’s saints. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>The painter of Castelfranco has not steeped his +whole soul in religious imagination, like the +painter of Umbria; he is an exemplar of the +lyric feeling; his work is a poem in praise of +youth and beauty, and dreams in air and sunshine. +He uses atmosphere to enhance the mood, but +Giorgione carries his unison of landscape with +human feeling much further than Perugino; he +observes the delicate effects of light, and limpid +air circulates in his distance. The sun rising +over the sea throws a glamour and purity of +early morning over a scene meant to glorify +the memory of a young life. The painter +shows his connection with his master by using +the figure of the St. Francis in Bellini’s San +Giobbe altarpiece. What Bellini owed to +Giorgione is still a matter for speculation. The +San Zaccaria altarpiece was, as we have seen, +painted in the year following that of Castelfranco. +Something has incited the old painter to fresh +efforts; out of his own evolution, or stimulated +by his pupil’s splendid experiments, he is drawn +into the golden atmosphere of the Venetian +cinque-cento.</p> + +<p>The Venetian painters were distinguished +by their love for the kindred art of music. +Giorgione himself was an admirable musician, +and linked with all that is akin to music in his +work, is his love for painting groups of people +knit together by this bond. He uses it as a +pastime to bring them into company, and the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>rich chords of colour seem permeated with the +chords of sound. Not always, however, does he +need even this excuse; his “conversation-pieces” +are often merely composed of persons placed with +indescribable grace in exquisite surroundings, +governed by a mood which communicates itself +to the beholder.</p> + +<p>With the Florentines, the cartoon was carefully +drawn upon the wall and flat tints were +superimposed. They knew beforehand what the +effect was to be; but the Venetians from this +time gradually worked up the picture, imbedding +tints, intensifying effects, one touch suggesting +another, till the whole rich harmony was gradually +evoked. With the Florentines, too, the figures +supply the main interest; the background is an +arbitrary addition, placed behind them at the +painter’s leisure, but Giorgione’s and Titian’s <em>fêtes +champêtres</em> and concerts could not <em>be</em> at all in any +other environment. The amber flesh-tints and +the glowing garments are so blended with the +deep tones of the landscape, that one would not +instil the mood the artist desires without the +other. Piero di Cosimo and Pintoricchio can +place delightful nymphs and fairy princesses in +idyllic scenes, and they stir no emotion in us +beyond an observant pleasure, a detached amusement; +but Giorgione’s gloomy blues, his figures +shining through the warm dusk of a summer +evening, waken we hardly know what of vague +yearning and brooding memory.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p><p>In the “Fête Champêtre” of the Louvre he +acquires a frankly sensuous charm. He becomes +riper, richer in feeling, and displays great exuberance +of style. The woman filling her pitcher +at the fountain is exquisite in line and curve and +amber colour. She seems to listen lazily to the +liquid fall of the water mingling with the half-heard +music of the pipes. The beautiful idyll +in the Giovanelli Palace is full of art of composition. +It is built up with uprights; pillars are +formed by the groups of trees and figures, cut +boldly across by the horizontal line of the bridge, +but the figures themselves are put in without +any attention to subject, though an unconscious +humorist has discovered in them the domestic +circle of the painter. The man in Venetian dress +is there to assist the left-hand columnar group, +placed at the edge of the picture after the +manner of Leonardo. The woman and child +lighten the mass of foliage on the right and +make a beautiful pattern. The white town of +Castelfranco sings against the threatening sky, +the winds bluster through the space, the trees +shiver with the coming storm. Here and there +leafy boughs are struck in with a slight, crisp +touch, in which we can follow readily the +painter’s quick impression.</p> + +<p>The “Knight of Malta” is a grand magisterial +figure, majestic, yet full of ardent warmth +lying behind the grave, indifferent nobility. The +face is bisected with shadow, in the way which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto affected, and +the cone-shaped head with parted hair is of +the type which seems particularly to have +pleased the painter. To Giorgione, too, belongs +the honour of having created a Venus as pure as +the Aphrodite of Cnidos and as beautiful as a +courtesan of Titian.</p> + +<p><a name="champ" id="champ"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img169.jpg" width="550" height="436" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Giorgione.</em> FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE. <em>Louvre.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Alinari.</em>)</p> + +<p>The death of Giorgione from plague in 1511 +is registered by all the oldest authorities. His +body was conveyed to Castelfranco by members +of the Barbarelli family and buried in the Church +of San Liberale. In 1638 an epitaph was placed +over his tomb by Matteo and Ercole Barbarelli.</p> + +<p>Allowing that he was hardly more than +twenty when his new manner began to gain a +following, he had only some twelve years in +which to establish his deep and lasting influence. +We divine that he was a man of strong personality, +such a one as warms and stimulates his +companions. Even his nickname tells us something,—Great +George, the Chief, the George of +Georges,—it seems to express him as a leader. +And we have no lack of proof that he was +admired and looked up to. His style became +the only one that found favour in Venice, and +the painters of the day did their best to conform +to it. Few authentic examples are left from his +own hand, but out of his conscious and devoted +and more or less successful imitators, there grew +up a school, “out of all those fascinating works, +rightly or wrongly attributed to him; out of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>many copies from, or variations on him, by +unknown or uncertain workmen, whose drawings +and designs were, for various reasons, prized as +his; out of the immediate impression he made +upon his contemporaries and with which he +continued in men’s minds; out of many traditions +of subject and treatment which really +descend from him to our own time, and by +retracing which we fill out the original image.”</p> + +<p>Summing up all these influences, he has left +us the Giorgionesque; the art of choosing a +moment in which the subject and the elements +of colour and design are so perfectly fused and +blended that we have no need to ask for any +more articulate story; a moment into which +all the significance, the fulness of existence has +condensed itself, so that we are conscious of the +very essence of life. Those idylls of beings +wrapped into an ideal dreamland by music +and the sound of water and the beauty of +wood and mountain and velvet sward, need all +our conscious apprehension of life if we are +to drink in their full fascination. The dream +of the Lotos-eaters can only come with force to +those who can contrast it adequately with the +experience, the complication, and the thousand +distractions of an over-civilised world. Rest and +relaxation, the power of the deeply tinted eventide, +or of the fresh morning light, and the calm +that drinks in the sensations they are able to +afford, are among the precious things of life. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>The instinct upon which Giorgione’s work rests +is the satisfying of the feeling as well as the +thinking faculty, the life of the heart, as compared +to the life of the intellect, the solution of +life’s problems by love instead of by thought. +It was the Eastern ideal, and its positive expression +is conveyed by means of colour, deep, +restful, satisfying, fused and controlled by +chiaroscuro rather than by form.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Man.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Buda-Pesth.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Man.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Castelfranco.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Madonna with SS. Francis and Liberale.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Sleeping Venus.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Trial of Moses (E.); Judgment of Solomon (E.); Knight of Malta.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">A Shepherd.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Roch and Anthony of Padua.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Fête Champêtre.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Portrait of a Lady.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Seminario: Apollo and Daphne.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Giovanelli: Gipsy and Soldier.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">San Rocco: Christ bearing Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Boston.</td> <td class="td5">Mrs. Gardner: Christ bearing Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Sketch of a Knight; Adoration of Shepherds.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Viscount Allendale: Adoration of Shepherds.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Evander showing Æneas the Future Site of Rome.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE GIORGIONESQUE</strong></p> + + +<p>Giorgione had given the impulse, and all the +painters round him felt his power. The Venetian +painters that is, for it is remarkable, at a +time when the men of one city observed and +studied and took hints from those of every other, +how faint are the signs that this particular +manner attracted any great attention in other +art centres. Leonardo da Vinci was a master of +chiaroscuro, but he used it only to express his +forms, and never sacrifices to it the delicacy +and fineness of his design. It is the one quality +Raphael never assimilates, except for a brief +instant at the period when Sebastian del Piombo +had arrived in Rome from Venice. It takes hold +most strongly upon Andrea del Sarto, who seems, +significantly enough, to have had no very pronounced +intellectual capacity, but in Venice itself +it now became the only way. The old Bellini +finds in it his last and fullest ideal; Catena, +Basaiti, Cariani do their best to acquire it, and so +successfully was it acquired, so congenial was it +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>to Venetian art, that even second- and third-rate +Venetian painters have usually something attractive +which triumphs over superficial and doubtful +drawing and grouping. It is easy to see how +much to their taste was this fused and golden +manner, this disregard of defined form, and this +new play of chiaroscuro. The Venetian room +in the National Gallery is full of such examples: +the Nymphs and <em>Amoretti</em> of No. 1695, charming +figures against melting vines and olives; “Venus +and Adonis,” in which a bewitching Cupid +chases a butterfly; Lovers in a landscape, roaming +in the summer twilight; scenes in which +neither person nor scenery is a pretext for the +other, but each has its full share in arousing the +desired emotion. Such pictures are ascribed to, +or taken from Giorgione by succeeding critics, +but have all laid hold of his charm, and have +some share in his inspiration.</p> + +<p>One of the ablest of his followers, a man whose +work is still confounded with the master’s, is +Cariani, the Bergamasque, who at different times +in his life also successfully imitated Palma and +Lotto. In his Giorgionesque manner Cariani often +creates charming figures and strong portraits, +though he pushes his colour to a coarse, excessive +tone. His family group in the Roncalli Collection +at Bergamo is very close to Giorgione. Seven +persons, three women and four men, are grouped +together upon a terrace, and behind them +stretches a calm landscape, half concealed by a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>brocaded hanging. The effect of the whole is +restful, though it lacks Giorgione’s concentration +of sensation. Then, again, Cariani flies off to the +gayer, more animated style of Lotto. Later on, +when he tries to reproduce Giorgione’s pastoral +reveries, his shepherds and nymphs become mere +peasants, herdsmen, and country wenches, who +have nothing of the idyllic distinction which +Giorgione never failed to infuse. “The +Adulteress before Christ” at Glasgow still bears +the greater name, but its short, vulgar figures +and faulty composition disclaim his authorship, +while Cariani is fully capable of such failings, +and the exaggerated, red-brown tone is quite +characteristic of him.</p> + +<p>These painters are more than merely imitative; +they are also typical. Giorgione’s new manner +had appealed to some quality inherent and +hereditary in their nature, and the essential traits +they single out and dwell upon are the traits +which appeal equally to the instincts of both. +It is this which makes their efforts more sympathetic +than those of other second-rate painters. +Colour, or rather the peculiar way in which +Giorgione used colour, made a natural appeal to +them, and it is a medium which does make an +immediate appeal and covers a multitude of shortcomings.</p> + +<p>But Giorgione was not to leave his message +to the mercy of mere disciples and imitators, +however apt. Growing up around him were +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>men to whom that message was an inspiration +and a trumpet-call, men who were to develop and +deepen it, endowing it with their own strength, +recognising that the way which the young +pioneer of Castelfranco had pointed out was the +one into which they could unhesitatingly pour +their whole inclination. The instinct for colour +was in their very blood. They turned to it with +the heart-whole delight with which a bird seeks +the air or a fish the water, and foremost among +them, to create and to consolidate, was the +mighty Titian.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Cariani.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Woman and Shepherd; Portraits; Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Morelli: Madonna (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Roncalli Collection: Family Group.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Adoration of Shepherds (L.); Venus (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Death of S. Peter Martyr (L.); Madonna and Saints (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna and Saints (L.); Madonna (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ambrosiana: Way to Golgotha.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.); Holy Family and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Sleeping Venus; Madonna and S. Peter.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family; Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Christ bearing Cross; The “Bravo.”</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>School of Giorgione.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Unknown subject; Adoration of Shepherds; Venus and Adonis; + Landscape, with Nymphs and Cupids; The Garden of Love.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mr. Benson. Lovers and Pilgrim.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>TITIAN</strong></p> + + +<p>The mountains of Cadore are not always visible +from Venice, but there they lie, behind the mists, +and in the clear shining after rain, in the golden +eventide of autumn, and on steel-cold winter +days they stand out, lapis-lazuli blue or deep +purple, or, like Shelley’s enchanted peaks, in +sharp-cut, beautiful shapes rising above billowy +slopes. Cadore is a land of rich chestnut woods, +of leaping streams, of gleams and glooms, sudden +storms and bursts of sunshine. It is an order of +scenery which enters deep into the affections of +its sons, and we can form some idea of the hold +its mingling of wild poetry and sensuous softness +obtained over the mind of Titian from the fact +that in after years, while he never exerts himself +to paint the city in which he lived and in which +all his greatest triumphs were gained, he is uniformly +constant to his mountain home, enters +into its spirit and interprets its charm with warm +and penetrating insight.</p> + +<p>The district formed part of the dependencies +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>of the great republic, and relied upon Venice for +its safety, its distinction, and in great measure +for its employment. The small craftsmen and +artists from all the country round looked forward +to going down to seek their fortune at her hands. +They tacked the name of their native town to +their own name, and were drawn into the +magnificent life of the city of the sea, and came +back from time to time with stories of her art, +her power, and beauty.</p> + +<p>The Vecelli had for generations held honourable +posts in Cadore. The father and grandfather +of the young Tiziano were influential +men, and with his brother and sisters he must +have been brought up in comfort. There are +even traditions of noble birth, and it is evident +that Titian was always a gentleman, though this +did not prevent his being educated as a craftsman, +and when he was only ten years old he +was sent down to Venice to be apprenticed to +a mosaicist.</p> + +<p>It was a changing Venice to which Titian +came as a boy; changing in its life, its social +and political conditions, and its art was faithfully +registering its aspirations and tastes. More +than at any previous time, it was calculated +to impress a youth to whom it had been held up +as the embodiment of splendid sovereignty, and +the difference between the little hill-town set in +the midst of its wild solitudes and the brilliant +city of the sea must have been dazzling and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>bewildering. A new sense of intellectual luxury +had awakened in the great commercial centre. +The Venetian love of splendour was displaying +itself by the encouragement and collection of +objects of art, and both ancient and modern +works were in increasing request. On Gentile +Bellini’s and Carpaccio’s canvases we see the sort +of people the Venetians were, shrewd, quiet, +splendour-loving, but business-like, the young +men fashionably dressed, fastidious connoisseurs, +splendid patrons of art and of religion. Buyers +were beginning to find out what a delightful +decoration the small picture made, and that it +was as much in place in their own halls as over +the altar of a chapel. The portrait, too, was +gaining in importance, and the idea of making it +a pleasure-giving picture, even more than a faithful +transcript, was gathering ground. The +“Procession of the Relic” was still in Gentile’s +studio, but the Frari “Madonna and Child” +was just installed in its place. Carpaccio was +beginning his long series of St. Ursula, and the +Bellini and Vivarini were in keen rivalship.</p> + +<p>Titian is said to have passed from the <em>bottega</em> +of Gentile to that of Giovanni Bellini, but +nothing in his style reminds us of the former, +and even his early work has very little that is +really Bellinesque, whereas from the very first +he reflects the new spirit which emanated from +Giorgione. Titian was a year the elder, and +we can divine the sympathy that arose between +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>the two when they came together in Bellini’s +School. As soon as their apprenticeship was at +an end they became partners. Fond of pleasure +and gaiety, loving splendour, dress, and amusement, +they were naturally congenial companions, +and were drawn yet more closely together by +their love for their art and by the aptitude with +which Titian grasped Giorgione’s principles.</p> + +<p>And if we ask ourselves why we take for +granted that of two young men so closely allied +in age and circumstance we accept Giorgione +as the leader and the creator of the new style, +we may answer that Titian was a more complex +character. He was intellectual, and carried his +intellect into his art, but this was no new +feature. The intellect had had and was having +a large share in art. But in that part which was +new, and which was launching art upon an +untried course, Giorgione is more intense, more +one-idea’d than Titian. What he does he does +with a fervour and a spontaneity that marks him +as one who pours out the language of the heart.</p> + +<p>The partnership between the two was probably +arranged a few years before the end of the +century, for we have seen that young painters +usually started on their own account at about +nineteen or twenty. For some years Titian, like +Giorgione, was engrossed by the decorations of +the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The groups of +figures described by Zanetti in 1771 show us +that while Giorgione made some attempt at +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>following classic figures, Titian broke entirely +with Greek art and only thought of picturesque +nature and contemporary costume.</p> + +<p>Vasari complains that he never knew what +Titian’s “Judith” was meant to represent, +“unless it was Germania,” but Zanetti, who had +the benefit of Sebastiano Ricci’s taste, declares +that from what he saw, both Giorgione and +Titian gave proofs of remarkable skill. “While +Giorgione showed a fervid and original spirit +and opened up a new path, over which he shed +a light that was to guide posterity, Titian was +of a grander and more equable genius, leaning +at first, indeed, upon Giorgione’s example, but +expanding with such force and rapidity as to +place him in advance of his companion, on an +eminence to which no later craftsman was +able to climb.... He moderated the fire of +Giorgione, whose strength lay in fanciful movement +and a mysterious artifice in disposing +shadows, contrasted darkly with warm lights, +blended, strengthened, blurred, so as to produce +the semblance of exuberant life.” Certain works +remain to link the two painters; even now +critics are divided as to which of the two to +attribute the “Concert” in the Pitti. The +figures are Giorgionesque, but the technique +establishes it as an early Titian, and it is doubtful +whether Giorgione would be capable of the +intellectual effort which produced the dreamy, +passionate expression of the young monk, borne +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>far out of himself by his own melody, and half +recalled to life by the touch on his shoulder. +Titian, like Giorgione, was a musician, and the +fascination of music is felt by many masters +of the Italian schools. In one picture the player +feels vaguely after the melody, in another we are +asked to anticipate the song that is just about +to begin, or the last chords of that just finished +vibrate upon the ear, but nowhere else in all art +has any one so seized the melody of an instant +and kept its fulness and its passion sounding in +our ears as this musician does.</p> + +<p>Though we cannot say that Titian was the +pupil of any one master, the fifteen years, more +or less, that he spent with Giorgione left an +indelible impression upon him. We have only +to look at such a picture as the “Madonna and +Child with SS. John Baptist and Antony Abate,” +in the Uffizi, an early work, to recollect that +in 1503 Giorgione at Castelfranco had taken +the Madonna from her niche in the sanctuary +and had enthroned her on high in a bright +and sunny landscape with S. Liberale standing +sentinel at her feet, like a knight guarding his +liege lady.</p> + +<p>Titian in this early group casts every convention +aside; a beautiful woman and lovely +children are placed in surroundings whose charm +is devoid of hieratic and religious significance. +The same easy unfettered treatment appears in +the “Madonna with the Cherries” at Vienna, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>and the “Madonna with St. Bridget and S. +Ulfus” at Madrid, and while it has been surmised +that the example of the precise Albert +Dürer, who paid his first visit to Venice in +1506, was not without its effect in preserving +Titian from falling into laxity of treatment and +in inciting him to fine finish, it is interesting +to find that Titian was, in fact, discarding +the use of the carefully traced and transferred +cartoon, and was sketching his design freely on +panel or canvas with a brush dipped in brown +pigment, and altering and modifying it as he +went on.</p> + +<p>The last years of Titian’s first period in +Venice must have been anxious ones. The +Emperor Maximilian was attacking the Venetian +possessions on the mainland, in anger at a refusal +to grant his troops a free passage on their way +to uphold German supremacy in Central Italy. +Cadore was the first point of his invasion, and +from 1507 Titian’s uncle and great-uncle were +in the Councils of the State, his father held an +important command, and his brother Francesco, +who had already made some progress as an +artist, threw down his brush and became a +soldier. Titian was not one of those who took +up arms, but his thoughts must have been full +of the attack and defence in his mountain +fastnesses, and he must have anxiously awaited +news of his father’s troops and of the squadrons +of Maso of Ferrara, under whose colours +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>Francesco was riding. Francesco made a reputation +as a distinguished soldier, and was severely +wounded, and when peace was made, Titian, +“who loved him tenderly,” persuaded him to +return to the pursuit of art.</p> + +<p>The ratification of the League of Cambray, in +which Julius II., Maximilian, and Ferdinand of +Naples combined against the power of Venice, was +disastrous for a time to the city and to the artists +who depended upon her prosperity. Craftsmen +of all kinds first fled to her for shelter, then, as +profits and orders fell off, they left to look elsewhere +for commissions. An outbreak of plague, +in which Giorgione perished, went further to +make Venice an undesirable home, and at this +time Sebastian del Piombo left for Rome, Lotto +for the Romagna, and Titian for Padua.</p> + +<p>We may believe that Titian never felt +perfectly satisfied with fresco-painting as a craft, +for when he was given a commission to fresco +the halls of the Santo, the confraternity of +St. Anthony, patron-saint of Padua, he threw off +beautifully composed and spirited drawings, but +he left the execution of them chiefly to assistants, +among whom the feeble Domenico Campagnola, +a painter whom he probably picked up at Padua, +is conspicuous. Even where the landscape is +best, as in “S. Anthony restoring a Youth,” the +drawing and composition only make us feel how +enchanting the scene would have been in oils +on one of Titian’s melting canvases. In those +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>frescoes which he executed himself while his +interest was still fresh, the “Miracle which +grants Speech to an Infant” is the most Giorgionesque. +Up to this time he had preserved the +straight-cut corsage and the actual dress of his +contemporaries, after the practice of Giorgione; +he keeps, too, to his companion’s plan of design, +placing the most important figures upon one +plane, close to the frame and behind a low wall +or ledge which forms a sort of inner frame and +with a distant horizon. In the Paduan frescoes +he makes use of this plan, and the straight +clouds, the spindly trees, and the youths in gay +doublets are all reminiscent of his early comrade, +but the group of women to the left in the +“Miracle of the Child” shows that Titian is +beginning more decidedly to enunciate his own +type. The introduction of portraits proves that +he was tending to rely largely upon nature, in +contradistinction to Giorgione’s lyrically improvised +figures. He fuses the influence of +Giorgione and the influence of Antonello da +Messina and the Bellini in a deeper knowledge +of life and nature, and he is passing beyond +Giorgione in grasp and completeness. When +he was able to return to Venice, which he did in +1512, a temporary peace having been concluded +with Maximilian, he abandoned the uncongenial +medium of fresco for good, and devoted himself +to that which admitted of the afterthoughts, +the enrichments, the gradual attainment of an +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>exquisite surface, and at this time his works are +remarkable for their brilliant gloss and finish.</p> + +<p>During the next twelve years we may group +a number of paintings which, taken in conjunction +with those of Giorgione, show the +true Venetian School at its most intense, idyllic +moment. They are the works of a man in the +pride of youth and strength, sane and healthy, +an example of the confident, sanguine, joyous +temper of his age, capable of embodying its +dominant tendencies, of expressing its enjoyment +of life, its worldly-mindedness, its love of +pleasure, as well as its noble feeling and its +grave and magnificent purpose.</p> + +<p>For absolute delight in colour let us turn to +a picture like the “Noli me tangere” of the +National Gallery. The golden light, the blues +and olives of the landscape, the crimson of the +Magdalen’s raiment, combine in a feast of +emotional beauty, emphasising the feeling of +the woman, whose soul is breathed out in the +word “Master.” The colour unites with the +light and shadow, is embedded in it; and we +can see Titian’s delight in the ductile medium +which had such power to give material sensation. +In these liquid crimsons, these deep greens and +shoaling blues, the velvety fulness and plenitudes +of the brush become visible; we can look into +their depths and see something quite unlike the +smooth, opaque washes of the Florentines.</p> + +<p>In such a masterpiece as “Sacred and Profane +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>Love,” painted during these years for the Borghese, +there are summed up all those artistic aims +towards which the Venetian painters had been +tending. The picture is still Giorgionesque in +mood. It may represent, as Dr. Wickhoff +suggests, Venus exhorting Medea to listen to the +love-suit of Jason; but the subject is not forced +upon us, and we are more occupied with the +contrast between the two beautiful personalities, +so harmoniously related to each other, yet so +opposed in type. The gracious, self-absorbed +lady, with her softly dressed hair, her loose glove, +her silvery satin dress, is a contrast in look and +spirit to the goddess whose free, simple attitude +and outward gaze embody the nobler ideal. The +sinuous and enchanting line of Venus’s figure +against the crimson cloak has, I think, been the +outcome of admiration for Giorgione’s “Sleeping +Venus,” and has the same soft, unhurried curves. +Titian’s two figures are perfectly spaced in a +setting which breathes the very aroma of the +early Renaissance. A bas-relief on the marble +fountain represents nymphs whipping a sleeping +Love to life, while a cupid teases the +chaste unicorn. A delicious baby Love splashes +in the water, fallen rose-leaves strew the +mellow marble rim, around and away stretches +a sunny country scene, in which people are +placidly pursuing a life of ease and pleasure. +What a revelation to Venice these pictures were +which began with Giorgione’s conversaziones! +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>How little occupied the women are with the +story. Venus does not argue, or check off reasons +on her fingers, like S. Ursula. Medea is listening +to her own thoughts, but the whole scene +is bathed in the suggestion of the joy and +happiness of love. The little censer burning +away in the blue and breathless air might be a +philtre diffusing sensuous dreams, and when the +rays of the evening sun strike the picture, +where it now hangs, and bring out each touch +of its glowing radiance, it seems to palpitate +with the joy of life and to thrill with the +magic of summer in the days when the world +was young.</p> + +<p>With the influence still lingering of Giorgione’s +“Knight of Malta,” Titian produced some of his +finest portraits in the decade that led to the +middle of his life. The “Dr. Parma” at Vienna, +the noble “Man in Black” and “Man with a +Glove” of the Louvre, the “Young Englishman” +of the Pitti, with his keen blue eyes, the +portrait at Temple Newsam, which, with some +critics, still passes as a Giorgione, are all examples +in which he keeps the half-length, invented by +Bellini and followed by Giorgione.</p> + +<p>After the visit to Padua he shows less preference +for costume, and his women are generally +clothed in a loose white chemise, rather than +the square-cut bodice.</p> + +<p>We do not wonder that all the leading +personages of Italy wished to be painted by +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>Titian. His are the portraits of a man of +intellect. They show the subject at his best; +grave, cultivated, stately, as he appeared and +wished to appear; not taken off his guard in +any way. What can be more sympathetic as a +personality than the Ariosto of the National +Gallery? We can enter into his mind and make +a friend of him, and yet all the time he has +himself in hand; he allows us to divine as much +as he chooses, and draws a thin veil over all that +he does not intend us to discover. The painter +himself is impersonal and not over-sensitive; he +does not paint in his own fancies about his +sitter—probably he had none; he saw what he was +meant to see. There was what Mr. Berenson +calls “a certain happy insensibility” about him, +which prevented him from taking fantastic +flights, or from looking too deep below the +surface.</p> + +<p><a name="aris" id="aris"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;"> +<img src="images/img191.jpg" width="428" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Titian.</em> ARIOSTO. <em>London.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Mansell and Co.</em>)</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>TITIAN</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p> + + +<p>With the “Assumption,” finished in 1518 for +the Church of the Frari, Titian rose to the +very highest among Renaissance painters. The +“Glorious S. Mary” was his theme, and he +concentrated all his efforts on the realisation of +that one idea. The central figure is, as it +were, a collective rather than an individual +type. Well proportioned and elastic as it is, +it has the abundance of motherhood. Harmonious +and serene, it combines dramatic force and +profound feeling. Exultant Humanity, in its +hour of triumph, rises with her, borne up lightly +by that throbbing company of child angels and +followed by full recognition and awestruck satisfaction +in the adoring gaze of the throng below, +yet Titian has contrived to keep some touch of +the loving woman hurrying to meet her son. +The flood of colour, the golden vault above, the +garment of glowing blues and crimsons, have +a more than common share in that spirit of +confident joy and poured-out life which envelops +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>the whole canvas. In the worthy representation +of a great event, the visible assumption of +Humanity to the Throne of God, Titian puts +forth all his powers and steeps us in that temper +of sanguine emotion, of belief in life and confidence +in the capacity of man, which was so +characteristic of the ripe Renaissance. In looking +at this splendid canvas, we must call to +mind the position for which Titian painted it. +Hung in the dusky recesses of the apse, it was +tempered by and merged in its stately surroundings. +The band of Apostles almost formed +a part of the whispering crowd below, and the +glorious Mother was beheld soaring upwards to +the golden light and the mysterious vistas of +the vaulted arches above.</p> + +<p>The patronage of courts had by this time +altered the tenor of Titian’s life. In 1516 +Duke Alfonso d’Este had invited him to Ferrara, +where he had finished Bellini’s “Bacchanals.” +It bears the marks of Titian’s hand, and he has +introduced a well-known point of view at Cadore +into the background. In 1518 Alfonso writes +to propose another painting, and Titian’s acceptance +is contained in a very courtier-like letter, +in which we divine a touch of irony. “The +more I thought of it,” he ends, “the more I +became convinced that the greatness of art +among the ancients was due to the assistance +they received from great princes, who were +content to leave to the painter the credit and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>renown derived from their own ingenuity in +bespeaking pictures.” Alfonso’s requirements +for his new castle were frankly pagan. Mythological +scenes were already popular. Mantegna +had adorned Isabela d’Este’s “Paradiso” with +revels of the gods, Botticelli had given his conception +of classic myth in the Medici villa, already +Bellini had essayed a Bacchanal, and Titian was +to make designs for similar scenes to complete +the decorations of the halls of Este. The same +exuberant feeling he shows in the “Assumption” +finds utterance in the “Garden of Loves” and +the “Bacchanals,” both painted for Alfonso of +Ferrara. The children in the former may be +compared with the angels in the “Assumption.” +Their blue wings match the heavenly blue sky, +and they are painted with the most delicate finish.</p> + +<p>We can imagine the beauty of the great +hall at Ferrara when hung with this brilliant +series, which was completed in 1523 by the +“Bacchus and Ariadne” of the National Gallery. +The whole company of bacchanals is given up +to wanton merrymaking. Above them broods +the deep blue sky and great white clouds of a +summer day. The deep greens of the foliage +throw the creamy-white and burning colour of +the draperies and the fair forms of the nymphs +into glowing relief, while by a convention +the satyrs are of a deep, tawny complexion. +On a roll of music is stamped the rollicking +device, “<em>Chi boit et ne reboit, ne sçeais que boir soit</em>.” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>The purple fruit hangs ripened from the vines, +its crimson juice shines like a jewel in crystal +goblets and drips in streams over rosy limbs. +The influence of such pictures as these was +absorbed by Rubens, but though they hardly +surpass him in colour, they are more idyllic and +less coarse. The perfect taste of the Renaissance +is never shown more victoriously than here, +where indulgence ceases to be repulsive, and the +actors are real flesh and blood, yet more Arcadian +than revolting. In the “Bacchus and Ariadne,” +Titian gives triumphant expression to a mood +of wild rejoicing, so gay, so good-tempered, so +simple, that we must smile in sympathy. The +conqueror flinging himself from his golden +chariot drawn by panthers, his deep red mantle +fluttering on high, is so full of reckless life that +our spirit bounds with him. His rioting band, +marching with song and laughter, seems to +people that golden country-side with fit inhabitants. +The careless satyrs and little merry, +goat-legged fauns shock us no more than a herd +of forest ponies, tossing their manes and dashing +along for love of life and movement.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Yet almost +before this series was put in place Titian was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>showing the diversity of his genius by the +“Deposition,” now in the Louvre, which was +painted at the instance of the Gonzaga, Marquis +of Mantua and nephew of Alfonso d’Este. Here +he makes a great step in the use of chiaroscuro. +While it is satisfying in balance and sweeping +rhythm, and by the way in which every line +follows and intensifies the helpless, slackened +lines of the dead Body, it escapes Raphael’s +academic treatment of the same subject. Its +splendid colours are not noisy; they merge into +a scene of solemn pathos and tragedy. The +scene has a simplicity and unity in its passion, +and what above all gives it its intense power is +the way in which the flaming hues are absorbed +into the twilight shadows. The dark heads +stand out against the dying sunset, the pallor +of the dead is half veiled by the falling night. +It is a picture which has the emotional beauty +of a scene in nature, and makes a profound +impression by its depth and mystery. This +same solemnity and gravity temper the brilliant +colouring of the great altarpiece painted for +the Pesaro family in the Frari. Columns rise +like great tree-trunks, light and air play through +the clouds seen between them. The grouping +is a new experiment, but the way in which +the Mother and Child, though placed quite at +one side of the picture, are focussed as the +centre of interest, by the converging lines, +diagonal on the one hand and straight on the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>other, crowns it with success. The scheme of +colour brings the two figures into high relief, +while St. Francis and the family of the donor +are subordinated to rich, deep tints. Titian has +abandoned, more completely than ever before, +any attempt to invest the Child with supernatural +majesty. He is a delightful, spoiled baby, fully +aware of his sovereignty over his mother, pretending +to take no notice of the kneeling suppliants, +but occupying himself in making a tent +over his head out of her veil. The “Madonna +in Glory with six Saints” of the Vatican is +another example of the rich and “smouldering” +colour in which Titian was now creating his great +altarpieces, kneading his pigments into a quality, +a solidity, which gives reality without heaviness, +and finishing with that fine-grained texture +which makes his flesh look like marble endowed +with life.</p> + +<p><a name="diana" id="diana"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img198.jpg" width="550" height="492" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Titian.</em> DIANA AND ACTAEON. <em>Earl Brownlow.</em><br /> +(<em>The Medici Society, Ltd.</em>)</p> + +<p>Venuses, altarpieces, and portraits all tell us +how boldly his own style was established. His +sacred persons are not different from his pagans +and goddesses. Yet though he has gone far, he +still reminds us of Giorgione. He has been +constant to the earliest influences which +surrounded him, and to that temperament which +made him accept those influences so +instantaneously—and this constancy and unity give +him the untroubled ascendancy over art which +is such a feature of his position.</p> + +<p>With Leonardo and with Titian, painters had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>sprung to a recognised status in the great world +of the Renaissance. They were no longer the +patronised craftsmen. They had become the +courted guests, the social equals. Titian, passing +from the courts of Ferrara to those of Mantua +and Urbino, attended by a band of assistants, +was a magnificent personage, whose presence +was looked upon as a favour, and who undertook +a commission as one who conferred a coveted +boon. Among those who clustered closest round +the popular favourite, no one did more to +enhance his position than Aretino, the brilliant +unscrupulous debauchee, wit, bully, blackmailer, +but a man who, with all his faults, had evidently +his own power of fascination, and, the friend of +princes, must have been himself the prince of +good company. Aretino, as far as he could be +said to be attached to any one, was consistent in +his attachment to Titian from the time they +first met at the court of the Gonzaga. He +played the part of a chorus, calling attention to +the great painter’s merits, jogging the memory +of his employers as to payments, and never +ceasing to flatter, amuse, and please him. Titian, +for his part, shows himself equally devoted to +Aretino’s interests, and has left various characteristic +portraits of him, handsome and showy in +his prime, sensual and depraved as age overtook +him.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1528 the confraternity of +St. Peter Martyr invited artists to send in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>sketches for an altarpiece to their patron-saint, +in SS. Giovanni and Paolo, to replace an old one +by Jacobello del Fiore. Palma Vecchio and +Pordenone also competed, but Titian carried off +the prize. The picture was delivered in 1530, +and during the autumn of 1529 Sebastian del +Piombo had returned to Venice from Rome, and +Michelangelo had sought refuge there from +Florence and had stayed for some months. A +quarrel with the monks over the price had delayed +the picture, so that it may quite probably have +only been begun after intercourse with the +Roman visitors had given a fresh turn to Titian’s +ideas; for though he never ceases to be himself, +it certainly seems as if the genius of Michelangelo +had had some effect. From what we +know of the altarpiece, which perished by fire +in 1867, but of which a good copy by Cigoli +remains, Titian embarked suddenly upon forms +of Herculean strength in violent action, but +there his likeness to the Florentine ended; +the figures were, indeed, drawn with a deep, +though not altogether successful, attention to +anatomy and foreshortening, but the picture +obtained its effect and derived its impressiveness +from the setting in which the figures were +placed—the great trees, bending and straining, +the hurrying clouds, as if nature were in +portentous harmony with the sinister deed, and +overhead the enchanting gleam of light which +shot downward and irradiated the face of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>martyr and the two lovely winged boys, bathed +in a flood of blue æther, who held aloft the palm +of victory. Many copies of it remain, and we +only regret that one which Rubens executed is +not preserved among them.</p> + +<p>When we look at the delicious “Madonna del +Coniglio” in the Louvre and our own “Marriage +of S. Catherine,” the first of which certainly, and +the second probably, was painted about this time, +we cannot doubt that the charm of the idea +of motherhood had particularly arrested the +painter. About 1525 his first son, Pomponio, +was born, and was followed by another son and +a daughter. In the S. Catherine he paints that +passion of mother-love with an intensity and +reality that can only be drawn from life, and +on the wheel at her feet he has inscribed his +name, Ticianus, F. His feeling for landscape is +increasing, and the landscape in these pictures +equals the figures in importance and has engrossed +the painter quite as much. Every year +Titian paid a visit to Cadore, and in the rich +woodlands, the distant villages, the great white +villa on the hill-side, and, above all, in the far-off +blue mountains and the glooms and gleams of +storm and sunshine, the sudden dart of rays +through the summer clouds, which he has +painted here, we see how constant was his study +of his native country, and how profoundly he +felt its poetry and its charm. He had married +Cecilia, the daughter of a barber belonging to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>Perarolo, a little town near Cadore. In 1530 +she died, and he mourned her deeply. He +went on working and planning for his children’s +future, and his sister came from Cadore to take +charge of the motherless household; but his +friends’ letters speak of his being ill from melancholy, +and he could not go on living in the +old house at San Samuele, which had been his +home for sixteen years. He took a new house +on the north side of the city, in the parish of +San Canciano. The Casa Grande, as it was +called, was a building of importance, which the +painter first hired and finally bought, letting off +such apartments as he did not need. The first +floor had a terrace, and was entered by a flight +of steps from the garden, which overlooked the +lagoons, and had a view of the Cadore mountains. +It has been swept away by the building of the +Fondamenta Nuove, but the documents of the +leases are preserved, and the exact site is well +established. Here his children grew up, and he +worked for them unceasingly. Pomponio, his +eldest son, was idle and extravagant, a constant +source of trouble, and Aretino writes him reproachful +letters, which he treats with much +impertinence. Orazio took to his father’s profession, +and was his constant companion, and often +drew his cartoons; and his beautiful daughter, +Lavinia, was his greatest joy and pride. In this +house Titian showed constant hospitality, and +there are records of the princely fashion in which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>he entertained his friends and distinguished +foreign visitors. Priscianese, a well-known +Humanist and <em>savant</em> of the day, describes a +Bacchanalian feast on the 1st of August, in a +pleasant garden belonging to Messer Tiziano +Vecellio. Aretino, Sansovino, and Jacopo Nardi +were present. Till the sun set they stayed indoors, +admiring the artist’s pictures. “As soon as +it went down, the tables were spread, looking on +the lagoons, which soon swarmed with gondolas +full of beautiful women, and resounded with +music of voices and instruments, which till +midnight, accompanied our delightful supper. +Titian gave the most delicate viands and precious +wines, and the supper ended gaily.”</p> + +<p>In the year 1532 Titian for the first time +sought other than Italian patronage. Charles V., +who was then at the height of his power, with +all Italy at his feet, passed through Mantua, +and among all the treasures that he saw was +most struck by Titian’s portrait of Federigo +Gonzaga. After much writing to and fro, it was +arranged that Titian should meet the Emperor +at Bologna, where he had just been crowned. +He made his first sketch of him, from which he +afterwards produced a finished full length. It +was the first of many portraits, and Vasari declares +that from that time forth Charles would never sit +to any other master. He received a knighthood, +and many commissions from members of the +Emperor’s court. It was for one of his nobles, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>da Valos, Marquis of Vasto, that he painted the +allegorical piece in the Louvre, in which Mary +of Arragon, the lovely wife of da Valos, is +parting with her husband, who is bound on one +of the desperate expeditions against the terrible +Turks. Da Valos is dressed in armour, and the +couple are encircled by Hymen, Victory, and +the God of Love. The composition was repeated +more than once, but never with quite the same +success. We again suspect the influence of +Michelangelo in the altarpiece painted before +Titian next left Venice, of St. John the Almsgiver, +for the Church of that name, of which the Doge +was patron. The figures are life-size, the types +stern and rugged, daringly foreshortened, and +the colours, though gorgeous, are softened and +broken by broad effects of light and shade. It +is painted in a solemn mood, a contrast to that +in which about this time he produced a series of +beautiful female portraits, nude or semi-nude, +chiefly, it would appear, at the instance of the +Duke of Urbino. The Duke at this time was +the General-in-Chief of the Venetian forces, a +position which took him often to Venice, and +Titian’s relations with him lasted till the painter’s +death. At least twenty-five of his works must +have adorned the castles of Urbino and Pesaro. +Among these were the Venus of the Uffizi, “La +Bella di Tiziano,” in her gorgeous scheme of +blue and amethyst, the “Girl in a Fur Cloak,” +besides portraits of the Duke and Duchess. It +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>would be impossible to enumerate here the +numbers of portraits which Titian was now +supplying. The reputation he had acquired, +not only in Italy, but in Spain, France, and +Germany, was greater than had ever been attained +by any painter, while his social position was +established among the highest in every court. +“He had rivals in Venice,” says Vasari, +“but none that he did not crush by his +excellence and knowledge of the world in +converse with gentlemen.” There is not a +writer of the day who does not acclaim his +genius. Titian was undoubtedly very fond of +money, and had amassed a good fortune. He +was constantly asking for favours, and had +pensions and allowances from royal patrons. +Lavinia, when she married, brought her husband +a dowry of 1400 ducats. He had painted the +portraits of the Doges with tolerable regularity, +but all through his life complaints were heard of +his neglect of the work of the Hall of Grand +Council. Occupied as he was with the work of his +foreign patrons, he had systematically neglected +the conditions enjoined by his possession of a +Broker’s patent, and the Signoria suddenly called +on him to refund the salary amounting to over +100 ducats a year, for the twenty years during +which he had drawn it without performing his +promise, while they prepared to instal Pordenone, +who had lately appeared as his bitter rival, in +his stead. Though Titian must have been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>making large sums of money at this time, his +expenses were heavy, and he could not calmly face +the obligation to repay such a sum as 2000 ducats +at the same time that he lost the annual salary, +nor was it pleasant to be ousted by a second-rate +rival. His easy remedy was, however, in his +own hands; he set to work and soon completed +a great canvas of the “Battle of Cadore,” which, +though it is only known to us from a contemporary +print and a drawing by Rubens, +evidently deserved Vasari’s verdict of being the +finest battlepiece ever placed in the hall. The +movement and stir he contrives to give with a +small number of figures is astonishing. The +fortress burns upon the hill-side, a regiment +advancing with lances and pennons produces the +illusion that it is the vanguard of a great army, the +desperate conflict by the narrow bridge realises +all the terrors of war. It was an atonement for +his long period of neglect, but it was not till +<ins class="translit" title="Pordenone died in 1539">1439</ins> that, Pordenone having suddenly died, the +Signoria relented and reinstated Titian in his +Broker’s patent. One of his later paintings for the +State still keeps its place, “The Triumph of +Faith,” in which Doge Grimani, a splendid, steel-clad +form with flowing mantle, kneels before the +angelic apparition of Faith, who holds a cross, +which angels and cherubs help her to support. +Beneath the clouds are seen the Venetian fleet, the +Ducal Palace, and the Campanile. It is an allegory +of Grimani’s life; his defeat and captivity +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>are symbolised by the cross and chalice, and the +magnificent figure of St. Mark with the lion is +introduced to show that the Doge believes himself +to owe his freedom to the saint’s intercession. +The prophet and standard-bearer at the sides +were added by Marco Vecellio.</p> + +<p>Though the battlepiece perished in the fire +of 1577, another masterpiece of this time marks +a climax in Titian’s brilliantly coloured and +highly finished style. The “Presentation of the +Virgin” was painted for the refectory of the +Confraternity of the Carità, which was housed in +the building now used as the Academy, so that +the picture remains in the place for which it +was executed. It is one of the most vivid and +life-like of all his works. The composition is +the traditional one; the fifteen steps of the +“Gospel of Mary,” the High Priest of the old +dispensation welcoming the childish representative +of the new. Below is a great crowd, but +it is this little figure which first attracts the +eye. The contrast between the mass of architecture +and the free and glowing country beyond +is not without meaning, and a broken Roman +torso, lying neglected on the ground, symbolises +the downfall of the Pagan Empire. The flight +of steps, with the figure sitting below them, is an +idea borrowed from Carpaccio, and perhaps taken +by him from the sketch-book of Jacopo Bellini. +The men on the left are portraits of members and +patrons of the confraternity. Most Titianesque +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>are the beautiful women in rich dresses at the +foot of the steps. In this stately composition +we see what is often noticeable in Titian’s +scenes; he brings in the bystanders after the +manner of a Greek chorus. They all, with one +accord, express the same sentiment. There is a +certain acceptation of the obvious in Titian, a +vein of simplicity flows through his nature. He +has not the sensitive and subtle search after the +motives of humanity which we find in Tintoretto +or Lotto. He has great intellectual power, but +not great imagination. It is a temper which +helps to keep the unity, the monumental quality +of his scenes undisturbed and adds to their effect. +In the “Ecce Homo” Christ is shown to the +populace by Pilate, who with dubious compliment +is a portrait of Aretino, and the contrast of +the lonely, broken-down man with the crowd +which, with all its lower instincts let loose, +thunders back the cry of “Crucify Him,” is the +more dramatic because of the unanimous spirit +which possesses the raging multitude. Other +artists would have given more incidental byplay, +and drawn off our attention from the main issue.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>TITIAN</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p> + + +<p>While Titian was executing portraits of the +Doges, of Aretino and of Isabella of Portugal, +and of himself and his daughter Lavinia, he +was also striking out a new line in the ceiling +pictures for the Church of San Spirito, which +have since been transferred to the Salute. +Though painted before his journey to Rome, +it may be suspected that he had Michelangelo’s +work in the Sixtine Chapel in mind, and that +he was setting himself the task of bold foreshortening +and technical problems. The daring +of the conception is great, yet we feel sure that +this is not Titian’s element; his figures in violent +movement give a vivid idea of strength and muscular +force, but fail both in grace and drawing, +and though the colour and light and shade distract +our attention from defects of form, he does +not possess that mastery over the flowing silhouette +which Tintoretto attained.</p> + +<p>It was in 1543 that his relations with the +Farnese, whose young cardinal he had been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>painting, drew him at last to Rome. Leo X. +had tried to attract him there without success, +but now at sixty-eight he found himself as far +on the road as Urbino. His son Orazio was +with him, and Duke Guidobaldo was himself +his escort, and sent him on with a band of +men-at-arms from Pesaro. He was received in +Rome by Cardinal Bembo; Paul III. gave him +a cordial welcome and Vasari was appointed +his cicerone. It is interesting to inquire what +impression Rome, with its treasures of antique +statuary and contemporary painting, made upon +Titian. “He is filled with wonder and glad +that he came,” writes Bembo. In a letter to +Aretino he regrets that he had not come before. +He stayed eight months in Rome, and was made +a Roman citizen. He visits the Stanze of +Raphael in company with Sebastian del Piombo, +and Michelangelo comes to see him at his +lodgings, and he receives a long letter from +Aretino advising him to compare Michelangelo +with Raphael, and Sansovino and Bramante with +the sculptors and architects of antiquity. Titian +was well established in his own style, and was +received as the creator of acknowledged masterpieces, +and he never painted a more magnificent +portrait-piece than that of Paul III., the peevish +old Pope, ailing and humorous, suspicious of the +two nephews who are painted with him, and +who he guessed to be conspiring against him. +The characteristic attitude of the old man of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>eighty, bent down in his chair, his quick, +irritable glance, the steady, determined gaze of +the cardinal, the obsequious attitude and weak, +wily face of Ottavio Farnese are all immortalised +in a broader, more careless technique than Titian +has hitherto used. Though he does not seem +to have been directly influenced by all he saw in +Rome, we undoubtedly find a change coming over +his work between 1540 and 1550, which may +be in part ascribed to a widening of his artistic +horizon and a consciousness of what others were +doing, both around him and abroad. In its +whole handling and character his late is different +from his early manner. It begins at this time +to take on a blurred, soft, impressionist character. +His delight in rich colouring seems to wane, +and he aims at intensifying the power of light. +He reaches that point in the Venetian School +of painting which we may regard as its climax, +when there is little strong local colour, but the +canvas seems illumined from within. There +are no clear-cut lines, but the shapes are +suggested by sombre enveloping shades in +which the radiant brightness is embedded. His +landscapes alter too; they are no longer blue +and smiling, filled with loving detail, but +grander, more mysterious. In the “St. Jerome” +in Paris the old Saint kneels in wild and lonely +surroundings, and the moon, slowly rising behind +the dark trees, sends a sharp, silver ray across +the crucifix. The “Supper at Emmaus” has +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>the grandiose effect that is given by avoidance +of detail and simplification of method.</p> + +<p>Titian painted several portraits of himself, and +we know what sort of stately figure was presented +by the old man of seventy who, at Christmas in +1547, set forth to ride across the Alps in the +depths of winter to obey Charles V.’s call to Augsburg. +The excitement of the public was great at +his departure, and Aretino describes how his house +was besieged for the sketches and designs he left +behind him. For nearly forty years Titian was +employed by the House of Hapsburg. He had +been working for Charles since 1530, and when +the Emperor abdicated, his employment by Philip +II. lasted till his death. The palace inventory of +1686 contained seventy-six Titians, and though +probably not all were genuine, yet an immense +number were really by him, and the gallery, +even now, is richer in his works than any other.</p> + +<p>The great hall of the Pardo must have been +a wonderful sight, with Titian’s finest portrait +of himself in the midst, and the magnificent +portraits and sacred and allegorical pieces which +he continued from this time forward to contribute +to it. In this year, which was the +last before Charles’s abdication, and during this +visit to South Germany, he painted the great +equestrian portrait of the Emperor on the field +of Mühlberg, and two years later came the first +of his many portraits of Philip II. The face, +in the first sketch, is laid in with a sort of fury +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>of impressionism, and in the parade portrait the +sitter is realised as a man of great distinction. +Ugly and sensual as he is, we never tire of +looking at Titian’s conception—a full length of +distinguished mien rendered attractive by magnificent +colour. Everything in it lives, and the +slender, aristocratic hands are, as Morelli says, a +whole biography in themselves.</p> + +<p>The splendid series of allegorical subjects +which Titian contributed to the Pardo, while he +was still supplying sacred pictures and altarpieces +to Venice and the neighbouring mainland, are +among his most mature and important works. +Never has his gamut of tones been fuller and +stronger than in the “Jupiter and Antiope,” or +the “Venus of the Pardo” as it is sometimes +called. The Venus herself has the attitude of +Giorgione’s dreaming goddess, with her arm +flung up above her head. It is, perhaps, the only +time that Titian succeeds in giving anything +ideal to one of his Venuses. The famous nudes +of the Uffizi and the Louvre are splendid +courtesans, far removed from Giorgione’s idyllic +vision; but Antiope, slumbering on her couch +of skins, and her woodland lover, gazing with +adoring eyes on her beautiful face, have a whole +world of sweet and joyful fancy. The whole +scene is full of a <em>joie de vivre</em>, which carries us +back to the Bacchanals painted so many years +before, and in these Titian gives King Philip +his most perfect work, every touch of which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>is his own. This picture, now in the Louvre, +was given to Charles I. by the King of Spain, +and bought for Cardinal Mazarin in 1650. +“Danaë,” “Venus and Adonis,” “Europa and +the Bull,” and a “Last Supper” followed in +quick succession, but Titian was now employing +many assistants, and great parts of the canvases +issuing from his workshop show weak, imitative +hands, while replicas were made of other works.</p> + +<p>His later feeling for the religious in art is +expressed in the now bedimmed paintings in +San Salvatore in Venice. Vasari describes these +in 1566. Painted when Titian was nearly ninety +years old, the “Transfiguration” is remarkable +for forcible, majestic movement, while in the +“Annunciation” he invents quite a new treatment. +Mary turns round and raises her veil, +while she grasps the book as if she depended on +it for stay and support. The four angels are +full of life and gaiety, and the whole has much +grace and colour, though it is dashed in, in +the painter’s later style, in broad and sweeping +planes without patience of detail. The old man +has signed it “Titianus, fecit, fecit,” a contemptuous +reply to some critics who complained +of its want of finish. He knew well what it +was in composition and execution, and that all +that he had ever known or done lay within the +careless strength of his last manner.</p> + +<p>A letter written to the King of Spain’s +secretary in 1574 gives a list “in part” of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>fourteen pictures sent to Madrid during the +last twenty-five years, “with many others which +I do not remember.” On every hand we hear +of lost pictures from the master’s brush, and the +number produced even during the last ten years +of his life must have been enormous, for till +the end he was full of great undertakings and +achievements. Very late in life he painted a +“Shepherd and Nymph” (Vienna), which in +its idyllic feeling, its slumberous delight, its +mingling of clothed and nude figures, recalls the +early days with Giorgione, yet the blurred and +smouldering richness, the absolute negation of +all sharp lines and lights is in his very latest +style, and he has gone past Giorgione on his +own ground. Then in strange contrast is the +“Christ Crowned with Thorns,” at Vienna, a +tragic figure stupefied with suffering. His last +great work was the “Pietà” in the Academy, +which, though unfinished, is nobly designed and +very impressive. He places the Virgin supporting +the Body in a great dome-shaped niche, +which gives elevation. It is flanked by two +calm, antique, stone figures, whose impassive air +contrasts with the wild pain and grief below. +The Magdalen steps out towards the spectator +with the wailing cry of a Greek tragedy. It +perhaps hardly moves us like the concentrated +feeling of Bellini’s Madonna, or the hurried, +trembling grief of Tintoretto’s Magdalen, but +it is monumental in the sweeping grace of its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>line, and full of nobility of feeling. It is +sadly rubbed and darkened and has lost much +of Titian’s colour, but is still beautiful in +its deep greys mingled with a sombre golden +glow, as of half-extinguished fires. These late +paintings are of the true impressionist order; +looked at closely they present a mass of scumbled +touches, of incoherent dashes, but if we step +farther away, to the right focus, light and dark +arrange themselves, order shines through the +whole, and we see what the great master meant +us to see. “Titian’s later creations,” says +Vasari, “are struck off rapidly, so that when +close you cannot see them, but afar they look +perfect, and this is the style which so many +tried to imitate, to show that they were practised +hands, but only produced absurdities.” Titian +was preparing the picture for the Frari, in payment +for the grant of a tomb for himself, when +in August 1576 the plague broke out in Venice, +and on the 27th the great painter died of it in +his own house. The stringent regulations concerning +infection were relaxed to do honour to +one of the greatest sons of Venice, and he was +laid to rest in the Frari, borne there in solemn +procession, through a city stricken by terror and +panic, and buried in the Chapel of the Crucified +Saviour, for which his last work was ordered. +The “Assumption” of his prime looked down +upon him, and close at hand was the “Madonna +of Casa Pesaro.” His son Orazio caught the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>plague and died immediately after, and the +painter’s house was sacked by thieves and many +precious things stolen.</p> + +<p>The great personality of Titian stands out +as that which of all others established and +consolidated the school of Venice. He is its +central figure. The century of life, of which +eighty years were passed in ceaseless industry of +production, left its deep impression on the art of +every civilised country of Europe. Every great +man of the day who was a lover of art and +culture fell under Titian’s spell. His influence +on his contemporaries was enormous, and he had +everything: genius, industry, personal distinction, +character, social charm. He is, perhaps, of too +intellectual a cast of mind to be quite typical of +the Venetian spirit, in the way that Tintoretto +is; it is conceivable that in another environment +Titian might have developed on rather +different lines, but this temper gave him greater +domination. He was free from the eccentricities +which beset genius. He possessed the saving +salt of practical common sense, so that the +golden mean of sanity and healthful joy in his +works commended them to all men, and they are +not difficult to understand. Yet while all can +see the beauty of his poetic instinct for colour, +his interesting and original technique, his grasp +and scope, his mastery and certainty have gained +for him the title of “the painter’s painter.” +There is no one from whom men feel that they +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>can so safely learn so much, and the grand breadth +and power of elimination of his later years is +justified by the way in which in his earlier work +he has carried exquisite finish and rich impasto +to perfection.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Ancona.</td> <td class="td5">Crucifixion (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Domenico: Madonna with Saints and Donor, 1520.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Antwerp.</td> <td class="td5">Pope Alexander VI. presenting Jacopo Pesaro.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Infant Daughter of Strozzi, 1542; Portrait of Himself (L.); Lavinia bearing Charges.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">SS. Nazaro e Celso: Altarpiece, 1522.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints (E.); Tribute Money (E.); Lavinia as Bride, 1555; Lavinia as Matron (L.); + Portrait, 1561; Lady with Vase (L.); Lady in Red Dress.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: La Bella; Aretino, 1545; Magdalen; The Young Englishman; The Concert (E.); Philip II.; + Ippolito de Medici, 1533; Tomaso Mosti.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Eleanora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, 1537; Francesco della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, 1537; + Flora; Venus, the head a portrait of Lavinia; Venus, the head a portrait of Eleanora Gonzaga; Madonna + with S. Anthony Abbot.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family and Shepherd; Bacchus and Ariadne (E.); Noli me tangere (E.); Madonna with SS. John + and Catherine.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Holy Family (E.); Venus of the Shell; Three Ages of Man; Diana and Actaeon, + 1559; Callisto, 1559.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Earl Brownlow: Diana and Actaeon (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sir F. Cook: Portrait of Laura de Dianti.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with SS. Ulfus and Bridget (E.); Bacchanal; The Garden of Loves; Danaë, 1554; Venus and + Youth playing Organ (L.); Salome (portrait of Lavinia); Trinity, 1554; Entombment, 1559; + Prometheus; Religion succoured by Spain (L.); Sisyphus (L.); Alfonso of Ferrara; Charles V. at the + Battle of Mühlberg, 1548; Charles V. and his Dog, 1533; Philip II., 1550; Philip II.; The Infant; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> + Don Fernando and Victory; Portrait; Portrait of Himself; Duke of Alva; Venus and Adonis; + Fall of Man; Empress Isabella.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Medole.</td> <td class="td5"> (near Brescia) Christ appearing to His Mother.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Vanitas; Portrait of Charles V., 1548; Madonna and Saints; Man with Baton.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Paul III. and Cardinals, 1545; Danaë.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Scuola del Santo: Frescoes; S. Anthony granting Speech to an Infant; The Youth who cut off his Leg; The + Jealous Husband, 1511.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Saints (E.); La Vierge au Lapin; Madonna with S. Agnes; Christ at Emmaus (L.); Crowning + with Thorns (L.); Entombment; S. Jerome (L.); Jupiter and Antiope (L.); Francis I.; Allegory; + Marquis da Valos and Mary of Arragon; Alfonso of Ferrara and Laura Dianti; L’Homme + au Gant (E.); Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Sacred and Profane Love (E.); St. Dominio (L.); Education of Cupid (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Capitol: Baptism (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Doria: Daughter of Herodias.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Vatican: Madonna in Glory and six Saints, 1523.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Annunciation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Urbino.</td> <td class="td5">Resurrection (L.); Last Supper (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Presentation of Virgin, 1540; S. John in the Desert; Assumption, 1518; Pietà, 1573.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale Staircase: S. Christopher, 1523.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala di Quattro Porte: Doge Giovanni before Faith, 1555.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Frari: Pesaro Madonna, 1526.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Elemosinario: S. John the Almsgiver, 1523.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scuola di San Rocco: Annunciation (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Salute Sacristy: Descent of the Holy Spirit; St. Mark enthroned with Saints; David and Goliath; Sacrifice + of Isaac; Cain and Abel.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Salvatore: Annunciation (L.); Transfiguration (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Assumption.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Gipsy Madonna (E.); Madonna of the Cherries (E.); Ecce Homo, 1543; Isabela d’Este, 1534; + The Tambourine Player; Girl in Fur Cloak; Dr. Parma (E.); Shepherd and Nymph (L.); Portraits; + Doge Andrea Gritti; Jacopo Strada; Diana and Callisto; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Wallace Collection.</td> <td class="td5">Perseus and Andromeda. (In collaboration with his nephew, Francesco Vecellio.)</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Louvre.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints. (The same by Francesco alone.)</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Glasgow.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>PALMA VECCHIO AND LORENZO LOTTO</strong></p> + + +<p>Among the many who clustered round Titian’s +long career, Palma attained to a place beside him +and Giorgione which his talent, which was not +of the highest order, scarcely warranted. But +he was classed with the greatest, and influenced +contemporary art because his work chimed in +so well with the Venetian spirit. A Bergamasque +by birth, he came of Venetian parentage, and +learnt the first elements of his art in Venice. +He never really mastered the inner niceties of +anatomy in its finest sense, and the broad +generalisation of his forms may be meant +to conceal uncertain drawing, but his large-bosomed, +matronly women and plump children, +his round, soft contours, his clean brilliancy, and +the clear golden polish in which his pictures +are steeped, made a great appeal to the public. +His invention is the large Santa Conversazione, +as compared with those in half-length of the +earlier masters. The Virgin and saints and +kneeling or bending donors are placed under +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>the spreading trees of a rich and picturesque +landscape. It is Palma’s version of the Giorgionesque +ideal, which he had his share in establishing +and developing. The heavy tree-trunk and +dark foliage, silhouetted almost black against +the background, are characteristic of his compositions. +As his life goes on, though he still +clings to his full, ripe figures and to the same +smooth fleshiness in his women, the features +become delicate and chiselled, and the more +refined type and subtler feeling of his middle +stage may be due to his companionship with +Lotto, with whom he was in Bergamo when +they were both about twenty-five. He touches +his highest, and at the same time keeps very +near Giorgione, in the splendid St. Barbara, +painted for the company of the <em>Bombadieri</em> or +artillerists. Their cannon guard the pedestal on +which she stands; it was at her altar that they +came to commend themselves on going forth to +war, and where they knelt to offer thanksgiving +for a safe return; and she is a truly noble figure, +regal in conception and fine and firm in execution, +attired in sumptuous robes of golden brown and +green, with splendid saints on either hand. +Palma was often approached by his patrons who +wanted mythological scenes, gods, and goddesses; +but though he produced a Venus, a handsome, +full-blown model, he never excels in the nude, and +his tendency is to seize upon the homely. His +scenes have a domestic, familiar flavour. With +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>all his golden and ivory beauty he lacks fire, and +his personages have a sluggish, plethoric note. In +his latest stage he hides all sharpness in a sort of +scumble or haze. It would, however, be unfair +to say he is not fine, and his portraits especially +come very near the best. Vienna is rich in +examples in half-lengths of one beautiful woman +after another robed in the ample and gorgeous +garments in which he is always interested. +Among them is his handsome daughter, +Violante, with a violet in her bosom, and +wearing the large sleeves he admires. The +“Tasso” of the National Gallery has been taken +from him and given first to Giorgione and then +to Titian, but there now seems some inclination +to return it to its first author. It has a more +dreamy, intellectual countenance than we are +accustomed to associate with Palma; but he uses +elsewhere the decorative background of olive +branches, and the waxen complexion, tawny +colouring, and the pronounced golden haze are +Palmesque in the highest degree. The colouring +is in strong contrast to the pale ivory glow of +the Ariosto of Titian, which hangs near it.</p> + +<p><a name="holy" id="holy"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img224.jpg" width="550" height="413" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Palma Vecchio.</em> HOLY FAMILY. <em>Colonna Gallery, Rome.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>No one could be more unlike Palma than his +contemporary, Lorenzo Lotto, who has for long +been classed with the Bergamasques, but who +is proved by recently discovered documents to +have been born in Venice. It was for long an +accepted fact that Lotto was a pupil of Bellini, and +his earliest altarpiece, to S. Cristina at Treviso, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>bears traces of Bellini’s manner. A Pietà above +has child angels examining the wounds with the +grief and concern which Bellini made so peculiarly +his own, and the St. Jerome and the branch of +fig-leaves silhouetted against the light remind +us of the altarpiece in S. Crisostomo. Lotto +seems to have clung to quattrocento fashions. +The ancona had long been rejected by most of +his contemporaries, but he painted one of the +last for a church in Recanati, in carved and +gilt compartments, and he painted predellas long +after they had become generally obsolete. We +ask ourselves how it was that Lotto, who had so +susceptible and easily swayed a nature, escaped +the influence of Giorgione, the most powerful +of any in the Venice of his youth—an influence +which acted on Bellini in his old age, which +Titian practically never shook off, and which +dominated Palma to the exclusion of any earlier +master.</p> + +<p>It would take too long to survey the train of +argument by which Mr. Berenson has established +Alvise Vivarini as the master of Lotto. Notwithstanding +that Bellini’s great superiority was +becoming clear to the more cultured Venetians, +Alvise, when Lotto was a youth, was still the +painter <em>par excellence</em> for the mass of the public. +In the S. Cristina altarpiece the Child standing +on its Mother’s knee is in the same attitude as +the Child in Alvise’s altarpiece of 1480, and the +Mother’s hand holds it in the same way. Other +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>details which supply internal evidence are the +shape of hands and feet, the round heads and the +way the Child is often represented lying across +the Mother’s knees. Lotto carries into old age +the use of fruit and flowers and beads as decoration, +a Squarcionesque feature beloved of the +Vivarini, but which was never adopted by Bellini.</p> + +<p>About 1512 Lotto comes into contact with +Palma, and for a short time the two were in close +touch. A “Santa Conversazione,” of which a +good copy exists in Villa Borghese, Rome, and one +at Dresden, with the Holy Family grouped under +spreading trees, is saturated with Palma’s spirit, +but it soon passes away, and except for an +occasional touch, disappears entirely from Lotto’s +work.</p> + +<p>Lotto may have had relations in Bergamo, +for when in 1515 a competition between artists +was set on foot by Alessandro Martino, a +descendant of General Colleone, for an altarpiece +for S. Stefano, he competed and carried +off the prize. This was the first of the series +of the great works for Bergamo, which enrich +the little city, where at this period he can best +be studied. The great altarpiece (now removed +to San Bartolommeo) is a most interesting +human document, a revelation of the +painter’s personality. He does not break away +from hieratic conventions, like the rival school; +his Madonna is still placed in the apse of the +church with saints grouped round her, a form +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>from which the Vivarini never departed, but +the whole is full of intense movement, of a +lyric grace and ecstasy, a desire to express +fervent and rapturous devotion. The architectural +background is not in happy proportion +in relation to the figures, but the effect of vista +and space is more remarkable than in any North +Italian master. The vivid treatment of light +and shade, and the gaiety and delicacy of the +flying angels, who hold the canopy, and of the +putti, who spread the carpet below, the shapes +of throne and canopy and the decorations have +led to the idea that Lotto drew his inspiration +from Correggio, whom he certainly resembles +in some ways; but at this time Correggio was +only twenty, and had not given any examples +of the style we are accustomed to call Correggiesque. +We must look back to a common origin +for those decorative details, which are so conspicuous +in Crivelli and Bartolommeo Vivarini, +which came to Lotto through the Vivarini and +to Correggio through Ferrarese painters, and of +which the fountain-head for both was the school +of Squarcione. For the much more striking +resemblances of composition and spirit, the explanation +seems to be that Lotto on one side +of his nature was akin to Correggio; he had +the same lyrical feeling, the same inclination +to exuberance and buoyancy. To both, painting +was a vehicle for the expression of feeling, +but Lotto had also common sense and a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>goodly share of that humour that is allied to +pathos.</p> + +<p>Till the year 1526 Lotto was much in +Bergamo, where the first altarpiece gained him +orders for others. The reputation of a member +of the school of Venice was a sure passport to +employment. We trace Alvise’s tradition very +plainly in the altarpiece in San Bernardino, +where the gesture of the Madonna’s hand as she +expounds to the listening saints recalls Alvise’s of +1480. The little gathered roses, which Lotto +makes use of to the end of his life, lie scattered +on the step; angels, daringly foreshortened, sweep +aside the curtain of the sanctuary. The colour +is in Lotto’s scarlet, light blues, and violet. +He soon shows himself fond of genre incidents, +and in “Christ taking leave of His Mother” +gives a view into a bedroom and a cat running +across the floor. The donor kneels with her +hair fashionably dressed and wearing a pearl +necklace. In the “Marriage of S. Catherine” +at Bergamo the saint is evidently a portrait, +with hair pearl-wreathed. She kneels very +simply and naturally before the Child, and the +exquisitely lovely and elaborately gowned young +woman who represents the Madonna, looks +out towards the spectator with a mundane +and curiously modern air. It was probably +the recognition of Lotto’s success with portraits +that led to their being so often introduced +into his sacred pieces. In the one we have +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>just noticed, the donor, Niccolas Bonghi, is +brought in, and is on rather a larger scale +than the rest, but Lotto has evidently not +found him interesting. The portraits of the +brothers della Torre, and that of the Prothonotary +Giuliano in the National Gallery, inaugurate +that wonderful series of characterisations +which are his greatest distinction. A series of +frescoes in village churches round Bergamo +must also be noticed. They are remarkable +for spontaneous and original decoration, and +may compare with the ceremonial groups of +Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. Lotto’s personages, +as they chatter in the market-places, are +full of natural animation and gaiety, and we +realise what a step had been made in the +painting of actual life.</p> + +<p>Owing to the unsettled state of the rest of +Italy, the years from 1530 to 1540, which Lotto +spent in Venice, found that city the gathering-ground +of many of the most distinguished +scholars and deepest thinkers of the day. Men +of all shades of religious thought were engaged +in learned discussion, and Lotto’s ardent and +inquiring temperament must have been stimulated +by such an environment. During these +years, too, he became intimate with Titian, and +experimented in Titian’s style, with the result +that his painting gets thicker and richer, more +fused and solid, and his figures are better put +together. He imitates Titian’s colour, too, but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>it makes him paint in deeper, fiercer tints, and +he soon finds it does not suit him, and returns +to his own scheme. His colour is still rather +too dazzling, but the distances are translucent +and atmospheric. He continues to introduce +portraits. In his altarpiece in SS. Giovanni +and Paolo the deacons giving alms and receiving +petitions curiously resemble in type and expression +the ecclesiastics we see to-day.</p> + +<p>Lotto was now an accepted member of +Titian’s set, and Aretino, in a letter dated 1548, +writes that Titian values his taste and judgment +as that of no other; but Aretino, with his usual +mixture of connoisseurship and clever spite, goes +on to insinuate accidentally, as it were, what he +himself knew perfectly well, that Lotto was +not considered on a par with the masters of +the first rank. “Envy is not in your breast,” he +says, “rather do you delight to see in other +artists certain qualities which you do not find +in your own brush, ... holding the second +place in the art of painting is nothing compared +to holding the first place in the duties of +religion.”</p> + +<p>An interesting codex or commentary tells us +that Lotto never received high prices for his +work, and we hear of him hawking pictures about +in artistic circles, putting them up in raffles, and +leaving a number with Jacopo Sansovino in the +hope that he might hear of buyers. His work +ended as it had begun, in the Marches. He +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>undertook commissions at Recanati, Ancona, and +Loreto, and in September 1554 he concluded a +contract with the Holy House at Loreto, by +which, in return for rooms and food, he made +over himself and all his belongings to the care +of the fraternity, “being tired of wandering, +and wishing to end his days in that holy place.” +He spent the last four years of his life at Loreto +as a votary of the Virgin, painting a series of +pictures which are distinguished by the same sort +of apparent looseness and carelessness which we +noticed in Titian’s late style; a technique which, +as in Titian’s case, conceals a profound knowledge +of plastic modelling.</p> + +<p>Though Lotto executed an immense number +of important and very beautiful sacred works, +his portraits stand apart, and are so interesting +to the modern mind that one is tempted to +linger over them. Other painters give us finer +pictures; in none do we feel so anxious to know +who the sitters were and what was their story. +Lotto has nothing of the Pagan quality which +marks Giorgione and Titian; he is a born +psychologist, and as such he witnesses to an +attitude of mind in the Italy of his day which +is of peculiar interest to our own. Lotto’s bystanders, +even in his sacred scenes, have nothing +in common with Titian’s “chorus”; they have the +characterisation of distinct individuals, and when +he is concerned with actual portraits he is intensely +receptive and sensitive to the spirit of his sitters. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>He may be said to “give them away,” and to +take an almost unfair advantage of his perception. +The sick man in the Doria Gallery looks +like one stricken with a death sentence. He +knows at least that it is touch and go, and +the painter has symbolised the situation in the +little winged genius balancing himself in a pair +of scales. In the Borghese Gallery is the portrait +of a young, magnificently dressed man, with a +countenance marked by mental agitation, who +presses one hand to his heart, while the other +rests on a pile of rose-petals in which a tiny +skull is half-hidden. The “Old Man” in the +Brera has the hard, narrow, but intensely sad +face of one whose natural disposition has been +embittered by the circumstances of his life, just +as that of our Prothonotary speaks of a large and +gentle nature, mellowed by natural affections and +happy pursuits. We smile, as Lotto does, with +kindly mischief at “Marsilio and his Bride;” the +broad, placid countenance of the man is so significantly +contrasted with the clever mouth and +eyes of the bride that it does not need the +malicious glance of the cupid, who is fitting on +the yoke, to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” of their +future. Again, the portrait of Laura di Pola, in +the Brera, introduces us to one of those women +who are charming in every age, not actually +beautiful, but harmonious, thoughtful, perfectly +dressed, sensible, and self-possessed, and the +“Family Group” in our own gallery holds a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>history of a couple of antagonistic temperaments +united by life in common and the clasping hands +of children. Lotto does not keep the personal expression +out of even such a canvas as his “Triumph +of Chastity” in the Rospigliosi Gallery. His +delightful Venus, one of the loveliest nudes +in painting, flies from the attacking termagant, +whose virtue is proclaimed by the ermine on +her breast, and sweeps her little cupid with her +with a well-bred, surprised air, suggestive of the +manners of mundane society.</p> + +<p><a name="laura" id="laura"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 447px;"> +<img src="images/img235.jpg" width="447" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Lorenzo Lotto.</em> PORTRAIT OF LAURA DI POLA. <em>Brera.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>The painter who was thus able to unveil +personality had evidently a mind that was aware +of itself, that looked forward to a wider civilisation +and a more earnest and intimate religion. +His life seems to have been one of some sadness, +and crowned with only moderate success. He +speaks of himself as “advanced in years, without +loving care of any kind, and of a troubled mind.” +His will shows that his worldly possessions were +few and poor, and that he had no heir closer +than a nephew; but he leaves some of his +cartoons as a dowry to “two girls of quiet +nature, healthy in mind and body, and likely to +make thrifty housekeepers,” on their marriage +to “two well-recommended young men,” about +to become painters. His sensitive and introspective +temperament led him to prefer the +retirement and the quiet beauty of Loreto to the +brilliant society of which he was made free in +Venice. “His spirit,” says Mr. Berenson, “is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>more like our own than is perhaps that of any +other Italian painter, and it has all the appeal +and fascination of a kindred soul in another age.”</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Palma Vecchio.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna and Saints (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Cambridge.</td> <td class="td5">Fitzwilliam Museum: Venus (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna; SS. John, Catherine; Three Sisters; Holy Family; Meeting of Jacob and Rachel (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Hampton Court: Santa Conversazione; Portrait of a Poet.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: SS. Helen, Constantine, Roch, and Sebastian; Adoration of Magi (L.), finished by Cariani.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione with Donors.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Adoration of Shepherds.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Lucrece (L.); Madonna with Saints and Donor.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Capitol: Christ and Woman taken in Adultery.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Colonna: Madonna, S. Peter, and Donor.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: St. Peter enthroned and six Saints; Assumption.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli: Sposalizio (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Formosa: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione; Violante (L.); Five Portraits of Women.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Lorenzo Lotto.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Ancona.</td> <td class="td5">Assumption, 1550; Madonna with Saints (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Asolo.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna in Glory, 1506.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Marriage of S. Catherine; Predelle.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Holy Family and S. Catherine; Predelle; Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Bartolommeo: Altarpiece, 1516.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Alessandro in Colonna: Pietà.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Bernardino: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Spirito: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Christ taking leave of His Mother; Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Nativity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Cingoli.</td> <td class="td5">S. Domenico: Madonna and Saints and fifteen Small Scenes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Holy Family.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Hampton Court: Portrait of Andrea Odoni, 1527; Portrait (E.); + Portraits of Agostino and Niccolo della Torre, 1515; + Family Group; Portrait of Prothonotary Giuliano.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Madonna and Saints (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Loreto.</td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Apostolico: Saints; Nativity; S. Michael and Lucifer + (L.); Presentation (L.); Baptism (L.); Adoration of Magi (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Recanati.</td> <td class="td5">Municipio: Altarpiece, 1508; Transfiguration (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Sopra Mercanti: Annunciation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Madonna with S. Onofrio and a Bishop, 1508.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Rospigliosi: Love and Chastity.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Carmine: S. Nicholas in Glory, 1529.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giacomo dall’ Orio: Madonna with Saints, 1546.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Giovanni e Paolo: S. Antonino bestowing Alms, 1542.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione, etc.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO</strong></p> + + +<p>It was very natural that Rome should wish for +works of the masters of the new Venetian School, +but the first-rate men were fully employed at +home. All the efforts made to secure Titian +failed till nearly the end of his career. On the +other hand, Venice was full of less famous +masters following in Giorgione’s steps. When +Sebastian Luciani was a young man, Giorgione +was paramount there, and no one could have +foretold that his life would be of such short +duration. It was to be expected, therefore, that +a painter who consulted his own interests should +leave the city where he was overshadowed by +a great genius and go farther afield. The +influence of the Guilds was withdrawn in the +sixteenth century, so that it was a simpler +matter for painters to transfer their talents, +and painting was beginning to appeal strongly +to the <em>dilettanti</em>, who rivalled one another in +their offers.</p> + +<p>Only one work of Sebastian’s is known belonging +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>to this earlier time in Venice. It is +the “S. Chrysostom enthroned,” in S. Giovanni +Crisostomo, and its majesty and rich colouring, +and more especially the splendid group of women +on the left, so proud and soft in their Venetian +beauty, make us wonder if Sebastian might not +have risen to greater heights if he had remained +in his natural environment. He responded to +the call to Rome of Agostino Chigi, the great +<ins class="translit" title="Chigi was a banker">painter</ins>, art collector, and patron, the friend of +Leo X. Chigi had just completed the Farnesina +Villa, and Sebastian was employed till +1512 on its decoration, and at once came under +the influence of Michelangelo. The “Pietà” +at Viterbo shows that influence very strongly; in +fact, Vasari says that Michelangelo himself drew +the cartoon for the figure of Christ, which would +account for its extraordinary beauty. Sebastian +embarked on a close intimacy with the Florentine +painter, and, according to Vasari, the great canvas +of the “Raising of Lazarus,” in the National +Gallery, was executed under the orders and in +part from the designs of Michelangelo. This +colossal work was looked on as one of the most +important creations of the sixteenth century, but +there is little to make us wish to change it for +the altarpiece of S. Crisostomo. The desire for +scientific drawing and the search after composition +have produced a laboured effect; the female +figures are cast in a masculine mould, and it lacks +both the severe beauty of the Tuscan School and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>the emotional charm of Sebastian’s native style. +We cannot, however, avoid conjecturing if in +the figure of Lazarus himself we have not a +conception of the great Florentine. It is so +easy in pose, so splendid in its, perhaps excessive, +length of limb, that our thoughts turn +involuntarily to the <em>Ignudi</em> in the Sixtine +Chapel. The picture has been dulled and +injured by repainting, but the distance still +has the sombre depth of the Venetians. All +through Sebastian’s career he seeks for form +and composition, but, great painter as he undoubtedly +is, he is great because he possesses +that inborn feeling for harmony of colour. This +is what we value in him, and he excels in so far +as he follows his Venetian instincts.</p> + +<p>The death of Raphael improved Sebastian’s +position in Rome, and though Leo X. never +liked or employed him, he did not lack commissions. +The “Fornarina” in the Uffizi, with +the laurel-wreathed head and leopard-skin +mantle, still reveals him as the Venetian, and it is +curious that any critic should ever have assigned +its rich, voluptuous tone and its coarse type +to Raphael. Sebastian obtained commissions +for decorating S. Maria del Popolo in oils and +S. Pietro in Montorio in fresco, but in the +latter medium, though he is ambitious of acquiring +the force of Michelangelo, he lacks the +Tuscan ease of hand. Colour, for which he +possessed so true an aptitude, the deep, fused +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>colour of Giorgione, is set aside by him; his +tints become strong and crude, his surfaces grow +hard and polished, and he thinks, above all, of +bold action, of drawing and modelling. The +Venetian genius for portraiture remains, and he +has left such fine examples as the “Andrea Doria” +of the Vatican, or the “Portrait of a Man in the +Pitti,” a masterly picture both in drawing and +execution, with grand draperies, a fur pelisse, +and damask doublet with crimson sleeves. In +the National Gallery we possess his own portrait +by himself, in company with Cardinal de Medici. +The faces are well contrasted, and we judge from +Sebastian’s that his biographer describes him +justly, as fat, indolent, and given to self-indulgence, +but genial and fond of good company.</p> + +<p>After an absence of twenty years he returned +to Venice. There he came in contact with +Titian and Pordenone, and struck up a friendship +with Aretino, who became his great ally and +admirer. The sack of Rome had driven him +forth, but in 1529, when the city was beginning +partially to recover from that time of horror, +he returned, and was cordially welcomed by +Clement VII., and admitted into the innermost +ecclesiastical circles. The Piombo, a well-paid, +sinecure office of the Papal court, was bestowed +on him, and his remaining years were spent in +Rome. He was very anxious to collaborate +with Michelangelo, and the great painter seems +to have been quite inclined to the arrangement. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>The “Last Judgment,” in the Sixtine Chapel, +was suggested, and Sebastian had the melancholy +task of taking down Perugino’s masterpieces; but +he wished to reset the walls for oils, and Michelangelo +stipulated for fresco, saying that oils were +only fit for women, so that no agreement was +arrived at.</p> + +<p>Sebastian’s mode of work was slow, and he +employed no assistants. He seems to have been +inordinately lazy, fond of leisure and good living, +and his character shows in his work, which, with +a few exceptions, has something heavy and +common about it, a want of keenness and fire, +an absence of refinement and selection.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Fornarina, 1512; Death of Adonis.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Martyrdom of S. Agatha, 1520; Portrait (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Resurrection of Lazarus, 1519; Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Naples.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family; Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Visitation, 1521.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Andrea Doria (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Farnesina: Frescoes, 1511.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro in Montorio. Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">S. Niccolo: Incredulity of S. Thomas (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Visitation (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Chrisostomo: S. Chrysostom enthroned (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Viterbo.</td> <td class="td5">Pietà (L.).</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>BONIFAZIO AND PARIS BORDONE</strong></p> + + +<p>Some uncertainty has existed as to the identity +of the different members of the family of +Bonifazio. All the early historians agree in +giving the name to one master only. Boschini, +however, in 1777 discovered the register of the +death of a second, and a third bearing the name +was working twenty years later. Upon this +Dr. Morelli came to the conclusion that we must +recognise three, if not four, masters bearing the +name of Bonifazio, but documents recently +discovered by Professor Ludwig have in great +measure destroyed Morelli’s conjectures. There +may have been obscure painters bearing the name, +but they were mere imitators, and it is doubtful +if any were related to the family of de Pitatis.</p> + +<p>Bonifazio Veronese is really the only one +who counts. As Ridolfi says, he was born in +Verona in the most beautiful moment of +painting. He came to Venice at the age of +eighteen, and became a pupil of Palma Vecchio, +with whom his work has sometimes been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>confused. After Palma’s death Bonifazio continued +in friendly relations with his old master’s +family, and his niece married Palma’s nephew. +Bonifazio himself married the daughter of a +basket-maker, and appears to have had no +children, for he and his wife by their wills +bestowed their whole fortune on their nephews. +Antonio Palma, who married Bonifazio’s niece, +was a painter whose pictures have sometimes +been attributed to the legendary third Bonifazio. +Bonifazio’s life was passed peacefully in Venice. +He received many important commissions from +the Republic, and decorated the Palace of the +Treasurers. His character and standing were +high, and he was appointed, in company with +Titian and Lotto, to administer a legacy which +Vincenzo Catena had left to provide a yearly +dower for five maidens. After a long life spent +in steady work, Bonifazio withdrew to a little +farm amidst orchards—fifteen acres of land in +all—at San Zenone, near Asolo; but he still kept +his house in San Marcuola, where he died. He +was buried in S. Alvise in Venice.</p> + +<p>A son of the plains and of Venetian stock, +his work is always graceful and attractive, +though inclined to be hot in colour. It has a +very pronounced aristocratic character, and bears +no trace of the rough, provincial strain of +such men as Cariani or Pordenone. It is very +fine and glowing in colour, but lacks vigour +and energy in design. Nowhere do we get +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>more worldly magnificence or such frank +worship of wealth as on Bonifazio’s joyous +canvases. He represents Christian saints and +Eastern kings alike, as gentlemen of princely +rank. There is a note of purely secular art +about his Adorations and Holy Families. In +the “Adoration of the Magi,” in the Academy, +the Madonna is a handsome, prosperous lady +of Bonifazio’s acquaintance. The Child, so far +from raising His hand in benediction, holds it out +for the proffered cup. He does not, as usual, +distinguish the eldest king, but singles out the +cup held by the second, who, in a puffed +velvet dress, is an evident portrait, probably +that of the donor of the picture, who is in this +way paid a courtier-like compliment. The +third king is such a Moor as Bonifazio must +often have seen embarking from his Eastern +galley on the Riva dei Schiavoni. A servant +in a peaked hood peers round the column to +catch sight of what is going on. The groups +of animals in the background are well rendered. +In the “Rich Man’s Feast,” where Lazarus +lies upon the step, we have another scene of +wealthy and sumptuous Venetian society, an +orgy of colour. And, again, in the “Finding of +Moses” (Brera) he paints nobles playing the lute, +making love and feasting, and lovely fair-haired +women listening complacently. We are reminded +of the way in which they lived: their +one preoccupation the toilet, the delight of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>appearing in public in the latest and most +magnificent fashions. And in these paintings +Bonifazio depicts the elaborate striped and +brocaded gowns in which the beautiful Venetians +arrayed themselves, made in the very fashions +of the year, and their thick, fair hair is twisted +and coiled in the precise mode of the moment. +The deep-red velvet he introduces into nearly +all his pictures is of a hue peculiar to himself. +As Catena often brings in a little white lap-dog, +so Bonifazio constantly has as an accessory a liver-and-white +spaniel.</p> + +<p>Vasari speaks of Paris Bordone as the artist +who most successfully imitated Titian. He was +the son of well-to-do tradespeople in Treviso, +and received a good education in music and +letters, before being sent off to Venice and +placed in Titian’s studio. Bordone does not +seem to have been on very friendly terms with +Titian. He was dissatisfied with his teaching, +and Titian played him an ill turn in wresting +from him a commission to paint an altarpiece +which had been entrusted to him when he was +only eighteen. He was, above all, in love with +the manner of the dead Giorgione, and it was +upon this master that he aspired to form his +style. His masterpiece, in the Academy, was +painted for the Confraternity of St. Mark, and +made his reputation. The legend it represents +may be given in a few words:</p> + +<p>In the days of Doge Gradenigo, one February, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>there arose a fearful storm in Venice. During +the height of the tempest, three men accosted a +poor old fisherman, who was lying in his decayed +old boat by the Piazza, and begged that he +would row them to S. Niccolo del Lido, where +they had urgent business. After some demur +they persuaded him to take the oars, and in +spite of the hurricane, the voyage was accomplished. +On reaching the shore they pointed out +to him a great ship, the crew of which he perceived +to consist of a band of demons, who were +stirring up the waves and making a great +hubbub. The three passengers laid their commands +on them to desist, when immediately +they sailed away and there was a calm. The +passengers then made the oarsman row them, +one to S. Niccolo, one to S. Giorgio, and the +third was rowed back to the Piazza. The +fisherman timidly asked for his fare, and the +third passenger desired him to go to the Doge +and ask for payment, telling him that by that +night’s work a great disaster had been averted +from the city. The fisherman replied that he +should not be believed, but would be imprisoned +as a liar. Then the passenger drew a ring from +his finger. “Show him this for a sign,” he said, +“and know that one of those you have this night +rowed is S. Niccolas, the other is S. George, and +I am S. Mark the Evangelist, Protector of +the Venetian Republic.” He then disappeared. +The next day the fisherman presented the ring, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>and was assigned a provision for life from the +Senate.</p> + +<p>There has, perhaps, never been a richer and +more beautiful subject-picture painted than this +glowing canvas, or one which brings more vividly +before us the magnificence of the pageants which +made such a part of Venetian life in the golden age +of painting. It is all strength and splendour, and +escapes the hectic colour and weaker type which +appear in Bordone’s “Last Supper” and some of +his other works. In 1538 he went to France +and entered the service of Francis II., painting +for him many portraits of ladies, besides works +for the Cardinals of Guise and of Lorraine. The +King of Poland sent to him for a “Jupiter and +Antiope.” At Augsburg he was paid 3000 crowns +for work done for the great Fugger family.</p> + +<p>No one gives us so closely as Bordone the type +of woman who at this time was most admired in +Venice. The Venetian ideal was golden haired, +with full lips, fair, rosy cheeks, large limbed and +ample, with “abundant flanks and snow-white +breast.” A type glowing with health and instinct +with life, but, to say the truth, rather dull, without +deep passions, and with no look that reveals +profound emotions or the struggle of a soul. +From what we see of Bordone’s female portraits +and from some of the mythological compositions +he has left, he might have been among the most +sensually minded of men. His beautiful courtesan, +in the National Gallery, is an almost over-realistic +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>presentment of a woman who has just +parted from her lover. His women, with their +carnation cheeks and expressionless faces, are like +beautiful animals; but, as a matter of fact, their +painter was sober and temperate in his life, very +industrious, and devoted to his widowed mother. +About 1536 he married the daughter of a +Venetian citizen, and had a son, who became one +of the many insignificant painters of the end of the +sixteenth century. Most of his days were divided +between his little Villa of Lovadina in the district +of Belluno, and his modest home in the Corte +dell’ Cavallo near the Misericordia. “He lives +comfortably in his quiet house,” writes Vasari, +who certainly knew Bordone in Venice, “working +only at the request of princes, or his friends, +avoiding all rivalry and those vain ambitions +which do but disturb the repose of man, and +seeking to avert any ruffling of the serene +tranquillity of his life, which he is accustomed +to preserve simple and upright.”</p> + +<p>Many of his pictures show an intense love +of country solitudes. His poetic backgrounds, +lonely mountains, leafy woods, and sparkling +water are in curious contrast to the sumptuous +groups in the foreground.</p> + +<p>His “Three Heads,” in the Brera, is a superb +piece of painting and an interesting characterisation. +The woman is ripe, sensual, and calculating, +feeling with her fingers for the gold chain, +a mere golden-fleshed, rose-flushed hireling, solid +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>and prosaic. The go-between is dimly seen in +the background, but the face of the suitor is a +strange, ironic study: past youth, worn, joyless, +and bitter, taking his pleasure mechanically +and with cynical detachment. The “Storm +calmed by S. Mark” (Academy) was, in Mr. +Berenson’s opinion, begun by Giorgione.</p> + +<p>Rich, brilliant, and essentially Venetian as is +the work of these two painters, it does not reach +the highest level. It falls short of grandeur, and +has that worldly tone that borders on vulgarity. +As we study it we feel that it marks the point +to which Venetian art might have attained, the +flood-mark it might have touched, if it had +lacked the advent of the three or four great +spirits, who, appearing about the same time, bore +it up to sublimer heights and developed a +more distinguished range of qualities. Bonifazio +and Bordone lack the grandeur and sweetness of +Titian, the brilliant touch and imaginative genius +of Tintoretto, the matchless feeling for colour, +design, and decoration of Veronese, but they +continue Venetian painting on logical lines, and +they form a superb foundation for the highest.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bonifazio Veronese.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Finding of Moses.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Madonna; S. Elizabeth and Donor (E.); Rest in Flight + into Egypt; Finding of Moses.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Finding of Moses.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Mother of Zebedee’s Children; Return of the + Prodigal Son.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Colonna: Holy Family with Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Rich Man’s Feast; Massacre of Innocents; Judgment of + Solomon, 1533; Adoration of Kings.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli: Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Santa Conversazione; Triumph of Love; Triumph of Chastity; + Salome.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Paris Bordone.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Vintage Scenes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Man in Black; Chess Players; Madonna and four Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Apollo and Marsyas; Diana; Holy Family.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Portrait of Woman.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Genoa.</td> <td class="td5">Brignole Sale: Portraits of Men; Santa Conversazione.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Donors.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Daphnis and Chloe; Portrait of Lady.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Holy Family.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Descent of Holy Spirit; Baptism; S. Dominio presented + to the Saviour by Virgin; Madonna and Saints; Venal Love.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria pr. Celso: Madonna and S. Jerome.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait; Man counting Jewels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Colonna: Holy Family and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Adoration of Shepherds; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Fisherman and Doge; Paradise; Storm calmed by S. Mark.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale Chapel: Dead Christ.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni in Bragora; Last Supper.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Allegorical Pictures; Lady at Toilet; Young Woman.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>PAINTERS OF THE VENETIAN PROVINCES</strong></p> + + +<p>It has become usual to include in the Venetian +School those artists from the subject provinces +on the mainland, who came down to try their +luck at the fountain-head and to receive its hallmark +on their talent. The Friulan cities, Udine, +Serravalle, and small neighbouring towns, had +their own primitive schools and their scores of +humble craftsmen. Their art wavered for some +time in its expression between the German taste, +which came so close to their gates, and the Italian, +which was more truly their element.</p> + +<p>Up to 1499 Friuli was invaded seven times +in thirty years by the Turks. They poured in +large numbers over the Bosnian borders, crossed +the Isonzo and the Tagliamenta, and massacred +and carried off the inhabitants. These terrible +periods are marked by the cessation of work in +the provinces, but hope always revived again. +The break caused by such a visitation can be +distinctly traced in the Church of S. Antonino, +at the little town of San Daniele. Martino da +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>Udine obtained the epithet of Pellegrino da San +Daniele in 1494 when he returned from an early +visit to Venice, where he had been apprenticed to +Cima. He was appointed to decorate S. Antonino. +His early work there is hard and coarse, ill-drawn, +the figures unwieldy and shapeless, and +the colour dusky and uniform; but owing to +the Turkish raid, he had to take flight, and it +was many a year before the monks gained +sufficient courage and saved enough money to +continue the embellishment of their church. +In the meantime, Pellegrino’s years had been +spent partly in Venice and partly, perhaps, in +Ferrara, for the reason Raphael gave for refusing +to paint a “Bacchus” for the Duke, was that the +subject had already been painted by Pellegrino +da San Daniele. When Pellegrino resumed his +work, it demonstrated that he had studied the +modern Venetians and had come under a finer, +deeper influence. A St. George in armour +suggests Giorgione’s S. Liberale at Castelfranco; +he specially shows an affinity with Pordenone, +who was his pupil and who was to become a +better painter than his old master. As Pellegrino +goes on he improves consistently, and adopts the +method, so peculiarly Venetian, of sacrificing form +to a scheme of chiaroscuro. He even, to some +extent, succeeds in his difficult task of applying +to wall painting the system which the Venetians +used almost exclusively for easel pictures. He +was an ambitious, daring painter, and some of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>his church standards were for long attributed to +Giorgione. The church of San Antonino remains +his chief monument; but for all his travels +Pellegrino remains provincial in type, is unlucky +in his selection, cares little for precision of form, +and trusts to colour for effect.</p> + +<p>The same transition in art was taking place in +other provinces. Morto da Feltre, Pennacchi, +and Girolamo da Treviso have all left work of a +Giorgionesque type, and some painters who went +far onward, began their career under such minor +masters. Giovanni Antonio Licinio, who takes +his name from his native town of Pordenone, in +Friuli, was one of these. All the early part of +his life was spent in painting frescoes in the +small towns of the Friulan provinces. At first +they bear signs of the tuition of Pellegrino, but +it soon becomes evident that Pordenone has +learned to imitate Giorgione and Palma. Quite +early, however, one of his chief failings appears, +and one which is all his own, the disparity +in size between his various figures. The +secondary personages, the Magi in a Nativity, +the Saints standing round an altar, are larger +and more athletic in build and often more +animated in action than the principal actors in +the scene. What pleased Pordenone’s contemporaries +was his daring perspective and his +instinctive feeling for movement. He carried +out great schemes in the hill-towns, till at +length his reputation, which had long been ripe +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>in his native province, reached Venice. In 1519 +he was invited to Treviso to fresco the façade of +a house for one of the Raviguino family. The +painter, as payment, asked fifty scudi, and Titian +was called in to adjudicate, but he admired the +work so much that he hinted to Raviguino that +he would be wise not to press him for a valuation. +As a direct consequence of this piece of +business, Pordenone was employed on the chapel +at Treviso, in conjunction with Titian. At this +time the Assumption and the Madonna of Casa +Pesaro were just finished, and it is probable +that Pordenone paid his first visit to Venice, +hard by, and saw his great contemporary’s work. +With his characteristic distaste for fresco, +Titian undertook the altarpiece and painted the +beautiful Annunciation which still holds its +place, and Pordenone covered the dome with +a foreshortened figure of the Eternal Father, +surrounded by angels. Among the remaining +frescoes in the Chapel, an Adoration of the +Magi and a S. Liberale are from his brush. +Fired by his success at Treviso, Pordenone offered +his services to Mantua and Cremona, but the +Mantovans, accustomed to the stately and restrained +grace of Mantegna, would have nothing to say +to what Crowe and Cavalcaselle call his “large +and colossal fable-painting.” He pursued his way +to Cremona, and that he studied Mantegna as he +passed through Mantua is evident from the first +figures he painted in the cathedral. In Cremona +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>every one admired him, and all the artists set to +work to imitate his energetic foreshortening, +vehement movement and huge proportions.</p> + +<p>Pordenone, with his love for fresco, was all +his life an itinerant painter. In 1521 he was +back at Udine and wandered from place to place, +painting a vast distemper for the organ doors at +S. Maria at Spilimbergo, the façade of the Church +of Valeriano, an imposing series at Travesio, and +in 1525, the “Story of the True Cross” at Casara. +At the last place he threw aside much of his +exaggeration, and, ruined and restored as the +frescoes are, they remain among his most +dignified achievements. He may be studied +best of all at Piacenza, in the Church of the +Madonna di Campagna, where he divides his +subjects between sacred and pagan, so that we +turn from a “Flight into Egypt” or a “Marriage +of S. Catherine,” to the “Rape of Europa” or +“Venus and Adonis.” At Piacenza he shows +himself the great painter he undoubtedly is, +having achieved some mastery over form, while +his colour has the true Venetian quality and almost +equals oils in its luscious tones and vivid hues, +which he lowers and enriches by such enveloping +shadows as only one whose spirit was in touch +with the art of Giorgione would have understood +how to use. Very complete records remain of +Pordenone’s life, full details of a quarrel with his +brother over property left by his father in 1533, +and accounts of the painter’s negotiations to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>obtain a knighthood, which he fancied would +place him more on a par with Titian when he +went to live in Venice. The coveted honour +was secured, but from this time he seems to have +been very jealous of Titian and to have aimed +continually at rivalling him. Pordenone was a +punctual and rapid decorator, and on being given +the ceiling of the Sala di San Finio to decorate +in the summer of 1536, he finished the whole +by March 1538. We have seen how Titian +annoyed the Signoria by his delays, how anxious +they were to transfer his commission to +Pordenone, and what a narrow escape the +Venetian had of losing his Broker’s patent. +Pordenone was engaged by the nuns of Murano +to paint an Annunciation, after they had rejected +one by Titian on account of its price, and though +it seems hardly possible that any one could have +compared the two men, yet no doubt the pleasure +of getting an altarpiece quickly and punctually +and for a moderate sum, often outweighed the +honour of the possible painting by the great +Titian.</p> + +<p>No one has left so few easel-paintings as +Pordenone; fresco was so much better suited to +his particular style. The canvas of the “Madonna +of Mercy” in the Venice Academy, was painted +about 1525 for a member of the house of +Ottobono, and introduces seven members of the +family. It is very free from his colossal, +exaggerated manner; the attendant saints are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>studied from nature, and in his journals the +painter mentions that the St. Roch is a portrait +of himself. The “S. Lorenzo enthroned,” in +the same gallery, shows both his virtues and +failings. The saints have his enormous proportions. +The Baptist is twisting round, to +display the foreshortening which Pordenone +particularly affects. The gestures are empty +and inexpressive, but the colour is broad and +fluid; there is a large sense of decoration in the +composition, and something simple and austere +about the figure of S. Lorenzo. As is so often +the case with Pordenone, the principal actor of +the scene is smaller and more sincerely imagined +than the attendant personages, who are crowded +into the foreground, where they are used to +display the master’s skill.</p> + +<p>Pordenone died suddenly at Ferrara, where he +had been summoned by its Duke to undertake +one of his great schemes of decoration. He was +said to have been poisoned, but though he had +jealous rivals there seems no proof of the truth +of the assertion, which was one very commonly +made in those days. He is interesting as being +the only distinguished member of the Venetian +School whose frescoes have come down to us in +any number, and as being the only one of the +later masters with whom it was the chosen +medium.</p> + +<p>His kinsman, Bernardino Licinio, is represented +in the National Gallery by a half-length +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>of a young man in black, and at Hampton Court +by a large family group and by another of three +persons gathered round a spinet. His masterpiece +is a Madonna and Saints in the Frari, +which shows the influence of Palma. His flesh +tints, striving to be rich, have a hot, red look, +but his works have been constantly confounded +with those of Giorgione and Paris Bordone.</p> + +<p>A long list might be given of minor artists +who were industriously turning out work on +similar lines to one or other of these masters: +Calderari, who imitates Paris Bordone as well as +Pordenone; Pomponio Amalteo, Pordenone’s son-in-law, +a spirited painter in fresco; Florigerio, +who practised at Udine and Padua, and of whom +an altarpiece remains in the Academy; Giovanni +Battista Grassi, who helped Vasari to compile +his notices of Friulan art, and many others only +known by name.</p> + +<p>At the close of the fifteenth century the +revulsion against Paduan art extended as far +as Brescia, and Girolamo Romanino was one +of the first to acquire the trick of Venetian +painting. He probably studied for a time under +Friulan painters. Pellegrino is thought to have +been at Brescia or Bergamo during the Friulan +disturbances of 1506-12, and about 1510 +Romanino emerges, a skilled artist in Pellegrino’s +Palmesque manner. His works at this +time are dark and glowing, full of warm light +and deep shadow; the scene is often laid under +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>arches, after the manner of the Vivarini and +Cima; a gorgeous scheme of accessory is framed +in noble architecture.</p> + +<p>Brescia was an opulent city, second only to +Milan among the towns of northern Italy, and +Romanino obtained plenty of patronage; but in +1511 the city fell a prey to the horrors of war, +was taken and lost by Venice, and in 1512 was +sacked by the French. Romanino fled to Padua, +where he found a home among the Benedictines +of S. Giustina. Here he was soon well employed +on an altarpiece with life-size figures for the +high altar, and a “Last Supper” for the +refectory. It is also surmised that he helped +in the series for the Scuola del Santo, for several +of which Titian in 1511 had signed a receipt, +and the “Death of St. Anthony” is pointed out +as showing the Brescian characteristics of fine +colour, but poor drawing.</p> + +<p>Romanino returned to Brescia when the +Venetians recovered it in 1516, but before doing +so he went to Cremona and painted four subjects, +which are among his most effective, in the choir +of the Duomo.</p> + +<p>He is not so daring a painter as Pordenone, +from whom he sometimes borrows ideas, but +he is quite a convert to the modern style +of the day, setting his groups in large spaces +and using the slashed doublets, the long hose, +and plumed headgear which Giorgione had +found so picturesque. Romanino is often very +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>poor and empty, and fails most in selection and +expression at the moments when he most needs +to be great, but he is successful in the golden +style he adopted after his closer contact with the +Venetians, and his draperies and flesh tints are +extremely brilliant. He is, indeed, inclined to +be gaudy and careless in execution, and even the +fine “Nativity” in the National Gallery gives +the impression that size is more regarded than +thought and feeling.</p> + +<p>Moretto is perhaps the only painter from the +mainland who, coming within the charmed circle +of Venetian art and betraying the study of Palma +and Titian and the influence of Pordenone, still +keeps his own gamut of colour, and as he goes +on, gets consistently cooler and more silvery in +his tones. He can only be fully studied in +Brescia itself, where literally dozens of altarpieces +and wall-paintings show him in every +phase. His first connection was probably with +Romanino, but he reminds us at one time of +Titian by his serious realism, and finished, careful +painting, at another of Raphael, by the grace +and sentiment of his heads, and as time goes on +he foreshadows the style of Veronese. In the +“Feast in the House of Simon” in the organ-loft +of the Church of the Pietà in Venice, the +very name prepares us for the airy, colonnaded +building, with vistas of blue sky and landscape, +and the costly raiment and plenishing which +might have been seen at any Venetian or +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>Brescian banquet. In his portraits Moretto +sometimes rivals Lotto. His personages are +always dignified and expressive, with pale, +high-bred faces, and exceedingly picturesque +in dress and general arrangement. He loved +to paint a great gentleman, like the Sciarra +Martinengo in the National Gallery, and to +endow him with an air of romantic interest.</p> + +<p>One of those who entered so closely into the +spirit of the Venetian School that he may almost +be included within it, is Savoldo. His pictures +are rare, and no gallery can show more than one +or two examples. The Louvre has a portrait +by him of Gaston de Foix, long thought to be +by Giorgione. His native town can only show +one altarpiece, an “Adoration of Shepherds,” +low in tone but intense in dusky shadow with +fringes of light. He is grey and slaty in his +shadows, and often rough and startling in effect, +but at his best he produces very beautiful, rich, +evening harmonies; and a letter from Aretino +bears witness to the estimation in which he was +held.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to say if Brescia or Vicenza has +most claim to Bartolommeo Montagna, the early +master of Cima. Born of Brescian parents, he +settled early in Vicenza, and he is by far the most +distinguished of those Vicentine painters who +drank at the Venetian fount. He must have +gone early to Venice and worked with the +Vivarini, for in his altarpiece in the Brera he +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>has the vaulted porticoes in which Bartolommeo +and Alvise Vivarini delighted. His “Madonna +enthroned” in the gallery at Vicenza has many +points of contact with that of Alvise at Berlin. +Among these are the four saints, the cupola, and +the raised throne, and he is specially attracted +by the groups of music-making angels; but +Montagna has more moral greatness than Alvise, +and his lines are stronger and more sinewy. He +keeps faithful to the Alvisian feeling for calm +and sweetness, but his personages have greater +weight and gravity. He essays, too, a “Pietà” +with saints, at Monte Berico, and shows both +pathos and vehemence. He has evidently seen +Bellini’s rendering, and attempts, if only with +partial success, to contrast in the same way the +indifference of death with the contemplation +and anguish of the bereaved. Hard and angular +as Montagna’s saints often are, they show +power and austerity. His colour is brilliant +and enamel-like; he does not arrive at the +Venetian depth, yet his altarpieces are very +grand, and once more we are struck by the +greatness of even the secondary painters who +drew their inspiration from Padua and Venice.</p> + +<p>Among the other Vicentines, Giovanni Speranza +and Giovanni Buonconsiglio were imbued +with characteristics of Mantegna. Speranza, +in one of his few remaining works, almost +reproduces the beautiful “Assumption” by +Pizzolo, Mantegna’s young fellow-student, in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>the Chapel of the Eremitani. He employs +Buonconsiglio as an assistant, and they imitate +Montagna to such an extent that it is difficult to +distinguish between their works. Buonconsiglio’s +“Pietà” in the Vicenza gallery, is reminiscent +of Montagna’s at Monte Berico. The types are +lean and bony, the features are almost as rugged +as Dürer’s, the flesh earthy and greenish. About +1497 Buonconsiglio was studying oils with +Antonello da Messina; he begins to reside in +Venice, and a change comes over his manner. +His colours show a brilliancy and depth acquired +by studying Titian; and then, again, his bright +tints remind us of Lotto. His name was on the +register of the Venetian Guild as late as 1530.</p> + +<p>After Pisanello’s achievement and his marked +effect on early Venetian art, Veronese painting +fell for a time to a very low ebb; but Mantegna’s +influence was strongly felt here, and art revived +in Liberale da Verona, Falconetto, Casoto, +the Morone and Girolamo dai Libri, painters +delightful in themselves, but having little connection +with the school of Venice. Francesco +Bonsignori, however, shook himself free from +the narrow circle of Veronese art, where he had +for a time followed Liberale, and grows more +like the Vicentines, Montagna and Buonconsiglio. +He is careful about his drawing, but his figures, +like those of many of these provincial painters, are +short, bony and vulgar, very unlike the slender, +distinguished type of the great Paduan. Under +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>the name of Francesco da Verona, Bonsignori +works in the new palace of the Gonzagas, and +several pictures painted for Mantua are now +scattered in different collections. At Verona he +has left four fine altarpieces. He went early +to Venice, where he became the pupil of the +Vivarini. His faces grow soft and oval, and +the very careful outlines suggest the influence +of Bellini.</p> + +<p>Girolamo Mocetto was journeyman to Giovanni +Bellini; in fact, Vasari says that a “Dead +Christ” in S. Francesco della Vigna, signed +with Bellini’s name, is from Mocetto’s hand. +His short, broad figures have something of +Bartolommeo Vivarini’s character.</p> + +<p>Francesco Torbido went to Venice to study +with Giorgione, and we can trace his master’s +manner of turning half tones into deep shades; +but he does not really understand the Giorgionesque +treatment, in which shade was always rich +and deep, but never dark, dirty and impenetrable, +nor in the lights can he produce the clear glow +of Giorgione. Another Veronese, Cavazzola, has +left a masterpiece upon which any painter might +be happy to rest his reputation; the “Gattemalata +with an Esquire” in the Uffizi, a picture noble +in feeling and in execution, and one which owes +a great deal to Venetian portrait-painters.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pordenone.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Casara.</td> <td class="td5">Old Church: Frescoes, 1525.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Colatto.</td> <td class="td5">S. Salvatore: Frescoes (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Cremona.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Frescoes; Christ before Pilate; Way to Golgotha; + Nailing to Cross; Crucifixion, 1521; Madonna enthroned + with Saints and Donor, 1522.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Murano.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria d. Angeli: Annunciation (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Piacenza.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna in Campagna: Frescoes and Altarpiece, 1529-31.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Pordenone.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Madonna of Mercy, 1515; S. Mark enthroned with Saints, 1535.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Municipio: SS. Gothard, Roch, and Sebastian, 1525.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Spilimbergo.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Assumption; Conversion of S. Paul.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Sensigana.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Torre.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Treviso.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Adoration of Magi; Frescoes, 1520.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Portraits; Madonna, Saints, and the Ottobono Family; Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Elemosinario: Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Rocco: Saints, 1528.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pellegrino.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">San Daniele.</td> <td class="td5">Frescoes in S. Antonio.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Cividale.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria: Madonna with six Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Annunciation.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Romanino.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">S. Alessandro in Colonna: Assumption.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Pietà.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Galleria Martinengo: Portrait; Christ bearing Cross; Nativity; Coronation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Sacristy: Birth of Virgin; Visitation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco: Madonna and Saints; Sposalizio.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Cremona.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Polyptych; Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Last Supper; Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Sato, Lago di Garda.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></td> <td class="td5"> Duomo: Saints and Donor.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Trent.</td> <td class="td5">Castello: Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">St. Jerome. S. Giorgio in Braida: Organ shutters.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Moretto.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Holy Family; Christ bearing Cross; Donor.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Brescia.</td> <td class="td5">Galleria Martinengo: Nativity and Saints; Madonna + appearing to S. Francis; Saints; Madonna in Glory + with Saints; Christ at Emmaus; Annunciation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Clemente: High Altar and four other Altarpieces.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco: Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni Evangelista: High Altar; Third Altar.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria in Calchera: Dead Christ and Saints; + Magdalen washing Feet of Christ.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria delle Grazie: High Altar.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Nazaro and Celso: Two Altarpieces; Sacristy: Nativity.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Seminario di S. Angelo: High Altar.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Count Sciarra Martinengo; Portrait; + Madonna and Saints; Two Angels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna and Saints; Assumption.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Castello: Triptych; Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Vatican: Madonna enthroned with Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria della Pietà: Christ in the House of Levi.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio in Braida: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Bartolommeo Montagna.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Madonna and Saint, 1487.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna, Saints, and Donors, 1500.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Scuola del Santo: Fresco; Opening of S. Antony’s Tomb.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Pavia.</td> <td class="td5">Certosa: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Madonna and Saints; Christ with Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">SS. Nazaro e Celso: Saints; Pietà; Frescoes, 1491-93.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Holy Family; Madonna enthroned; Two Madonnas with Saints; Three Madonnas.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Altarpiece; Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Corona: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Monte Berico: Pietà, 1500; Fresco.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>PAOLO VERONESE</strong></p> + + +<p>Paolo Veronese, though perhaps he is not to +be placed on the very highest pinnacle of the +Venetian School, must be classed among those +few great painters who rose far above the level +of most of his contemporaries and who brought +in a special note and flavour of his own. His +art is an independent art, and he borrows little +from predecessors or contemporaries. His free +and joyous temperament gave relief at a moment +when the Venetian scheme of colour threatened +to become too sombre, and when Sebastian del +Piombo, Pordenone, Titian himself, and above all +Tintoretto, were pushing chiaroscuro to extremes. +Veronese discards the deepest bronzes and mulberries +and crimsons and oranges, and finds his +range among cream and rose and grey-greens. +Titian concentrated his colours and intensified +his lights, Tintoretto sacrifices colour to vivid +play of light and dark, but Veronese avoids the +dark; the generous light plays all through his +scenes. He has no wish to secure strong effects +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>but delights in soft, faded tints; old rose and +<em>turquoise morte</em>. In his colour and his subjects +he is a personification of the robust, proud, joy-loving +Republic, in which, as M. Yriarte says, +a man produced his works as a tree produces its +fruit. We get very near him in those vast +palaces and churches and villas, where his heroic +figures expand in the azure air, against the white +clouds, and yet he is one of the artists of the +Renaissance about whom we know least. Here +and there, in contemporary biography, we come +across a mention of him and learn that he was +sociable and lively, quick at taking offence, fond +of his family and anxious to do his best by them. +He was, too, very generous with his work—a +great contrast in this respect to Titian—and +contracts with convents and confraternities show +that he often only stipulated for payment for +bare time. Yet he was fond of personal luxury, +loved rich stuffs, horses and hounds, and, says +Ridolfi, “always wore velvet breeches.”</p> + +<p>His first masters, according to Mr. Berenson, +were Badile and Brusasorci, masters of Verona, +but before he was twenty, he was away working +on his own account. His first patron was +Cardinal Gonzaga, who brought several painters +from Verona to Mantua; but Mantua was no +longer what it had been in the days of Isabela +d’Este, and Paolo Caliari soon returned to his +own town. Before he was twenty-three he had +decorated Villa Porti, near Vicenza, in collaboration +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>with Zelotti, a Veronese, portraying feasting +gods and goddesses, framed in light architectural +designs in monochrome. The two painters went +on to other villas, mixing mortal and mythical +figures in a happy, light-hearted medley.</p> + +<p>Zelotti having received a commission at +Vicenza, Paolo decided to seek his fortune in +Venice. The Prior of the Convent of San Sebastiano, +on the Zattere, was a Veronese, and Caliari +wrote to him before arriving in Venice in 1555. +Thanks to the good Prior, who played a considerable +part in his destiny, he obtained a +commission for a “Coronation of the Virgin +and four other Saints.” He first painted the +sacristy, but his success was instantaneous, and +many orders followed. The ceiling of the +church was devoted to the history of Esther. +The whole of these paintings are marvellously +well preserved, and, inset in the carved and gilt +framework, make a <em>coup d’œil</em> of surprising +beauty. They had an immense effect. Every +one was able to appreciate these joyous pictures +of Venice, the loveliness of her skies, the pomp +of her ceremonies, the rich Eastern stuffs and the +glorious architecture of her palaces. It was an +auspicious moment for a painter of Veronese’s +temper; the so-called Republic, now, more than +ever, an oligarchy, was at the height of its fortunes, +redecorating was going forward everywhere, +the merchant-nobility was rich and spending +magnificently, the Eastern trade was flourishing, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>Venice was in all her glory. The patrons Caliari +came to work for, preferred the ceremonial to +the imaginative treatment of sacred themes, and +he does not choose the tragedies of the Bible +for illustration. He paints the history of Esther, +with its royal audiences, banquets, and marriage-feasts. +His Christs and Maries and Martyrs are +composed, courtly personages, who maintain a +dignified calm under misfortune, and have very +little violent feeling to show.</p> + +<p>At the time of his arrival in Venice, Palma +Vecchio was just dead, Tintoretto was absorbed +by the Scuola di San Rocco, Paris Bordone was +with Francis I. As rivals, Caliari had Salviati, +Bonifazio, Schiavone, and Zelotti, all rendering +homage to Titian who was eighty years old, +but still in full vigour. Titian’s opinions in +matters of art were dictates, his judgment was +a law. He immediately recognised Veronese’s +genius, which was of a kind to appeal to him, +and together with Sansovino, who at this +time was Director of Buildings to the Signoria, +he received the young painter with an approval +which ensured him a good start. Five years +after Veronese’s arrival he was retained to +decorate the Villa Barbaro at Maser, which is +a type of those patrician country-houses to which +the Venetians were becoming more attached +every year. Daniele Barbaro, Patriarch of +Aquileia, whose magnificent portrait by Veronese +is in the Pitti, was himself an artist and designed +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>the ceiling of the Hall of the Council of Ten. +Palladio, Alessandro Vittoria, and Veronese were +associated to build him a dwelling worthy of a +Prince of the Church. In style the villa is a total +contrast to the gorgeous Venetian palaces; it is +sober and simple, and well adapted to leisure and +retirement. Its white stucco walls and decorations +are devoid of gilding and colour, and the +rooms adorned by Veronese’s brush show him +in quite a new light. His visit to Rome did +not take place till four years later, but he +has been influenced here by the feeling for +the antique, and he thinks much of line and +style. He leaves on one side the gorgeous +brocades and gleaming satins, in which he usually +delights, and his nymphs are only clothed in +their own beauty. And here Veronese shows +his admirable taste and discretion; his patrons, +the Barbaro family, are his friends, men and +women of the world, who put no restraint on his +fancy, and are not prone to censure, and Veronese, +with the bridle on his neck, so to speak, uses his +opportunities fully, yet never exceeds the limits +of good taste. He is not gross and sensual like +Rubens, but proud, grave and sweet, seductive, +but never suggestive or vulgar. After having +placed single figures wherever he can find a nook, +he assembles all the gods of Olympia at a supper +in the cupola. Immortality is a beautiful young +woman seated on a cloud. Mercury gazes at +her, caduceus in hand; Diana caresses her great +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>hound; Saturn, an old man, rests his head on his +hand; Mars, Apollo, Venus, and a little cupid +are scattered in the Empyrean, and Jupiter +presides over the party. Below, a balcony rail +runs round the cupola, and looking over it, an +old lady, dressed in the latest fashion, points out +the company to a beautiful young one and to a +young man in a doublet who holds a hound in +a leash. They are evidently family portraits, +taken from those who looked on at the artist, and +on the other side he has introduced members of +his own family who were helping him. These +decorations have a gaiety, an absence of pedantry, +a sound and sane sympathy with the spirit of the +Renaissance which tell of a happy moment +when art was at its height and in touch with +its environment. From about 1563 we may +begin to date his great supper pictures. The +Marriage of Cana (Louvre), one of his most +famous works, was painted for the refectory in +Sammichele, the old part of S. Giorgio Maggiore. +The treaty for it is still in existence, dated June +1562. The artist asks for a year; the Prior is +to furnish canvas and colours, the painter’s board, +and a cask of wine. The further payment of 972 +ducats illustrates the prices received by the +greatest artists at the height of the Renaissance: +£280 for work which occupied quite eight months.</p> + +<p>Veronese must have delighted in painting this +work. Needless to say, it is not in the least +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>religious. He has united in it all the most varied +personages who struck his imagination. So we +see a Spanish grandee, Francis I., Suleiman the +Sultan, Charles V., Vittoria Colonna, and +Eleanor of Austria. In the foreground, grouped +round a table, are Veronese himself, playing the +viol, Tintoretto accompanying him, Jacopo da +Ponte seated by them, and Paolo’s brother, the +architect, with his hand on his hip, tossing off a +full glass; and in the governor of the feast, +opulent and gorgeously attired, we recognise +Aretino. Under the marble columns of a +Grimani or a Pesaro, he brings in all the +illustrious actors of his own time and leaves us +an odd and informing document. We can but +accept the scene and admire the originality of its +design and the freedom of its execution, its boldness +and fancy, the way in which the varied +incidents are brought into harmony, and the +grace of the colonnade, peopled with spectators, +standing out against the depth of distant sky.</p> + +<p>The celebrated suppers, of which this is the +first example, are dispersed in different galleries +and some have disappeared, but from this time +Veronese loved to paint these great displays, +repeating some of them, but always introducing +variety.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img277.jpg" width="550" height="372" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Paolo Veronese.</em> MARRIAGE IN CANA. <em>Louvre.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Mansell and Co.</em>)</p> + +<p>In 1564 he accompanied Girolamo Grimani, +procurator of St. Mark’s, who was appointed +ambassador to the Holy See, and for the first time +saw the works of Raphael and Michelangelo and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>the treasures of antiquity. For a time, the sight +of the antique had some effect upon his work; +in his famous ceiling in the Louvre, “Jupiter +destroying the Vices,” the influence of Michelangelo +is apparent and its large gestures are inspired +by sculpture. Ridolfi says that Veronese +brought home casts from Rome, and statues +of Amazons and the Laocoon seem to have +inspired the Jupiter. He did not go on long in +this path; he does not really care for the nude—it +is too simple for him. He prefers that his +saints and divinities should appear in the gorgeous +costumes of the day, and that his Venus +and Diana and the nymphs should trail in rich +brocades. But few documents are left concerning +his work for the Ducal Palace up to 1576; +much of it was destroyed in the great fire, but +the Signoria then gave him a number of fresh +commissions. The most important was the +immense oval of the “Triumph of Venice,” +or, as it is sometimes called, the “Thanksgiving +for Lepanto”; the Republic crowned by +victory and surrounded by allegorical figures, +Glory, Peace, Happiness, Ceres, Juno and the +rest. The composition shows the utmost freedom: +the fair Queen leans back, surrounded +by laughing patricians, who look up from their +balconies, as if they were attending a regatta on +the Grand Canal. The horses of the Free Companions, +the soldiers who go afar to carry out +the will of the Republic, prance in a crowd of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>personages, each of whom represents a town or +colony of her domain. Like all Veronese’s +creations, this will always be pre-eminently a +picture of the sixteenth century, dated by a +thousand details of costume, architecture, and +armour. Venice, the Venice of Lepanto and the +Venier, of Titian, Aretino, and Veronese himself, +makes a deep impression upon us, and the artist +reflects his age with sympathetic spontaneity.</p> + +<p>Hardly a hall of the Ducal Palace but can +show a canvas of Veronese or the assistants by +whom he was now surrounded. From time to +time he resumed the decorations of S. Sebastiano, +and his incessant production betrays no trace +of fatigue or languor. The martyrdom of the +saint is a triumph of the beauty of the silhouette +against a radiant sky. He goes back to Verona +and paints the “Martyrdom of St. George.” He +pours light into it. The saints open a shining +path, down which a flower-crowned Love flutters +with the diadem and palm of victory. The +whole air and expression of St. George is full +of strength and that look of goodness and +serenity which is the painter’s nearest approach +to religious feeling. Veronese was created a +Chevalier of St. Mark; every one was asking for +his services, but he was a stay-at-home by nature +and fond of living with his family. Philip II. +longed to get him to cover his great walls in the +Escurial, but he very civilly declined all his invitations +and sent Federigo Zucchero in his stead.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p><p>It was on account of the “Feast in the House +of Levi” that in 1573 he was hauled before the +tribunal of the Inquisition, and the document +concerning this was only discovered a few years +ago. The Signoria had never allowed any +tribunal to chastise works of literature; on +the contrary, Venice, though comparatively poor +herself in geniuses of the mind, was the refuge +of freedom of thought, and, in fact, had made a +sort of compact with Niccolas V., which allowed +her to set aside or suspend the decisions of the +Holy Office, from which she could not quite +emancipate herself. Veronese, however, was +denounced by some “aggrieved person,” to whom +his way of treating sacred subjects seemed an +outrage on religion. The members of the +tribunal demanded “who the boy was with the +bleeding nose?” and “why were halberdiers +admitted?” Veronese replied that they were the +sort of servants a rich and magnificent host would +have about him. He was then asked why he +had introduced the buffoon with a parrot on his +hand. He replied that he really thought only +Christ and His Apostles were present, but that +when he had a little space over, he adorned it +with imaginary figures. This defence of the vast +and crowded canvas did not commend itself, and +he was asked if he really thought that at the +Last Supper of our Saviour it was fitting to bring +in dwarfs, buffoons, drunken Germans, and other +absurdities. Did he not know that in Germany +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>and other places infested with heresy, they were +in the habit of turning the things of Holy Church +into ridicule, with intent to teach false doctrine +to the ignorant? Paolo for his defence cited the +Last Judgment, where Michelangelo had painted +every figure in the nude, but the Inquisitor +replied crushingly, that these were disembodied +spirits, who could not be expected to wear clothing. +Could Veronese uphold his picture as +decent? The painter was probably not very +much alarmed. He was a person of great importance +in Venice, and the proceedings of the +Inquisition were always jealously watched by +members of the Senate, who would not have permitted +any unfair interference with the liberties +of those under the protection of the State. The +real offence was the introduction of the German +soldiers, who were peculiarly obnoxious to the +Venetians; but Veronese did not care what the +subject was as long as it gave him an excuse for +a great <em>spectacle</em>. Brought to bay, he gave the +true answer: “My Lords, I have not considered +all this. I was far from wishing to picture anything +disorderly. I painted the picture as it +seemed best to me and as my intellect could +conceive of it.” It meant that Veronese painted +in the way that he considered most artistic, without +even remembering questions of religion, and +in this he summed up his whole æsthetic creed. +He was set at liberty on condition that he took +out one or two of the most offending figures. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>The “Feast in the House of Levi” (as he named +it after the trial) is the finest of all his great +scenic effects. The air circulates freely through +the white architecture, we breathe more deeply +as we look out into the wide blue sky, and +such is the sensation of expansion, that it is +hardly possible to believe we are gazing at a +flat wall. Titian’s backgrounds are a blue +horizon, a burning twilight. Veronese builds +marble palaces, with rosy shadows, or columns +blanched in the liquid light. His personages +show little violent action. He places them in +noble poses in which they can best show off +their magnificent clothes, and he endows his +patricians, his goddesses, his sacred persons, with +a uniform air of majestic indolence.</p> + +<p>After his “trial,” Veronese proceeded more +triumphantly than ever. Every prince wished +to have something from his brush; the Emperor +Rudolph, at Prague, showed with pride the +canvases taken later by Gustavus Adolphus. The +Duke of Modena, carrying on the traditions of +Ferrara, added Veronese’s works to the treasures +of the house of Este. The last ten years of his +life were given up to visiting churches on the +mainland and on the little islands round Venice, +all covetous to possess something by the brilliant +Veronese, whose name was in every mouth. Torcello, +Murano, Treviso, Castelfranco, every convent +and monastery loaded him with commissions, and +it is significant of the spirit of the time, that in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>spite of the disapproval of the Holy See, his +most ardent patrons, those who delighted most +in his robust, uncompromising worldliness, were +to be found in the religious houses. Then, when +he went to rest in the summer heats in some villa +on the Brenta, he left delightful souvenirs here +and there. It was on such an occasion, for the +Pisani, that he painted the “Family of Darius,” +which was sold to England by a member of +the house in 1857. The royal captives, who +are throwing themselves at the feet of the +conqueror, are, with Paolo’s usual frank naïveté +and disregard of anachronisms, dressed in full +Venetian costume—all the chief personages are +portraits of the Pisani family. The freedom +and rapidity of execution, the completeness and +finish, the charm of colour, the beauty of the +figures (especially the princely ones of Alexander +and Hephaestion), and its extraordinary energy, +make this one of the finest of all his works. +The critic, Charles Blanc, says of it, +“It is absurd and dazzling.”</p> + +<p>In the “Rape of Europa,” he recurred again +to one of those legends of fabled beings who have +outlasted dynasties and are still fresh and living. +Veronese was surrounded by men like Aretino +and Bembo, well versed in mythology, and with +his usual zest he makes the tale an excuse for +painting lovely, blooming women, rich toilets, +and a delightful landscape. The wild flowers +spring, and the little Loves fly to and fro against +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>a cloud-flecked sky of the wonderful Veronese +turquoise. It is the work of a man who is a +true poet of colour and for whom colour represents +all the emotions of joy and pleasure.</p> + +<p>Veronese died comparatively young, of chill +and fever, and all his family survived him. He +lies buried in San Sebastiano. From contemporary +memoirs we know that he lived and dressed +splendidly. He kept immense stores of gorgeous +stuffs to paint from in his studio, and drew +everything from life,—the negroes covered with +jewels, the bright-eyed pages, the models who, +robed in velvets, brocades and satins, became +queens or courtesans or saints. The pearls +which bedecked them were from his own +caskets. Though we know little of his private +life, his work is so alive that he seems personified +in it. He is saved from what might have been +a prosaic or a sordid style by the delicious, ever-changing +colour in which he revels; his silks +and satins are less modelled by shadows than +tinted by broken reflections, his embroidered and +striped and arabesqued tissues are so harmoniously +combined that the eye rests, wherever it falls, on +something exquisite and subtle in tint. This is +where his genius lies, “the decoration does not +add to the interest of the drama; it replaces +it”; in short, it <em>is</em> the drama itself, for his types +show little selection, and his ideal of female +beauty is not a very sympathetic one. His +personages are cold and devoid of expression, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>their gestures are rather meaningless, but by +means of light and air and exquisite colour he +gives the poetical touch which all great art +demands.</p> + +<p>On account of their size few examples of +Veronese’s work are to be found in private +collections, but the galleries of the different +European capitals are rich in them. Numbers +of paintings, too, which are by his assistants +are dignified by his name, and directly after his +death spurious works were freely manufactured +and sold as genuine.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna with Cuccina Family; Adoration of Magi; Marriage of Cana.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Portrait of Daniele Barbaro.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Martyrdom of S. Giustina; Holy Family (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Consecration of S. Niccolas; The Family of Darius before + Alexander; Adoration of the Magi.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Maser.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Barbaro: Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">S. Giustina: Martyrdom of S. Giustina.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at Emmaus; Marriage of Cana.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Battle of Lepanto; Feast in the House of Levi; Madonna with Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Triumph of Venice; Rape of Europa; Venice enthroned.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Barnabà: Holy Family.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Francesco della Vigna: Holy Family.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Sebastiano: Madonna and Saints; Crucifixion; Madonna in + Glory with S. Sebastian and other Saints; others in part; + Frescoes; Saints and Figure of Faith; Sibyls.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Pasio Guadienti, 1556.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio: Martyrdom of S. George.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Monte Berico: Feast of St. Gregory, 1572.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at the House of Jairus.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>TINTORETTO</strong></p> + + +<p>It does not seem likely that many new discoveries +will be made about Tintoretto’s life. It +was an open and above-board one, and there is +practically no time during its span that we are +not able to account for, and to say where he +was living and how he was occupied. The son of +a dyer, a member of one of the powerful guilds +of Venice, the “little dyer,” <em>il tentoretto</em>, appears +as an enthusiastic boy, keen to learn his chosen +art. He was apprenticed to Titian and, immediately +after, summarily ejected from that +master’s workshop, on account, it seems probable, +of the independence and innovation of his style, +which was of the very kind most likely to shock +and puzzle Titian’s courtly, settled genius. After +this he painted when and where he could, +pursuing his artistic studies with the headlong +ardour which through life characterised his +attitude towards art. Mr. Berenson thinks he +may have worked in Bonifazio’s studio. He +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +formed a close friendship with Andrea Schiavone,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +he imported casts of Michelangelo’s statues, he +studied the works of Titian and Palma. Over +his door was written “the colour of Titian and +the form of Michelangelo.” All his energies +were for long devoted to the effort to master +that form. Colour came to him naturally, but +good drawing meant more to him than it had +ever done to any Venetian. Long afterwards, to +repeated inquiries as to how excellence could +be best ensured, he would give no other advice +than the reiterated, “study drawing.” He +practised till the human form in every attitude +held no difficulties for him. He suspended +little models by strings, and drew every limb +and torso he could get hold of over and over +again. He was found in every place where +painting was wanted, getting the builders to let +him experiment upon the house-fronts. To +master light and shade he constructed little +cardboard houses, in which, by means of sliding +shutters, lamplight and skylight effects could be +arranged. It is particularly interesting to hear of +this part of his education, as in the end the love +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>of shine and shadow was the most victorious of +all his inspirations.</p> + +<p>The chief events in Tintoretto’s life are art-events. +For some years he frescoed the outside +of houses at a nominal price, or merely for his +expenses. He decorated household furniture and +everything he could lay hands on. Then came +a few small commissions, an altarpiece here, +organ-doors there, for unimportant churches. +No one in Venice talked of any one save Palma, +Bonifazio, and, above all, Titian, and it was difficult +enough for an outsider, who was not one of their +clique, to get employment. But by the time +Tintoretto was twenty-six his talent was becoming +recognised; he had painted the two +altarpieces for SS. Ermagora and Fortunato, and +the offer he made to decorate the vast church +of his parish brought him conspicuously into +notice. In the first ardour of youth he completed +the “Last Judgment” for the choir. +From time to time, during fourteen years, he +redeemed his early promises and executed the +“Golden Calf” and the “Presentation of the +Virgin.” Within two years of his offer to +the Prior, came his first great opportunity of +achieving distinction. This was a commission +from the Confraternity of St. Mark, and with the +“Miracle of the Slave” he sprang at once to the +highest place.</p> + +<p>The picture was universally admired, and was +followed by three more dealing with the patron +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>saint. At forty he married happily a beautiful +young girl, Faustina dei Vescovi, or Episcopi, +as it is indifferently given, the daughter of a +noble family of the mainland. Tradition has +always pointed to the girl in blue in the “Golden +Calf” as her portrait, while it is easy to recognise +Tintoretto himself in the black-bearded giant, +who helps to carry the idol. His house at this +time was somewhere in the Parrocchia dell’ Orto, +and there, during the next fourteen years, eight +children were born, of whom the two eldest, +Domenico and Marietta, attained distinction in +their father’s profession. Another great event, +which profoundly influenced his life, was the +beginning of his connection in 1560 with the +Scuola di San Rocco, the great confraternity +which was devoted to combating the ravages of +the plague and to succouring the families of its +victims. His work for this lasted to the end of +his life and is his most distinguished memorial.</p> + +<p>The palace to which the Robusti family +moved in 1574, and which was inhabited by his +descendants so late as 1830, can still be identified +in the Calle della Sensa. It is broken up into +two parts, but it is evident that it was a dwelling +of some importance, a good specimen of +Venetian Gothic. It still bears marks of considerable +decoration; the walls are sheathed in +marble plaques, and the first floor has rows of +Gothic windows in delicately carved frames and +little balconies of fretted marble. Zanetti, in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>1771, gives an etching of a magnificent bronze +frieze cast from the master’s design, which ran +round the Grand Sala. The family must have +occupied the <em>piano nobile</em> and let off the floors +they did not require.</p> + +<p>Descriptions of the life led by the painter and +his family are given by Vasari, who knew him +personally, and by Ridolfi, whose book was published +in 1646, and who must have known his +children, several of whom were still alive and +proud of their father’s fame. We hear of pleasant +evenings spent in the little palace, of the enthusiastic +love of music, Tintoretto himself and his +daughter being highly gifted. Among the +<em>habitués</em> were Zarlino, for twenty-five years +chapel-master of St. Mark’s, one of the fathers of +modern music; Bassano; and Veronese, who, in +spite of his love for magnificent entertainments, +was often to be found in Tintoretto’s pleasant +home. Poor Andrea Schiavone was always +welcome, and as time went on the house became +the haunt of all the cultured gentlemen and +<em>litterati</em> of Venice.</p> + +<p>It is not difficult from the materials available +to form a sufficiently lively idea of this Venetian +citizen of the sixteenth century, as father and +husband, host and painter. Ridolfi has collected +a number of anecdotes, which space forbids me +to use, but which are all very characteristic. We +gather that he was a man of strong character, +generous, sincere and simple, decided in his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>ways, caring little for the great world, but +open-handed and hospitable under his own roof, +observant of men and manners, and sometimes +rather brusque in dealing with bores and offensive +persons. Full of dry quiet humour and of good-natured +banter of his wife’s little weaknesses. +A man, too, of upright conduct and free, as far +as it can be ascertained, from any of those +laxities and infidelities, so freely quoted of +celebrated men and so easily condoned by his +age. Art was Tintoretto’s main preoccupation; +but he seems to have been a man of strong +religious bias, making a close study of the Bible, +and turning naturally in his last days to those +truths with which his art had made him familiar, +truths which he had represented with that touch +of mystic feeling which was the deepest part +of his nature.</p> + +<p>His relations with the State commenced in +1574, when his offer to present a superb painting +of the Victory of Lepanto was made to and +accepted by the Council of Ten. Tintoretto +was rewarded by a Broker’s patent, and between +this and the “Paradiso,” the work of his old +age, he executed a number of pictures for the +Signoria. The only record of any travels are +confined to two journeys paid to Mantua, where +he went in the ’sixties and again in 1579 to see +to the hanging of paintings done for the Gonzaga, +and of which the documents have been kept, +though the pictures have vanished. Tintoretto’s +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>last years were saddened by the death of his +beloved daughter, who had always been his +constant companion. He died in 1579 after a +fortnight’s illness and left a will, which, together +with that of his son, throws a good deal of light +upon the family history.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to select from the vast quantity +of work left by Tintoretto. He is one of those +painters whose whole life was passed in his +native city and who can only be adequately +studied in that city. Perhaps the first place in +which to seek him, is the great church which +was the monument of his early prime. The +“Last Judgment” was probably inspired by that +of Michelangelo, of which descriptions and +sketches must have reached the younger master, +over whom the Florentine had exercised so +strong a fascination. Tintoretto’s version impresses +one as that of a mind boiling with +thoughts and visions which he pours out upon +the huge space. It depicts a terrible catastrophe, +a scene of rushing destruction, of forms swept +into oblivion, of others struggling to the light, of +many beautiful figures and of a flood of air and +light behind the rushing water,—water which +makes us almost giddy as we watch it. The +“Golden Calf” is a maturer production and includes +some of the loveliest women Tintoretto +ever painted. We see too plainly the planning, +the device of concentrating interest on the idol by +turning figures and pointing fingers, but nothing +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>can be imagined more supple and queenly than +the woman in blue, and the way the light falls +on her head and perfectly foreshortened arm +shows to what excellence Tintoretto had attained. +The “Presentation” is a riper work. The +drawing of the flight of steps and of the groups +upon them could not be bettered. The little +figure of the Virgin, prototype of the new +dispensation, as she advances to meet the representative +of the old, thrills with mystic feeling, +yet the painter has contrived to retain the sturdy +simplicity of a child. The “St. Agnes,” with +its contrast of light and shade, of strength made +perfect in weakness, is of later date and was the +commission of Cardinal Contarini.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to realise how Tintoretto, +especially in the “Presentation,” has contrived, +while using the traditional episodes, to infuse +so strong an imaginative sense. The contrast +of age and youth, the joy of the Gentiles, the +starlike figure of the child surrounded by shadows, +convey an emotional feeling, in harmony with +the nature of the scene.</p> + +<p>Next let us group together the miracles in +the history of St. Mark. One of the qualities +which strikes us most in the “Miracle of the +Slave” is its strong local colour. It tells of +Titian and Bonifazio and is unlike Tintoretto’s +later style. The colours are glowing and gem-like; +carnations, orange-yellows, deep scarlet, +and turquoise-blue. The crimson velvet of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>judge’s dress is finely relieved against a blue-green +sky, and Tintoretto has kept that instinctive +fire and dash which culminates at once and +without effort in perfect action, “as a bird flies, +or a horse gallops.” It startled the quiet +members of the Guild, and at the first moment +they hesitated to accept it. The “Rescue of +the Saracen” and the “Transportation of the +Body” are more in the golden-brown manner +to which he was moving, but it is in the +“Finding of the Body” (Brera) that he rises to +the highest emotional pitch. The colossal form +of the saint, expanding with life and power as he +towers in the spirit above his own lifeless clay, +draws all eyes to him and seems to fill the +barrel-roofed hall with ease and energy. Every +part of the vault is flooded by his life-giving +energy, and here Tintoretto deals with light and +shade with full mastery.</p> + +<p>As we follow Tintoretto’s career, it is borne +in upon us how little positive colour it takes to +make a great colourist. The whole Venetian +School, indeed, does not deal with what we understand +as bright colour. Vivid tints are much more +characteristic of the Flemish and the Florentine, +or, let us say, of the painters of to-day. Strong, +crude colours are to be seen on all sides in the +Salon or the Royal Academy, but they are +absent from the scheme of sombre splendour +which has given the Venetians their title to +fame. This is especially true of Tintoretto, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>it becomes more so as he advances. His gamut +becomes more golden-brown and mellow; the +greys and browns and ivories combine in a +lustrous symphony more impressive than gay +tints, flooded with enveloping shadow and +illumined by flashes of iridescent light. Another +noticeable feature is the way in which he +puts on his oil-colour, so that it bears the direct +impression of the painter’s hand. The Florentines +had used flat tints, opaque and with every brush-mark +smoothed away; but as the later Venetians +covered large spaces with oil-colour, they no +longer sought to dissimulate the traces of the +brush, and light, distance, movement, were all +conveyed by the turns and twists and swirls with +which the thin oil-colour was laid on. Look at +the power of touch in such a picture as the +“Death of Abel”; we see this spontaneity of +execution actually forming part of the emotion +with which the picture is charged. The concentrated +hate of the one figure, the desperate +appeal of the other, the lurid note of the landscape, +gain their emotion as much from the +impetuous brush-work as from the more studied +design. We come closest to the painter’s mind +in the Scuola di San Rocco. He had already +been employed in the church, and there remains, +darkened and ruined by damp, the series illustrative +of the career of S. Roch, patron saint of +sufferers from the plague. When the great +Halls of Assembly were to be decorated in 1560, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>the confraternity asked a conclave of painters, +among whom were Veronese and Andrea +Schiavone, to prepare sketches for competition. +When they assembled to display their designs, +Tintoretto swept aside a cartoon from the ceiling +of the refectory and discovered a finished picture, +the “S. Roch in Glory,” which still holds its +place there. Neither the other artists nor the +brethren seem to have approved of this unconventional +proceeding, but he “hoped they would +not be offended; it was the only way he knew.” +Partly from the displeased withdrawal of some of +the rest, but partly also from the excellence of +the work, the commission fell to Tintoretto, and +after two years’ work he was received into the +order, and was assigned an annual provision of +100 ducats (£50) a year for life, being bound +every year to furnish three pictures.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>TINTORETTO</strong> (<em>continued</em>)</p> + +<p>The first portion of the vast building that was +finished was the Refectory, but in examining +the scheme, it is perhaps more convenient to +leave it to its proper place, which is the climax. +Before beginning, Tintoretto must have had the +whole thing planned, and we cannot doubt that +he was influenced by the Sixtine Chapel and +recalled its plan and significance; the old dispensation +typifying the new, the Old Testament +history vivified by the acts of Christ. The +main feature of the harmony which it is only +reasonable to suppose governs the whole building, +is its dedication to S. Roch, the special patron of +mercy. The principal paintings of the Upper +Hall are therefore concerned with acts of divine +mercy and deliverance, and even the monochromes +bear upon the central idea. On the roof are the +three most important miracles of mercy performed +on behalf of the Chosen People. The +paintings on roof and walls are linked together. +The “Fall of Man” at one end of the Hall, the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>disobedient eating, corresponds with the obedient +eating of the Passover at the other, and is +interdependent with the Manna in the Wilderness, +the Last Supper, and the Miracle of the Loaves. +The Miracles of satisfied thirst are represented +by “Moses striking the Rock,” Samson drinking +from the jawbone and the waters of Meribah. +The Baptism and other signs of the Advent of +Christ and the Divine preparation, balance events +in the early life of Moses. In the Refectory +which opens from the Great Hall, we come to +the “Crucifixion,” the crowning act of mercy, +surrounded by the events which immediately +succeeded it, and typified immediately above in +the Central Hall, by the lifting up of the Brazen +Serpent. The miracles include six of refreshment +and succour, two of miraculous restoration +to health, and two of deliverance from danger. +The whole scheme has been worked out in +detail in my book on “Tintoretto.”</p> + +<p>In the working out of his great scheme, +Tintoretto is impatient of hackneyed and traditional +forms; he must have a reading of his own, +and one which appeals to his imagination. We +see that passion for movement which distinguishes +his early work. “Moses striking the Rock” is a +figure instinct with purpose and energy. The +water bounds forth, living, life-giving, the people +strain wildly to reach it. His figures are sometimes +found fault with, as extravagant in gesture, +but the attitudes were intended to be seen and to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>arrest attention from far below, and we must not +forget that the painter’s models were drawn from +a Southern race, to whom emphasis of action is +natural. Tintoretto, it may be conceded, is on +certain occasions, generally when dealing with +accessory figures, inclined to excess of gesture; +it is the defect of his temperament, but when he +has a subject that carries him away he is sincere +and never violent in spirit. Titian is cold compared +to him; his colour, however effective, is +calculated, whereas Tintoretto’s seems to permeate +every object and to soak the whole composition. +To quote a recent critic: “He chose to begin, if +possible, with a subject charged with emotion. +He then proceeded to treat it according to its +nature, that is to say, he toned down and obscured +the outlines of form and mapped out the subject +instead in pale or sombre masses of light and +shade. Under the control of this powerful +scheme of chiaroscuro, the colouring of the +composition was placed, but its own character, +its degree of richness and sobriety, was determined +by the kind of emotion belonging to the subject. +To use colour in this way, not only with +emotional force, but with emotional truth, is to +use it to perform one of the greatest functions +of art.”<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>So in the Crucifixion it is not so much the +aspect of the groups, the pathos of the faces +or gestures, that tells, but it is the mystery and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>gloom in which the whole scene is muffled, the +atmosphere into which we are absorbed, the +sense of livid terror conveyed by the brooding +light and shadow, that makes us feel how different +the rendering is from any other. In the “Christ +before Pilate” the head and figure of Christ are +not particularly impressive in themselves, but +the brilliant light falling on the white robes and +coursing down the steps supplies dignity and +poetry; the slender white figure stands out +like a shaft of light against the lurid and +troubled background. Again, in the “Way to +Golgotha” the falling evening gleam, the wild +sky, the deep shadow of the ravine, throw into +relief the quiet form, detached in look and +feeling, as of one upborne by the spirit far +above the brutal throng. Nowhere does that +spiritual emotion find deeper expression than +in the “Visitation.” The passion of thanksgiving, +the poignancy of mother-love, throb +through the two women, who have been +travelling towards one another, with a great +secret between them, and who at length reach +the haven of each other’s love and knowledge. +Here, too, the dying light, the waving tree, +the obliteration of form, and the feeling of +mystery make a deep appeal to the sensuous +apprehension. We find it again and again; the +great trees sway and whisper in the gathering +darkness as the Virgin rides through the falling +evening shadows, clasping her Babe, and in that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>most moving of all Tintoretto’s creations, the +“S. Mary of Egypt,” the emotional mood of +Nature’s self is brought home to us. The trees +that dominate the landscape are painted with +a few “strokes like sabre cuts”; the landscape, +given with apparent carelessness, yet conveying +an indescribable sense of space and solemnity, +unfolds itself under the dying day; and in solitary +meditation, thrilling with ecstasy, sits that little +figure, whose heart has travelled far away to +commune with the Spirit, “whose dwelling is +the light of setting suns.”</p> + +<p>It is not possible in a short space to touch, +even in passing, on all the many scenes in these +halls: the “Annunciation,” with its marvellous +flight of cherubs, reminding us of the flight of +pigeons in the Piazza, and how often the old +painter must have watched them; the “Temptation,” +contrasting the throbbing evil, the flesh +that <em>must</em> be fed, with the calm of absolute +purity; the “Massacre of the Innocents,” for +which the horrors of sacked towns could have +supplied many a parallel,—we have not time to +dwell on these, but we may notice how the artist +has overcome the difficulty of seeing clearly in the +dark halls, by choosing strong and varied effects +of light for the most shadowed spaces, and we +can picture what the halls must have been like +when they first glowed from his hand, adorned +with gilded fretwork and moulding, and hung +with opulent draperies, with the rose-red and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>purple of bishops’ and cardinals’ robes reflected in +the gleaming pavement.</p> + +<p><a name="egypt" id="egypt"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 259px;"> +<img src="images/img303.jpg" width="259" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Tintoretto.</em> <span style="margin-left: 4em;"><em>Scuola di San Rocco.</em></span><br /> +S. MARY OF EGYPT.<br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>Leonardo, by one supreme example, Tintoretto, +by many renderings, have made the “Last +Supper” peculiarly their own in the domain of +art. It shows how strongly the mystic strain +entered into the man’s character, that often as +Tintoretto treated the subject, it never lost its +interest for him, and he never failed to find a fresh +point of view. In that in S. Polo, Christ offers +the sacred food with a gesture of vehement +generosity. Placed as the picture is, to appeal to +all comers to the Mass, to afford them a welcome +as they pass to the High Altar, it tells of the +Bread of Life given to all mankind. Tintoretto +himself, painted in the character of S. Paul, +stands at one side, absorbed in meditation. We +need not insist again on the emotional value of +the deep colours, the rich creams and crimsons +and the chiaroscuro. In his latest rendering, in +S. Giorgio Maggiore, he touches his highest point +in symbolical treatment. Some people are only +able to see a theatrical, artificial spirit in this +picture, but at least, when we consider what +deep meditation Tintoretto had bestowed on +his subjects, we may believe that he himself was +sincere and that he let himself go over what +commended itself as an entirely new rendering. +“The Light shined in the Darkness, and the +Darkness comprehended it not.” The supernatural +is entering on every side, but the feast +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>goes on; the serving men and maids busy themselves +with the dishes; the disciples are inquiring, +but not agitated; none see that throng of +heavenly visitants, pouring in through the blue +moonlight, called to their Master’s side by the +supreme significance of His words. The painter +has taken full advantage of the opportunity of +combining the light of the cresset lamp, pouring +out smoky clouds, with the struggling moonlight +and the unearthly radiance, in divers, yet +mingling streams which fight against the surrounding +gloom. In the scene in the Scuola +di S. Rocco the betrayal is the dominating +incident, and in San Stefano all is peace, and the +Saviour is alone with the faithful disciples.</p> + +<p><a name="bacchus" id="bacchus"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img308.jpg" width="550" height="467" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Tintoretto.</em> BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. <em>Ducal Palace, Venice.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Anderson.</em>)</p> + +<p>Though several of the large compositions +ascribed to Tintoretto in the Ducal Palace are +only partly by him, or entirely by followers and +imitators, its halls are still a storehouse of his +genius. There is much that is fine about the +great state pieces. In the “Marriage of St. +Catherine,” the saint, in silken gown and +long transparent veil, is an exquisite figure. +Tintoretto bathes all his pageantry in golden +light and air, and yet we feel that these huge +official subjects, with the prosaic old Doges +introduced in incongruous company, neither +stimulated his imagination nor satisfied his taste. +It is on the smaller canvases that he finds inspiration. +He never painted anything more lovely, +more perfect in design, or more gay and tender in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>idea, than the cycle in the Ante-Collegio. The +glowing light and exquisitely graded shadows +upon ivory limbs have a sensuous perfection and +a refined, unselfconscious joy such as is felt in +hardly any other work, except the painter’s own +“Milky Way” in the National Gallery. In all +these four pictures the feeling for design, a +branch of art in which Tintoretto was past master, +is fully displayed. In the Bacchus and Ariadne +all the principal lines, the eyes and gestures, +converge upon the tiny ring which is the symbol +of union between the goddess and her lover, +between the queenly city and the Adriatic sea. +Or take “Pallas driving away Mars”: see how +the mass into which the figures are gathered on +the left adds strength to the thrust of the +goddess’s arm, and what steadiness is given by +that short straight lance of hers, coming in +among all the yielding curves. The whole four +are linked together in meaning: the call to +Venice to reign over the seas, her triumphant +peace, with Wisdom guiding her council, and her +warriors forging arms in case of need. In conjunction +with these pictures are two small ones +in the chapel, hardly less beautiful—St. George +with St. Margaret, and SS. Andrew and Jerome. +It is difficult to say whether the exultant St. +George, the dignified young bishop, or the two +older saints are the more sympathetic creations, +or the more admirable, both in drawing and +colour. The sense of space in both settings is an +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>added charm, and every scrap of detail, the leafy +boughs, the cross and crozier, is important to the +composition.</p> + +<p>There are many other striking examples, +ranging all through Tintoretto’s life, of his +untiring imagination. In the Salute is that +“Marriage of Cana,” in which all the actors +seem to swim in golden light. The sharp +silhouettes bring out an effect of radiant sunshine +with which the hall is flooded, and all the +architectural lines lead our eyes towards the +central figure, placed at a distance. On that +long canvas in the Academy, kneel the three +treasurers, pouring out their gold and bending in +homage before the Madonna and Child, who sit +enthroned upon a broad piazza, through the +marble pillars of which a blue and distant landscape +shines. Grave senators in mulberry velvet +and ermine kneel before the Child, or hold +counsel on Paduan affairs under the patronage of +S. Giustina. The “Crucifixion” (in S. Cassiano) +is another triumph of the painter’s imaginative +conception. The bold lines of the crosses, +the ladder, and the figures detach against a +glorious sky, and the presence of the moving, +murmuring throng, of which, by the placing of +the line of sight, the spectator is made to form +a part, is conveyed by the swaying and crossing +of the lances borne by the armed men who keep +the ground. There is a series, too, which deals +with the Magdalen. She mourns her dead in that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>solemn, restrained “Entombment,” where the enfolding +shadows frame the cross against the sad +dawn, which adorns the mortuary chapel of S. +Giorgio Maggiore; and the Pietà in the Brera, the +long lines of which add to the impression of tender +repose, has its peace broken by the passionate cry +of the woman who loved much. Tintoretto’s +ideas are exhaustless; he can paint the same +scene in a dozen different ways, and, in fact, +the book of sketches lately acquired by the +British Museum shows as many as thirty trials +dashed off for one subject, and after all he uses +one composed for something quite different. It +is this habit of throwing off red-hot essays, fresh +from his brain, that has led to the common but +superficial judgment that Tintoretto was merely +a great improvisatore, whose successes came more +or less by good luck. He could, indeed, paint +pictures at a pace at which many great masters +could only sketch, but he had already designed +and considered and rejected, doing with oil, +ink, and paper what many of his contemporaries +did mentally. Such achievements as the +Ante-Collegio cycle, the “House of Martha +and Mary,” the “Marriage of Cana,” the +“Temptation of S. Anthony,” to name only a +few, show a finish and perfection and a balance +of design which preclude the idea of their being +lightly painted pictures. When he was actually +engaged, Tintoretto let himself go with impetuous +ardour, but we may feel assured he left +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>nothing to chance, though he had his own way +of making sure of the result.</p> + +<p>It is strange to hear people, as one does now +and then, talking of the “Paradiso” as “a splendid +failure.” It may be granted that the subject is +an impossible one for human art to realise, yet +when all allowance has been made for a lamentable +amount of drying and blackening, it is difficult +to agree that Ruskin was all wrong in his +admiration of that thronging multitude, ordered +and disciplined by the tides of light and shadow, +which roll in and out of the masses, resolving +them into groups and single figures of almost +matchless beauty and melting away into a sea +of radiant ether, which tells us of the boundless +space which surrounds the serried ranks of the +Blessed.</p> + +<p>Tintoretto was seventy-eight when it was +allotted to him, and it was the last great effort of +his mind and hand. Studies for it are preserved +both at the Louvre and at Madrid, and it is +evident that the painter has framed it upon +the thought of Dante’s mystic rose. The circles +and many of the figures can be traced in the +poem, and the idea of the Eternal Light streaming +through the leaves of the rose dominates the +composition. It is appropriate that it should +have been his last great work, as it was also +the greatest attempt at composition ever made +by a master of the Venetian School.</p> + +<p>There is no room here to study Tintoretto as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>a painter of battlepieces, though from the time +he painted the “Battle of Lepanto,” for the +Council of Ten, he often returned to such +subjects. His two series for the Gonzaga included +several, and the Ducal Palace still possesses +examples. The impetuosity of his style stood +him in good stead, and he never fails to bring in +graceful and striking figures.</p> + +<p>His portraits are hardly equal to Titian’s +intellectual grasp or fine-grained colour, but they +are extraordinarily characteristic. He prefers to +paint men rather than women, and he painted +hundreds—all the great persons of his time who +lived in and visited Venice. The Venetian +portrait by this time was expected to be more +than a likeness and more than a problem. It was +to please the taste as a picture, to interest and to +satisfy criticism. Tintoretto, like Lotto, gets +behind the scenes, and we see some mood, some +aspect of the sitter that he hardly expected to +show. His penetration is not equal to Lotto’s, +but he deals with his sitters with an observation +which pierces below the surface.</p> + +<p>In criticising Tintoretto, men seem often +unable to discriminate between the turgid and +melodramatic, and the spontaneous and temperamental. +The first all must abhor, but the last +is sincere and deserves to be respected. It is by +his best that we must judge a man, and taking +his best and undoubtedly authentic work, no one +has left a larger amount which will stand the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>test of criticism. As an exponent of lofty and +elevated central ideas, which unify all parts +of his composition, Tintoretto stands with the +greatest imaginative minds. The intellectual +side of life was exemplified in Florentine art, +but the Renaissance would have been a one-sided +development if there had not arisen a body of +men to whom emotion and the gift of sensuous +apprehension seemed of supreme value, and at +the very last there arose with him one who, to +their philosophy of feeling and the mastery of +their chosen medium, added the crowning glory +of the imaginative idea.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Augsburg.</td> <td class="td5">Christ in the House of Martha and Mary.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Portraits; Madonna and Saints; Luna and the Hours; Procurator + before S. Mark.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Lady in Black; The Rescue; Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Pitti: Portraits of Men; Luigi Cornaro; Vincenzo Zeno.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Portrait of Himself; Admiral Venier; Portrait of Old + Man; Jacopo Sansovino; Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Esther before Ahasuerus; Nine Muses; Portrait of + Dominican; Knight of Malta.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">S. George and the Dragon; Christ washing Feet of Disciples; + Origin of Milky Way.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Bridgewater House: Entombment; Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Battle on Land and Sea; Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; + Susanna and the Elders; Finding of Moses; Esther before + Ahasuerus; Judith and Holofernes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Brera: S. Helena, Saints and Donors; Finding of the Body of S. Mark (E.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Susanna and the Elders; Sketch for Paradise; Portrait of Himself.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">Capitol: Baptism; Ecce Homo; The Flagellation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Colonna: Adoration of the Holy Spirit; Old Man playing Spinet; Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Turin.</td> <td class="td5">The Trinity.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: S. Giustina and Three Senators; Madonna with Saints + and Treasurers, 1566; Portraits of Senators; Deposition; + Jacopo Soranzo, 1564 (still attributed to Titian); Andrea + Capello (E.); Death of Abel; Miracle of S. Mark, 1548; Adam + and Eve; Resurrected Christ blessing Three Senators; Madonna + and Portraits; Crucifixion; Resurrection; Presentation in + Temple.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale: Doge Mocenigo commended to Christ by S. Mark; + Doge da Ponte before the Virgin; Marriage of S. Catherine; + Doge Gritti before the Virgin.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ante-Collegio: Mercury and Three Graces; Vulcan’s Forge; + Bacchus and Ariadne; Pallas resisting Mars, abt. 1578.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ante-room of Chapel: SS. George, Margaret, and Louis; + SS. Andrew and Jerome.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Senato: S. Mark presenting Doge Loredano to the Virgin.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala Quattro Porte: Ceiling. Ante-room: Portraits; Ceiling, + Doge Priuli with Justice. Passage to Council of Ten: + Portraits; Nobles illumined by Holy Spirit.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala del Gran Consiglio: Paradise, 1590.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala dello Scrutino: Battle of Zara.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Reale: Transportation of Body of S. Mark; S. Mark + rescues a Shipwrecked Saracen; Philosophers.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Giovanelli Palace: Battlepiece; Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Cassiano: Crucifixion; Christ in Limbo; Resurrection.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giorgio Maggiore: Last Supper; Gathering of Manna; + Entombment (in Mortuary Chapel).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria Mater Domini: Finding of True Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria dell’ Orto: Last Judgment (E.); Golden Calf (E.); + Presentation of Virgin (E.); Martyrdom of S. Agnes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Polo: Last Supper; Assumption of Virgin.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">S. Rocco: Annunciation; Pool of Bethesda; S. Roch and the + Beasts; S. Roch healing the Sick; S. Roch in Campo d’ Armata; + S. Roch consoled by an Angel.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scuola di S. Rocco: Lower Hall, all the paintings on wall. + Staircase: Visitation. Upper Hall: all the paintings on walls + and ceiling. Refectory: Crucifixion, 1565; Christ before + Pilate; Ecce Homo; Way to Golgotha; Ceiling, 1560.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Salute: Marriage of Cana, 1561; Martyrdom of S. Stephen.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Silvestro: Baptism.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Stefano: Last Supper; Washing of Feet; Agony in Garden.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Trovaso: Temptation of S. Anthony.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Susanna and the Elders; Sebastian Venier; Portraits of + Procurators, Senators, and Men (fifteen in all); Old Man and + Boy; Portrait of Lady.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>BASSANO</strong></p> + + +<p>We wonder how many of those sightseers who +pass through the Ante-Collegio in the Ducal +Palace, and stare for a few moments at Tintoretto’s +famous quartet and at Veronese’s “Rape of +Europa,” turn to give even such fleeting attention +to the long, dark canvas which hangs beside +them, “Jacob’s Journey into Canaan,” by Jacopo +da Ponte, called Bassano.</p> + +<p>Yet from the position in which it is placed +the visitor might guess that it is considered to be +a gem, and it gains something in interest when we +learn from Zanetti that it was ordered by Jacopo +Contarini at the same time as the “Rape of +Europa,” as if the great connoisseur enjoyed +contrasting Veronese’s light, gay style with the +vigorous brush of da Ponte.</p> + +<p>If attention is arrested by the beauty of the +painting, and the visitor should be inspired to +seek the painter in his native city, he will be +well repaid. Bassano once held an important +position on the main road between Italy and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>Germany, but since the railroad was made across +the Brenner Pass, few people ever see the little +town which lies cradled on the spurs of the +Italian Alps, where the gorge of Valsugana +opens. It is surrounded by chestnut woods, +which sweep up to the blue mountains, the wide +Brenta flows through the town, and the houses +cluster high on either side, and have gardens and +balconies overhanging the water. The façades +of many of the houses are covered with fading +frescoes, relics of da Ponte’s school of fresco-painters, +which, though they are fast perishing, +still give a wonderful effect of warmth and colour.</p> + +<p>Jacopo da Ponte was the son and pupil of his +father, Francesco, who in his day had been a +pupil of the Vicentine, Bartolommeo Montagna. +Francesco da Ponte’s best work is to be found +at Bassano, in the cathedral and the church of +San Giovanni, and has many of the characteristics, +such as the raised pedestal and vaulted cupola, +which we have noticed that Montagna owed to +the Vivarini. Francesco’s son went when very +young to Venice, and was there thrown at once +among the artists of the lagoons, and attached +himself in particular to Bonifazio. In Jacopo’s +earliest work, now in the Museum at Bassano, a +“Flight into Egypt,” Bonifazio’s tuition is +markedly discernible in the build of the figures +and, above all, in the form of the heads. A +comparison of the very peculiarly shaped head +of the Virgin in this picture with that of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +Venetian lady in Bonifazio’s “Rich Man’s Feast,” +in the Venetian Academy, leaves us in no doubt +on this score. Jacopo’s “Adulteress before +Christ” and the “Three in the Fiery Furnace” +have Bonifazio’s manner in the architecture and +the staging of the figures. Only five examples +are known of this early work of da Ponte, and it +is all in Bonifazio’s lighter style, not unlike his +“Holy Family” in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p>The house in which the painter lived when +he returned to his native town, still stands in the +little Piazza Monte Vecchio, and its whole façade +retains the frescoes, mouldy and decaying, with +which he decorated it. The design is in four +horizontal bands. First comes a frieze of +children in every attitude of fun and frolic. +Then follows a long range of animals—horses, +oxen, and deer. Musical instruments and flowers +make a border, with allegorical representations +of the arts and crafts filling the spaces between +the windows. The principal band is decorated +with Scriptural subjects, most of which are now +hardly discernible, but which represent “Samson +slaying the Philistines,” “The Drunkenness +of Noah,” “Cain and Abel,” “Lot and his +Daughters,” and “Judith with the Head of +Holofernes.” Between the two last there +formerly appeared a drawing of a dead child, +with the motto, “Mors omnia aequat,” which +was removed to the Museum in 1883, in comparatively +good preservation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p><p>Jacopo da Ponte lived a busy life at Bassano, +where, with the help of his four sons, who were +all painters, he poured out an inexhaustible +stream of works, which, it is said, were put up +to auction at the neighbouring fairs, if no other +market was forthcoming. From time to time +he and his sons went down to Venice, and with +the help of the eldest, Francesco, Bassano (as he +is generally known) painted the “Siege of Padua” +and five other works in the Ducal Palace. His +mature style was founded mainly upon that of +Titian, and it is to this second manner that he +owes his fame. He makes use of fewer colours, +and enhances his lights by deepening and consolidating +his shadows, so that they come into +strong contrast, and his technique gains a richer +impasto. He has a marvellous faculty for keeping +his colour pure, and his greens shine like a +beetle’s wing. A nature-lover in the highest +degree, his painting of animals and plants evinces +a mind which is steeped in the magic of outdoor +life. A subject of which he was particularly +fond, and which he seems to have undertaken for +half the collectors of Europe, was the “Four +Seasons.” Here was found united everything +that Bassano most loved to paint: beasts of the +farmyard and countryside, agriculturists with +their implements, scenes of harvest-time and +vintage, rough peasants leading the plough, +cutting the grass, harvesting the grain, young +girls making hay, driving home the cattle, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>taking dinner to the reapers. When he was +obliged to paint for churches he chose such +subjects as the Adoration of the Shepherds, the +Sacrifice of Noah, the Expulsion from the +Temple, into which he could introduce animals, +painting them with such vigour and such forcible +colour that Titian himself is said to have had +a copy hanging in his studio. He loved to paint +his daughters engaged in household tasks, and +perhaps placed his figures with rather too obvious +a reference to light and shade, and to the sun +striking full on sunburnt cheeks and buxom +shoulders. A friend, not a rival, of Veronese +and Tintoretto, Gianbattista Volpado, records +that when he was one day discussing contemporary +painters with the latter, Tintoretto +exclaimed, “Ah, Jacopo, if you had my drawing +and I had your colour I would defy the devil +himself to enable Titian, Raphael, and the rest to +make any show beside us.”</p> + +<p>Bassano was invited to take up his residence +at the Court of the Emperor Rudolph, but he +refused to leave his mountain city, where he died +in 1592. His funeral was attended by a crowd +of the poorest inhabitants, for whom his charity +had been boundless.</p> + +<p>The “Journey of Jacob,” to which we have +already alluded, is among his most beautiful +works. The brilliant array of figures is subordinated +to the charm of the landscape. The +evening dusk draws all objects into its embrace. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>The long, low, deep-blue distance stands out +against a gleam of sunset sky. The tree-trunks +and light play of leafy branches, which break +up the composition, are from da Ponte’s own +country round Bassano. The pony upon which +the boy scrambles, the cows, the dog among +the quiet sheep, are given with all the loving +truth of the born animal-painter. It is no +wonder that Teniers borrowed ideas from him, +and has more than once imitated his whole +design.</p> + +<p>The “Baptism of St. Lucilla” (in the Museum +at Bassano) is one of his most Titianesque +creations. The personages in it are grouped +upon a flight of steps, in front of a long Renaissance +palace with cypresses against a sky of +evening-red barred with purple clouds. The +drawing and modelling of the figures are almost +faultless, and the colour is dazzling. The bending +figure of S. Lucilla, with the light falling +on her silvery satin dress, as she kneels before +the young bishop, St. Valentine, is one of the +most graceful things in art, and Titian himself +need not have disowned the little angels, bearing +palm branches and frolicking in the stream of +radiance overhead.</p> + +<p>Bassano has a “Concert,” which is interesting +as a family piece. It was painted in the year +in which his son Leandro’s marriage took place, +and is probably a bridal painting to celebrate +the event. The “Magistrates in Adoration” +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>(Vicenza) again gives a brilliant effect of light, +and its stately ceremonial is founded on Tintoretto’s +numerous pictures of kneeling doges +and procurators in fur-trimmed velvet robes.</p> + +<p><a name="bapt" id="bapt"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 379px;"> +<img src="images/img323.jpg" width="379" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Jacopo da Ponte.</em> BAPTISM OF S. LUCILLA. <em>Bassano.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Alinari.</em>)</p> + +<p>Madonnas and saints are usually built into +close-packed pyramids, but in the “Repose in +Egypt,” now in the Ambrosiana, Milan, his +arrangement comes very close to Palma and +Lotto. The beautiful Mother and Child, the +attendants, above all the St. Joseph, resting, +head on hand, at the Virgin’s feet and gazing +in rapt adoration on the Child, are examples of +the true Venetian manner, while the exquisite +landscape behind them, and the vigorously drawn +tree under which they recline, show Bassano +true to his passion for nature.</p> + +<p>Hampton Court is rich in his pictures. +“The Adoration of the Shepherds,” in which +the pillars rise behind the sacred group, is an +exercise in the manner of Titian’s Frari altarpiece. +His portraits are fine and sympathetic, +but hardly any of them are signed or can be +dated. His own is in the Uffizi, and there is a +splendid “Old Man” at Buda-Pesth. Ariosto +and Tasso, Sebastian Venier, and many other +distinguished men were among his sitters; most +of them are in half-length with three-quarter +heads. The National Gallery possesses a singularly +attractive one of a young man with a +sensitive, acute countenance, robed in dignified, +picturesque black, relieved by an embroidered +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>linen collar. He stands by the sort of square +window, opening on a distant landscape, of which +Tintoretto and Lotto so often made use, in front +of which a golden vase, holding a branch of +olive, catches the rays of light.</p> + +<p>Bassano has no great power of design, and +his knowledge of the nude seems to have been +small, but his brushwork is facile, and his colour +leaps out with a vivid beauty which obliterates +other shortcomings.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Augsburg.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bassano.</td> <td class="td5">Susanna and Elders (E.); Christ and Adulteress (E.); The Three + Holy Children (E.); Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.); Flight + into Egypt (E.); Paradise; Baptism of S. Lucilla; Adoration + of Shepherds; St. Martin and the Beggar; St. Roch recommending + Donor to Virgin; St. John the Evangelist adored by a Warrior; + Descent of Holy Spirit; Madonna in Glory, with Saints (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Duomo: S. Lucia in Glory; Martyrdom of S. Stephen (L.); Nativity.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giovanni: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Carrara: Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Portraits.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Cittadella.</td> <td class="td5">Duomo: Christ at Emmaus.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Israelites in Desert; Moses striking Rock; Conversion of S. Paul.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Portraits; Jacob’s Journey; Boaz and Ruth; Shepherds (E.); + Christ in House of Pharisee; Assumption of Virgin; Men + fighting Bears; Tribute Money.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of Man; Christ and the Money-Changers; Good Samaritan.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Ambrosiana: Adoration of Shepherds (E.); Annunciation to Shepherds (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></td> <td class="td5">Portraits; S. Jerome; Deposition.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">S. Maria in Vanzo: Entombment.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Christ bearing Cross; Vintage (L.).</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Last Supper; The Trinity.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Christ in Garden; A Venetian Noble; S. Elenterino + blessing the Faithful.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace, Ante-Collegio: Jacob’s Journey.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Giacomo dell’ Orio: Madonna and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Madonna and Saints; Madonna; St. Mark and Senators.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">The Good Samaritan; Thomas led to the Stake; Adoration of Magi; + Rich Man and Lazarus; The Lord shows Abraham the Promised + Land; The Sower; A Hunt; Way to Golgotha; Noah entering the + Ark; Christ and the Money-Changers; After the Flood; Saints; + Adoration of Magi; Portraits; Christ bearing Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Academy: Deposition; Portrait.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART III</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>THE INTERIM</strong></p> + + +<p>Many of the churches and palaces of Venice +and the adjoining mainland, and almost every +public and private gallery throughout Europe, +contain pictures purporting to be painted by +Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and others of that +famous company. Hardly a great English house +but boasts of a round dozen at least of such +specimens, acquired in the days when rich +Englishmen made the “grand tour” and substantiated +a reputation for taste and culture by +collecting works of art. These pictures resemble +the genuine article in a specious yet half-hearted +way. Their owners themselves are not very +tenacious as to their authenticity, and the visit +of an expert, or the ordeal of a public exhibition +tears their pretensions to tatters. In the +Academia itself the Bonifazio and Tintoretto +rooms are crowded with imitations. The Ducal +Palace has ceilings and panels on which are +reproduced the kind of compositions initiated +by the great artists, which make an effort to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>capture their gamut of colour and to master +their scheme of chiaroscuro, copying them, in +short, in everything except in their inimitable +touch and fire and spirit. It would have been +impossible for any men, however industrious +and prolific, to have carried out all the work +which passes under their names, to say nothing +of that which has perished; but our surprise and +curiosity diminish when we come to inquire +systematically into the methods of that host of +copyists which, even before the masters’ death, +had begun to ply its lucrative trade.</p> + +<p>We must bear in mind that every great man +was surrounded by busy and attentive satellites, +helping him to finish and, indeed, often painting +a large part of important commissions, witnesses +of the high prices received, and alive to all the +gossip as to the relative popularity of the +painters and the requests and orders which +reached them from all quarters. The painters’ +own sons were in many instances those who +first traded upon their fathers’ fame. From +Ridolfi, Zanetti, or Boschini we learn of the +many paintings executed by Carlotto Caliari and +the vast numbers painted by Domenico Robusti +in the style of their respective fathers. Domenico +seems to have particularly affected the subject of +“St. George and the Dragon,” and the picture at +Dresden, which passes under Tintoretto’s name, is +perhaps by his hand. Of Bassano’s four sons, Francesco +“imitated his father perfectly,” conserving +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>his warmth of tint, his relief and breadth. Zanetti +enumerates a surprising number of Francesco’s +works, seven of them being painted for the Ducal +Palace. Leandro followed more particularly his +father’s first manner, was a good portrait-painter, +and possessed lightness and fancy. Girolamo +copied and recopied the old Bassano till he +even deceived connoisseurs, “how much more,” +says Zanetti, writing in 1771, “those of the +present day, who behold them harmonised and +accredited by time.” No school in Venice was +so beloved, or lent itself so well to the efforts +of the imitators, as that of Paolo Veronese. +Even at an early date it was impossible not to +confound the master with the disciples; the +weaker of the originals were held to be of +imitators, the best imitations were assigned to +the master himself. “Oh how easy it is,” +exclaims Zanetti again, “to make mistakes about +Veronese’s pictures, but I can point out sundry +infallible characteristics to those who wish for +light upon this doubtful path; the fineness +and lightness of the brushwork, the sublime +intelligence and grace, shown particularly in +the form of the heads, which is never found in +any of his imitators.”</p> + +<p>Few Venetians, however, followed the style +of only one man; the output was probably +determined and varied by the demand. Too +many attractive manners existed to dazzle them, +and when once they began to imitate, they were +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>tempted on all hands. It must also be remembered +that every master left behind him +stacks of cartoons, sketches and suggestions, and +half-finished pictures, which were eagerly seized +upon, bought or stolen, and utilised to produce +masterpieces masquerading under his name.</p> + +<p>As the seventeenth century advanced the +character of art and manners underwent a +change. Men sought the beautiful in the novel +and bizarre, and the complex was preferred to +the simple. Venetian art, in all its branches, +had passed from the stately and restrained to +the pompous and artificial. Yet the barocco +style was used by Venice in a way of its own; +whimsical, contorted, and overloaded with ornament +as it is, it yet compels admiration by its +vigorous life and movement. The art of the +sei-cento in Venice was extravagant, but it was +alive. It escaped the most deadly of all faults, +a cold and academic mannerism—and this at a +time when the rest of Italy was given over to +the inflated followers of Michelangelo and the +calculated elaborations of the eclectics.</p> + +<p>Many of the things we most love in Venice, +such as the Salute, the Clock-Tower, the +Dogana, the Bridge of Sighs, the Rezzonico +and Pesaro Palaces, are additions of the seventeenth +century. The barocco intemperance in +sculpture was carried on by disciples of Bernini; +and as the immediate influence of the great +masters declined, painting acquired the same +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>sort of character. The carelessness and rapidity +of Tintoretto, which, in his case, proceeded from +the lightning speed of his imagination and +the unerring sureness of his brush, became a +mechanical trick in the hands of superficial +students. True art had migrated elsewhere—to +the homes of Velasquez, Rubens, and Rembrandt. +As art grew more pompous it became less +emotional. Painters like Palma Giovine spoilt +their ready, lively fancy by the vice of hurry. +The nickname of “Fa Presto” was deserved by +others besides Luca Giordano, and Venice was +overrun by a swarm of painters whose prime +standard of excellence was the ability to make +haste. Grandeur of conception was forgotten; +a grave, ample manner was no longer understood; +superficial sentiment and bombastic size +carried the day. Yet a few painters, though +their forms had become redundant and exaggerated, +retained something of what had been +the Venetian glory—the deep and moist colour +of old. It still glowed with traces of its old +lustre on the canvases of Giovanni Contarini, +or Tiberio Tinelli, or Pietro Liberi; and +though there was a perfect fury of production, +without order and without law, there can still +be perceived the survival of that sense of the +decorative which kept the thread of art. We +discover it in the ceiling of the Church of San +Pantaleone, where Gianbattista Fumiani paints +the glorification of the martyred patron, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>which, fantastic and extravagant as it is, with +its stupendous, architectural setting, and its +acutely, almost absurdly foreshortened throng, +is not without a certain grandiose geniality, +ample and picturesque, like the buildings of +that date. In Alessandro Varotari (il Padovanino), +whose “Nozze di Cana” in the Academia is a +finely spaced scene, in which a charming use is +made of cypresses, we seem to recognise the last +ray of the Titianesque. The painting of the seventeenth +century passed on towards the eighteenth, +and, from ceilings and panels, rosy nymphs and +Venuses smile at us, attitudinising and contorted +upon their cloudy backgrounds. Lackadaisical +Magdalens drop sentimental tears, and the +Angel of the Annunciation capers above the +head of an affected Virgin, while violent colours, +intensified chiaroscuro, and black greasy impasto +betray the neighbourhood of the <em>tenebrosi</em>. +When, towards the end of the seventeenth +century, Gregorio Lazzarini set himself to shake +off these influences, he went to the opposite +extreme. Although a beautiful designer, he +becomes cold and flat in colour, with a coldness +and insipidity, indeed, that take us by surprise, +appearing in a country where the taste for +luminous and brilliant tints was so strongly +rooted. The student of Venetian painting, who +wishes to fill up the hiatus which lies between +the Golden Age and the revival of the eighteenth +century, cannot do better than compare Fumiani’s +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>vault in San Pantaleone with Lazzarini’s sober +and earnest fresco, “The Charity of San Lorenzo +Giustiniani,” in San Pietro in Castello, and with +Pietro Liberi’s “Battle of the Dardanelles” in +the Ducal Palace. In all three we have +examples of the varied and accomplished yet +soulless art of this period. Not many of the +scenes painted for the palaces of patricians in the +seventeenth century have survived. They are +to be found here and there by the curious who +wander into old churches and palaces with a +second-hand copy of Boschini in their hands; +but in the reaction from the florid which took +place in the Empire period, many of them gave +place to whitewash and stucco. In the Ducal +Palace, side by side with the masterpieces of the +Renaissance, are to be found the overcrowded +canvases of Vicentino, Giovanni Contarini, +Pietro Liberi, Celesti, and others like them. +Some of the poor and meretricious mosaics in +St. Mark’s are from designs by Palma Giovine +and Fumiani. Carlo Ridolfi, who was a painter +himself, as well as the painter’s chronicler, has +an “Adoration of the Magi” in S. Giovanni +Elemosinario, poor enough in invention and +execution. Two pictures by obscure artists +disfigure a corner of the Scuola di San Rocco. +The Museo Civico has a large canvas by +Vicentino, a “Coronation of a Dogaressa,” which +once adorned Palazzo Grimani. We hear of a +school opened by Antonio Balestra, who was the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>master of Rosalba Carriera and Pietro Longhi, +and the names of others have come down to us +in numbers too numerous to be quoted. Towards +the end of the seventeenth century more +light and novelty sparkles in the painting of +the Bellunese, Battista Ricci, and assures us +that he was no mere copyist; and, as the eighteenth +century opens, we become aware of the +strong and daring brush of Gianbattista Piazetta. +Piazetta studied the works of the Carracci for +some time in Bologna, and especially those of +Guercino, whose style, with its bold contrasts +of light and shade, has served above all as his +model. He paints very darkly, and his figures +often blend with and disappear into the profound +tones of his backgrounds. Charles Blanc calls +him “a Venetian Caravaggio”; and he has +something of the strength and even the brutality +of the Bolognese. A fine decorative and imaginative +example of his work is the “Madonna +appearing to S. Philip Neri” in the Church of +S. Fava. The erect form of the Madonna is +relieved in striking chiaroscuro against the +mantle, upheld by <em>putti</em>. Radiant clouds light +up the background and illumine the form of the +old saint, a refined and spirited figure, gazing at +the vision in an ecstasy of devotion. Piazetta is +a bold realist, and many of his small pictures +are strong and forcible. Sebastiano Ricci, +Battista’s son, is described as “a fine intelligence,” +and attracts our notice as having forged +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>special links with England. Hampton Court +possesses a long array of his paintings. In the +chapel of Chelsea Hospital the plaster semi-dome +is painted by him, in oils, with very good +effect. He is said to have worked in Thornhill’s +studio, and his influence may be suspected in +the Blenheim frescoes, and even in touches in +Hogarth’s work.</p> + +<p>By the eighteenth century Venice had parted +with her old nobility of soul, and enjoyment +had become the only aim of life. Yet Venice, +among the States of Italy, alone retained her +freedom. The Doge reigned supreme as in +the past. Beneath the ceiling of Veronese the +dreaded Three still sat in secret council. Venice +was still the city of subtle poisons and dangerous +mysteries, but the days were gone when she had +held the balance in European affairs, and she +had become, in a superlative degree, the city of +pleasure. Nowhere was life more varied and +entertaining, more full of grace and enchantment.</p> + +<p>A long period of peace had rocked the +Venetian people into calm security. There was, +indeed, a little spasmodic fighting in Corfù, +Dalmatia, and Algiers, but no real share was +retained in the struggles of Europe. The whole +policy of the city’s life was one of self-indulgence. +Holiday-makers filled her streets; the whole +population lived “in piazza,” laughing, gossiping, +seeing and being seen. The very churches +had become a rendezvous for fashionable intrigues; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>the convents boasted their <em>salons</em>, where nuns +in low dresses, with pearls in their hair, received +the advances of nobles and gallant abbés. People +came to Venice to waste time; trivialities, the +last scandal, sensational stories, were the only +subjects worth discussing. In an age of parodies +and practical jokes, the more absurd any one +could be, the more silly or witty stories he +could tell, the more assured was his success in +the joyous, frivolous circle, full of fun and +laughter. The Carnival lasted for six months +of the year, and was the occasion for masques +and licence of every description. In the hot +weather, the gay descendants of the Contarini, the +Loredan, the Pisani, and other grand old houses, +migrated to villas along the Brenta, where by day +and night the same reckless, irresponsible life +went gaily on. The power of such courtesans +as Titian and Paris Bordone had painted was +waning. Their place was adequately supplied +by the easy dames of society, no longer secluded, +proud and tranquil, but “stirred by the wild +blood of youth and stooping to the frolic.” +“They are but faces and smiles, teasing and +trumpery,” says one of their critics, yet they +are declared to be wideawake, natural and +charming, making the most of their smattering +of letters. Love was the great game; every +woman had lovers, every married woman openly +flaunted her <em>cicisbeo</em> or <em>cavaliere servente</em>.</p> + +<p>The older portion of the middle class was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>still moderate and temperate, contented to live +in the old fashion, eschewing all interest in +politics, with which it was dangerous for the +ordinary individual to meddle; but the new +leaven was creeping through every level of +society. The sons and daughters of the +<em>bourgeoisie</em> tried to rise in the social scale by +aping the pleasant vices of the aristocracy. They +deserted the shop and the counting-house to play +cards and strut upon the piazza. They mimicked +the fine gentleman and the gentildonna, and +made fashionable love and carried on intrigues. +The spirit of the whole people had lost its +elevation; there were no more proud patricians, +full of noble ambitions and devoted zeal of public +service; it was hardly possible to get a sufficient +number of persons to carry on public business. +It is a contemptible indictment enough; yet +among all this degenerate life, we come upon +something more real as we turn to the artists. +They were very much alive. In music, in +literature, and in painting, new and graceful +forms of art were emerging. Painting was not the +grand art of other days; it might be small and +trivial, but there grew up a real little Renaissance +of the eighteenth century, full of originality and +fire, and showing a reaction from the pompous +and banale style of the imitators.</p> + +<p>The influence of the “lady” was becoming +increasingly felt by society. Confidential little +boudoirs, small and cosy apartments were the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>mode, and needed decorating as well as vast +salas. The dainty luxury of gilt furniture, +designed by Andrea Brustolon and upholstered +in delicate silks, was matched by small, attractive +works of art. Venice had lost her Eastern trade, +and as the East faded out of her scheme of life, +the West, to which she now turned, was bringing +her a different form of art. The great reception +rooms were still suited by the grandiose compositions +of Ricci, Piazetta, and Pittoni, but +another genre of charming creations smiled +from the brocaded alcoves and more intimate +suites of rooms.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to name more than a fraction +of these artists of the eighteenth century. There +is Amigoni, admirable as a portrait-painter; +Pittoni, one of the ablest figure-painters of the +day; Luca Carlevaris, the forerunner of Canale; +Pellegrini, whose decorations in this country are +mentioned by Horace Walpole and of which the +most important are preserved in the cupola and +spandrils of the Grand Hall at Castle Howard. +Their work is still to be found in many a +Venetian church or North Italian gallery. Some +of it is almost fine, though too often vitiated by +the affected, exaggerated spirit of their day. +When originality asserts itself more decidedly, +Rosalba Carriera stands out as an artist who +acquired great popularity. In 1700, when she +was a young woman of twenty-four, she was +already a great favourite with the public. She +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>began life as a lace-maker, but when trade was +bad, Jean Stève, a Frenchman, taught her to +paint miniatures. She imparted a wonderfully +delicate feeling to her art, and, passing on to +pastel, she brought to this branch of portraiture +a brilliancy and freshness which it had not +known before. Rosalba has perhaps preserved +for us better than any one else, those women +of Venice who floated so lightly on the dancing +waves of that sparkling stream. There they +are: La Cornaro; La Maria Labia, who was +surrounded by French lovers, “very courteous +and very beautiful”; La Zenobio and La Pisani; +La Foscari, with her black plumes; La Mocenigo, +“the lady with the pearls.” She has pinned +them all to the canvas; lovely, frail, light-hearted +butterflies, with velvet neck-ribbons +round their snowy throats and coquettish patches +on their delicate skin and bouquets of flowers in +their high-dressed hair and sheeny bodices. They +look at us with arch eyes and smile with melting +mouths, more frivolous than depraved; sweet, +ephemeral, irresponsible in every relation of life. +Older men and women there are, too, when those +artificial years have produced a succession of +rather dull, sodden personages, kindly, inoffensive, +but stupid, and still trifling heavily with the +world.</p> + +<p>Of Rosalba we have another picture to compare +with those of her sitters. She and the +other artists of her circle lived the merry, busy +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>life of the worker, and found in their art the +antidote to the evil living and the dissipation of +the gay world which provided sitters and patrons. +Rosalba’s <em>milieu</em> is a type of others of its class. +She lives with her mother and sisters, an honest, +cheerful, industrious existence. They are fond +of old friends and old books, and indulge in music +and simple pleasures. Her sisters help Rosalba +by preparing the groundwork of her paintings. +She pays visits, and writes rhymes, and plays on +the harpsichord. She receives great men without +much ceremony, and the Elector Palatine, the +Duke of Mecklenburg, Frederick, King of +Norway, and Maximilian, King of Bavaria, come +to her to order miniatures of their reigning +beauties. Then she goes off to Paris where she +has plenty of commissions, and the frequently +occurring names of English patrons in her fragmentary +diaries, tell how much her work was +admired by English travellers. She did more +than anybody else to promote the fashion for +pastels, and her delightful art may be seen at its +best in the pastel room of the Dresden Gallery.</p> + +<p>Henrietta, Countess of Pomfret, has left us +a charming description of a party of English +travellers, which included Horace Walpole, +arriving in Venice in 1741, strolling about in +mask and <em>bauta</em>, and visiting the famous pastellist +in her studio. It is in such guise that Rosalba +has painted Walpole, and has left one of the +most interesting examples of her art.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> +<p class="center">SOME EXAMPLES</p> + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Francesco da Ponte.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Sala del Maggior Consiglio. Four pictures on + ceiling (second from the four corners of the sala). On left + as you face the Paradiso: 1. Pope Alexander III. giving the + Stocco, or Sword, to the Doge as he enters a Galley to + command the Army against Ferrara; 2. Victory against the + Milanese; 3. Victory against Imperial Troops at Cadore; + 4. Victory under Carmagnola, over Visconti. These four are + all very rich in colour.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Chiesetta: Circumcision; Way to Calvary.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala dell’ Scrutino: Padua taken by Night from the Carraresi.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Leandro da Ponte.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Sala del Maggior Consiglio: The Patriarch giving a + Blessed Candle to the Doge.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala of Council of Ten: Meeting of Alexander III. and Doge + Ziani. A fine decorative picture, running the whole of one + side of the sala.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Sala of Archeological Museum: Virgin in Glory, with the + Avogadori Family.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Palma Giovine.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Presentation of the Virgin.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: S. Margaret.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Munich.</td> <td class="td5">Deposition; Nativity; Ecce Homo; Flagellation.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Scenes from the Apocalypse; S. Francis.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: The Last Judgment.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Cain and Abel; Daughter of Herodias; Pietà ; Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Il Padovanino.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">Uffizi: Lucretia.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Cornelia and her Children.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Venus and Cupid.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Rome.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Borghese: Toilet of Minerva.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: The Marriage of Cana; Madonna in Glory; Vanity, + Orpheus, and Eurydice; Rape of Proserpine; Virgin in Glory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Man and Woman playing Chess; Triumph of Bacchus.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Woman taken in Adultery; Holy Family.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Pietro Liberi.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Ducal Palace: Battle of the Dardanelles.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Andrea Vicentino.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Civico: The Marriage of a Dogaressa.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. A. Fumiani.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">San Pantaleone: Ceiling.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Church of the Carità : Christ disputing with the Doctors.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>A. Balestra.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">S. Tomaso: Annunciation.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. Lazzarini.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Pietro in Castello.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">The Charity of S. Lorenzo Giustiniani.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Sebastiano Ricci.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">S. Rocco: The Glorification of the Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Gesuati: Pope Pius V. and Saints.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Half-dome.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. B. Pittoni.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">The Bath of Diana.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>G. B. Piazetta.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Chiesa della Fava: Madonna and S. Philip Neri.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Academy: Crucifixion; The Fortune-Teller.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + +<p> </p> + <p style="margin-left: 10em;"><em>Rosalba Carriera.</em></p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: pastels.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Pastels.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>TIEPOLO</strong></p> + + +<p>We have already noted that to establish the +significance of any period in art, it is necessary +that the tendencies should unite and combine in +some culminating spirits who rise triumphant +over their contemporaries and soar above the +age in which they live. Such a genius stands +out above the eighteenth century crowd, and is +not only of his century, but of every time. For +two hundred years Tiepolo has been stigmatised +as extravagant, mannered, as just equal to painting +cupids, nymphs, and parroquets. In the last +century he experienced the effect of the profound +discredit into which the whole of eighteenth-century +art had fallen. In France, David had +obliterated Watteau; and the reputation of +Pompeo Battoni, a sort of Italian David, effaced +Tiepolo and his contemporaries. When the +delegates of the French Republic inspected Italian +churches and palaces, and decided what works of +art should be sent to the Louvre, they singled +out the Bolognese, the Guercinos and Guidos, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>the Carracci, even Pompeo Battoni and other +such forgotten masters, a Gatti, a Nevelone, a +Badalocchio; but to the lasting regret of their +descendants, they disdained to annex a single one +of the great paintings of the Venetian, Gianbattista +Tiepolo.</p> + +<p>Eastlake only vouchsafes him one line as “an +artist of fantastic imagination.” Most of the +nineteenth-century critics do not even mention +him. Burckhardt dismisses him with a grudging +line of praise, Blanc is equally disparaging, and +for Taine he is a mere mannerist, yet his +influence has been felt far beyond his lifetime; +only now is he coming into his own, and it is +recognised that the <em>plein-air</em> artist, the luminarist, +the impressionist, owe no small share of their +knowledge to his inspiration.</p> + +<p>The name of Tiepolo brings before us a +whole string of illustrious personages—doges +and senators, magnificent procurators and great +captains—but we have nothing to prove that the +artist belonged to a decayed branch of the famous +patrician house. Born in Castello, the people’s +quarter of Venice, he studied in early youth +with that good draughtsman, Lazzarini. At +twenty-three he married the sister of Francesco +Guardi; Guardi, who comes between Longhi +and Canale and who is a better painter than +either. Tiepolo appeared at a fortunate moment. +The demand for a facile, joyous genius was at +its height. The life of the aristocracy on the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>lagoons was every year growing more gay, +more abandoned to capricious inclination, to +light loves and absurd amusements. And the +art which reflected this life was called upon to +give gaiety rather than thought, costume rather +than character. Yet if the Venetian art had lost +all connection with the grave magnificence of +the past, it had kept aloof from the academic +coldness which was in fashion beyond the +lagoons, so that though theatrical, it was with a +certain natural absurdity. The age had become +romantic; the Arcadian convention was in full +force, Nature herself was pressed into the service +of idle, sentimental men and women. The +country was pictured as a place of delight, +where the sun always shone and the peasants +passed their time singing madrigals and indulging +in rural pleasures. The public, however, had +begun to look for beauty; the traditions which +had formed round the decorative schools were +giving way to the appreciation of original work. +Tiepolo, sincere and spontaneous even when +he is sacrificing truth to caprice, struck the +taste of the Venetians, and without emancipating +himself from the tendencies of the time, contrives +to introduce a fresh accent. All round +him was a weak and self-indulgent world, but +within himself he possessed a fund of buoyant +and inexhaustible energy. He evokes a throng +of personages on the ceilings of the churches +and palaces confided to his fancy. His creations +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>range from mythology to religion, from +the sublime to the grotesque. All Olympia +appears upon his ample and luminous spaces. +It is not to the cold, austere Lazzarini, or to +the clashing chiaroscuro of Piazetta, or the +imaginative spirit of Battista Ricci, though he +was touched by each of them, that we must turn +for Tiepolo’s derivation. Long before his time, +the kind of decoration of ceilings which we +are apt to call Tiepolesque; the foreshortened +architecture, the columns and cornices, the figures +peopling the edifices, or reclining upon clouds, +had been used by an increasing throng of painters. +The style arose, indeed, in the quattrocento; +Mantegna, the Umbrians, and even Michelangelo +had used it, though in a far more sober way than +later generations. Correggio and the Venetians +had perfected the idea, which the artists of the +seventeenth century seized upon and carried +to the most intemperate excess. But Tiepolo +rose above them all; he abandoned the heavy, +exaggerated, contorted designs, which by this +time defied all laws of equilibrium, and we +must go back further than his immediate predecessors +for his origins. His claim to stand +with Tintoretto or Veronese may be contested, +but he is nearest to these, and no doubt Veronese +is the artist he studied with the greatest fervour. +Without copying, he seems to have a natural +affinity of spirit with Veronese and assimilates +the ample arrangement of his groups, the grace +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>of his architecture, and his decorative feeling for +colour. Zanetti, who was one of Tiepolo’s dearest +friends, writes: “No painter of our time could +so well recall the bright and happy creations +of Veronese.” The difference between them is +more one of period than of temperament. Paolo +Veronese represented the opulence of a rich, +strong society, full of noble life, while Tiepolo’s +lot was cast among effeminate men and frivolous +women, and full of the modern spirit himself, +he adapts his genius to his time and devotes +himself to satisfy the theatrical, sentimental +vein of the Venice of the decadence. Full +of enthusiasm for his work, he was ready to +respond to any call. He went to and fro between +Venice and the villas along the mainland +and to the neighbouring towns. Then coveting +wider fields, he travelled to Milan and Genoa, +where his frescoes still gleam in the palaces +of the Dugnani, the Archinto, and the Clerici. +At Würzburg in Bavaria he achieved a magnificent +series of decorations for the palace of the +Prince-Archbishop. Then coming back to Italy, +he painted altarpieces, portraits, pictures for his +friends, and a fresh multitude of allegorical and +mythological frescoes in palaces and villas. His +charming villa at Zianigo is frescoed from top +to bottom by himself and his sons, and has +amusing examples of contemporary dress and +manners.</p> + +<p>When the Academy was instituted in 1755, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>Tiepolo was appointed its first director, but the +sort of employment it provided was not suited +to his impetuous spirit, and in 1762 he threw +up the post and went off to Spain with his two +sons. There he received a splendid welcome +and was loaded with commissions, the only +dissentient voice being that of Raphael Mengs, +who, obsessed by the taste for the classic and the +antique, was fiercely opposed to the Venetian’s +art. Tiepolo died suddenly in Madrid in 1770, +pencil in hand. Though he was past seventy, +the frescoes he has left there show that his +hand was as firm and his eye as sure as ever.</p> + +<p>His frescoes have, as we have said, that +frankly theatrical flavour which corresponds +exactly to the taste of the time. Such works +as the “Transportation of the Holy House of +Loretto” in the Church of the Scalzi in Venice, +or the “Triumph of Faith” in that of the +Pietà, the “Triumph of Hercules” in Palazzo +Canossa in Verona, or the decorations in the +magnificent villa of the Pisani at Strà, are +extravagant and fantastic, yet have the impressive +quality of genius. These last, which have for +subject the glorification of the Pisani, are full +of portraits. The patrician sons and daughters +appear, surrounded by Abundance, War, and +Wisdom. A woman holding a sceptre symbolises +Europe. All round are grouped flags and +dragons, “nations grappling in the airy blue,” +bands of Red Indians in their war-paint and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>happy couples making love. The idea of the +history, the wealth, the supreme dignity of the +House is paramount, and over all appears Fame, +bearing the noble name into immortality. In +Palazzo Clerici at Milan a rich and prodigal +committee gave the painter a free hand, and on +the ceiling of a vast hall the Sun in a chariot, +with four horses harnessed abreast, rises to the +meridian, flooding the world with light. Venus +and Saturn attend him, and his advent is heralded +by Mercury. A symbolical figure of the earth +joys at his coming, and a concourse of naiads, +nymphs, and dolphins wait upon his footsteps. +In the school of the Carmine in Venice Tiepolo +has left one of his grandest displays. The +haughty Queen of Heaven, who is his ideal of +the Virgin, bears the Child lightly on her arm, +and, standing enthroned upon the rolling clouds, +hardly deigns to acknowledge the homage of +the prostrate saint, on whom an attendant angel +is bestowing her scapulary. The most charming +<em>amoretti</em> are disporting in all directions, flinging +themselves from on high in delicious <em>abandon</em>, +alternating with lovely groups of the cardinal +virtues. At Villa Valmarana near Vicenza, after +revelling among the gods, he comes to earth +and delights in painting lovely ladies with +almond eyes and carnation cheeks, attended by +their cavaliers, seated in balconies, looking on +at a play, or dancing minuets, and carnival +scenes with masques and dominoes and <em>fêtes +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>champêtres</em>, which give us a picture of the +fashions and manners of the day. He brings in +groups of Chinese in oriental dress, and then +he condescends to paint country girls and their +rustic swains, in the style of Phyllis and +Corydon.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he becomes graver and more solid. +He abandons the airy fancies scattered in cloud-land. +The story of Esther in Palazzo Dugnano +affords an opportunity for introducing magnificent +architecture, warriors in armour, and stately +dames in satin and brocades. He touches his +highest in the decorations of Palazzo Labia, +where Antony and Cleopatra, seated at their +banquet, surrounded by pomp and revelry, regard +one another silently, with looks of sombre +passion. Four exquisite panels have lately been +acquired by the Brera Gallery, representing the +loves of Rinaldo and Armida, and are a feast +of gay, delicate colour, with fascinating backgrounds +of Italian gardens. The throne-room +of the palace at Madrid has the same order of +compositions—Æneas conducted by Venus from +Time to Immortality, and other deifications of +Spanish royalty.</p> + +<p><a name="cleo" id="cleo"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 431px;"> +<img src="images/img355.jpg" width="431" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Tiepolo.</em> ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. <em>Palazzo Labia, Venice.</em></p> + +<p>Now and then Tiepolo is possessed by a +tragic mood. In the Church of San Alvise he +has left a “Way to Calvary,” a “Flagellation,” +and a “Crowning of Thorns,” which are intensely +dramatic, and which show strong feeling. +Particularly striking is the contrast between the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>refined and sensitive type of his Christ and the +realistic and even brutal study of the two +despairing malefactors—one a common ruffian, +the other an aged offender of a higher class. +His altarpiece at Este, representing S. Tecla +staying the plague, is painted with a real insight +into disaster and agony, and S. Tecla is a +pathetic and beautiful figure. Sometimes in his +easel-pictures he paints a Head of Christ, a +S. Anthony, or a Crucifixion, but he always +returns before long to the ample spaces and +fantastic subjects which his soul loved.</p> + +<p>Tiepolo is a singular contradiction. His art +suggests a strong being, held captive by butterflies. +Sometimes he is joyous and limpid, sometimes +turbulent and strong, but he has always +sincerity, force, and life. A great space serves +to exhilarate him, and he asks nothing better +than to cover it with angels and goddesses, white +limbs among the clouds, sea-horses ridden by +Tritons, patrician warriors in Roman armour, +balustrades and columns and <em>amoretti</em>. He does +not even need to pounce his design, but puts in +all sorts of improvised modifications with a sure +hand. The vastness of his frescoes, the daring +poses of his countless figures, and the freedom of +his line speak eloquently of the mastery to +which his hand had attained. He revels, above +all, in effects of light—“all the light of the +sky, and all the light of the sea; all the light +of Venice ... in which he swims as in a bath. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>He paints not ideas, scarcely even forms, but +light. His ceilings are radiant, like the sky +of birds; his poems seem to be written in the +clouds. Light is fairer than all things, and +Tiepolo knows all the tricks and triumphs of +light.”<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>Nearly all his compositions have a serene +and limpid horizon, with the figures approaching +it painted in clear, silvery hues, airy and +diaphanous, while the forms below are more +muscular, the flesh tints are deeper, and the +whole of the foreground is often enveloped in +shadow. Veronese had lit up the shadows, +which, under his contemporaries, were growing +gloomy. Tiepolo carries his art further on the +same lines. He makes his figures more graceful, +his draperies more vaporous, and illumines +his clouds with radiance. His faded blue and +rose, his golden-greys, and pearly whites and +pastel tints are not so much solid colours as +caprices of light. We have remarked already +that with Veronese the accessories of gleaming +satins and rich brocades serve to obscure the +persons. In many of Tiepolo’s scenes the +figures are lost in a flutter of drapery, subject +and action melt away, and we are only conscious +of soft harmonies of delicious colour, +as ethereal as the hues of spring flowers in +woodland ways and joyous meadows. With +these delicious, audacious fancies, put on with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>a nervous hand, we forget the age of profound and +ardent passion, we escape from that of pompous +solemnity and studied grace, and we breathe +an atmosphere of irresponsible and capricious +pleasure. In this last word of her great masters +Venice keeps what her temperament loved—sensuous +colour and emotional chiaroscuro, used +to accentuate an art adapted to a city of pleasure.</p> + +<p>The excellence of the old masters’ drawings +is a perpetual revelation. Even second-class +men are almost invariably fine draughtsmen, +proving that drawing was looked upon as something +over which it was necessary for even the +meanest to have entire mastery. Tiepolo’s +drawings, preserved in Venice and in various +museums, are as beautiful as can be wished; +perfect in execution and vivid in feeling. In +Venice are twenty or thirty sheets in red carbon, +of flights of angels, and of draperies studied in +every variety of fold.</p> + +<p>Poor work of his school is often ascribed to +his sons, but the superb “Stations of the Cross,” +in the Frari, which were etched by Domenico, +and published as his own in his lifetime, are +almost equal to the father’s work. Tiepolo had +many immediate followers and imitators. The +colossal roof-painting of Fabio Canal in the +Church of SS. Apostoli, Venice, may be pointed +out as an example of one of these. But he is full +of the tendencies of modern art. Mr. Berenson, +writing of him, says he sometimes seems more +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>the first than the last of a line, and notices how +he influenced many French artists of recent +times, though none seem quite to have caught +the secret of his light intensity and his exquisite +caprice.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Aranjuez.</td> <td class="td5">Royal Palace: Frescoes; Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Orangery: Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Cappella Colleoni: Scenes from the Life of the Baptist.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Martyrdom of S. Agatha; S. Dominia and the Rosary.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Sketches; Deposition.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Madrid.</td> <td class="td5">Escurial; Ceilings.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Palazzi Clerici, Archinto, and Dugnano: Frescoes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Brera: Loves of Rinaldo and Armida.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Christ at Emmaus.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Strà.</td> <td class="td5">Villa Pisani: Ceiling.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: S. Joseph, the Child, and Saints; S. Helena finding the Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Ducale: Sala di Quattro Porte: Neptune and Venice.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Labia: Frescoes; Antony and Cleopatra.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Rezzonico: Two Ceilings.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Alvise: Flagellation; Way to Golgotha.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">SS. Apostoli: Communion of S. Lucy.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Fava: The Virgin and her Parents.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Gesuati: Ceiling; Altarpiece.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Maria della Pietà: Triumph of Faith.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">S. Paolo: Stations of the Cross.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scalzi: Transportation of the Holy House of Loretto.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Scuola del Carmine: Ceiling.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Canossa: Triumph of Hercules.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vicenza.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Entrance Hall: Immaculate Conception.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Villa Valmarana: Frescoes; Subjects from Homer, Virgil, + Ariosto, and Tasso; Masks and Oriental Scenes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Würzburg.</td> <td class="td5">Palace of the Archbishop: Ceilings; Fêtes Galantes; Assumption; + Fall of Rebel Angels.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>PIETRO LONGHI</strong></p> + + +<p>We have here a master who is peculiarly the +Venetian of the eighteenth century, a genre-painter +whose charm it is not easy to surpass, +yet one who did not at the outset find his true +vocation. Longhi’s first undertakings, specimens +of which exist in certain palaces in Venice, were +elaborate frescoes, showing the baneful influence +of the Bolognese School, in which he studied +for a time under Giuseppe Crispi. He attempts +to place the deities of Olympus on his ceilings +in emulation of Tiepolo, but his Juno is heavy +and common, and the Titans at her feet appear +as a swarm of sprawling, ill-drawn nudities. He +shows no faculty for this kind of work, but he +was thirty-two before he began to paint those +small easel-pictures which in his own dainty style +illustrate the “Vanity Fair” of his period, and in +which the eighteenth century lives for us again.</p> + +<p>His earliest training was in the goldsmith’s +art, and he has left many drawings of plate, +exquisite in their sense of graceful curve and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>their unerring precision of line. It was a +moment when such things acquired a flawless +purity of outline, and Longhi recognised their +beauty with all the sensitive perception of the +artist and the practised workman. His studies +of draperies, gestures, and hands are also extraordinarily +careful, and he seems besides to have +an intimate acquaintance with all the elegant +dissipation and languid excesses of a dying order. +We feel that he has himself been at home in +the masquerade, has accompanied the lady to +the fortune-teller, and, leaning over her graceful +shoulder, has listened to the soothsayer’s murmurs. +He has attended balls and routs, danced minuets, +and gossiped over tiny cups of China tea. He +is the last chronicler of the Venetian feasts, +and with him ends that long series that began +with Giorgione’s concert and which developed +and passed through suppers at Cana and banquets +at the houses of Levi and the Pharisee. We +are no longer confronted with the sumptuosity +of Bonifazio and Veronese; the immense tables +covered with gold and silver plate, the long +lines of guests robed in splendid brocades, the +stream of servants bearing huge salvers, or the +bands of musicians, nor are there any more +alfresco concerts, with nymphs and bacchantes. +Instead there are masques, the life of the Ridotto +or gaming-house, routs and intrigues in dainty +boudoirs, and surreptitious love-making in that +city of eternal carnival where the <em>bauta</em> was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>almost a national costume. Longhi holds that +post which in French art is filled by Watteau, +Fragonard, and Lancret, the painters of <em>fêtes +galantes</em>, and though he cannot be placed on +an equal footing with those masters, he is +representative and significant enough. On his +canvases are preserved for us the mysteries of +the toilet, over which ladies and young men +of fashion dawdled through the morning, the +drinking of chocolate in <em>négligé</em>, the momentous +instants spent in choosing headgear and fixing +patches, the towers of hair built by the modish +coiffeur—children trooping in, in hoops and +uniforms, to kiss their mother’s hand, the fine +gentleman choosing a waistcoat and ogling the +pretty embroideress, the pert young maidservant +slipping a billet-doux into a beauty’s hand under +her husband’s nose, the old beau toying with +a fan, or the discreet abbé taking snuff over the +morning gazette. The grand ladies of Longhi’s +day pay visits in hoop and farthingale, the beaux +make “a leg,” and the lacqueys hand chocolate. +The beautiful Venetians and their gallants swim +through the gavotte or gamble in the Ridotto, +or they hasten to assignations, disguised in wide +<em>bauti</em> and carrying preposterous muffs. The +Correr Museum contains a number of his +paintings and also his book of original sketches. +One of the most entertaining of his canvases +represents a visit of patricians to a nuns’ parlour. +The nuns and their pupils lend an attentive +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>ear to the whispers of the world. Their dresses +are trimmed with <em>point de Venise</em>, and a little +theatre is visible in the background. This and +the “Sala del Ridotto” which hangs near, are +marked by a free, bold handling, a richness of +colouring, and more animation than is usual in +his genre-pictures. He has not preserved the +lovely, indeterminate colour or the impressionist +touch which was the natural inheritance of +Watteau or Tiepolo. His backgrounds are dark +and heavy, and he makes too free a use of +body colour; but his attitude is one of close +observation—he enjoys depicting the life around +him, and we suspect that he sees in it the most +perfect form of social intercourse imaginable. +Longhi is sometimes called the Goldoni of +painting, and he certainly more nearly resembles +the genial, humorous playwright than he does +Hogarth, to whom he has also been compared. +Yet his execution and technique are a little +like Hogarth’s, and it is possible that he was +influenced by the elder and stronger master, +who entered on his triumphant career as a +satirical painter of society about 1734. This +was just the time when Longhi abandoned his +unlucky decorative style, and it is quite possible +that he may have met with engravings of the +“Marriage à la mode,” and was stimulated by +them to the study of eighteenth-century manners, +though his own temperament is far removed +from Hogarth’s moral force and grim satire. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>His serene, painstaking observation is never +distracted by grossness and violence. The +Venetians of his day may have been—undoubtedly +were—effeminate, licentious, and decadent, +but they were kind and gracious, of +refined manners, well-bred, genial and intelligent, +and so Longhi has transcribed them. In the +time which followed, ceilings were covered by +Boucher, pastels by Latour were in demand, +the scholars of David painted classical scenes, +and Pietro Longhi was forgotten. Antonio +Francesco Correr bought five hundred of his +drawings from his son, Alessandro, but his +works were ignored and dispersed. The classic +and romantic fashions passed, but it was only +in 1850 that the brothers de Goncourt, writing +on art, revived consideration for the painter of a +bygone generation. Many of his works are in +private collections, especially in England, but few +are in public galleries. The National Gallery is +fortunate in possessing several excellent examples.</p> + +<p><a name="visit" id="visit"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 441px;"> +<img src="images/img363.jpg" width="441" height="550" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Pietro Longhi.</em> VISIT TO THE FORTUNE-TELLER. <em>London.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Hanfstängl.</em>)</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">PRINCIPAL WORKS</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: At the Gaming Table; Taking Coffee.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Baglioni: The Festival of the Padrona.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">Portrait of a Lady.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">Three genre-pictures.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Visit to a Circus; Visit to a Fortune-Teller; Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Mond Collection: Card party; Portrait.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Academy: Six genre-paintings.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Correr Museum: Eleven paintings of Venetian life; Portrait of Goldoni.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Palazzo Grassi: Frescoes; Scenes of fashionable life.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Quirini-Stampalia: Eight paintings; Portraits.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>CANALE</strong></p> + + +<p>While Piazetta and Tiepolo were proving +themselves the inheritors of the great school +of decorators, Venice herself was finding her +chroniclers, and a school of landscape arose, of +which Canale was the foremost member. Giovanni +Antonio Canale was born in Venice in +1697, the same year as Tiepolo. His father +earned his living at the profession, lucrative +enough just then, of scene-painting, and Antonio +learned to handle his brush, working at his side. +In 1719 he went off to seek his fortune in Rome, +and though he was obliged to help out his +resources by his early trade, he was most concerned +in the study of architecture, ancient and +modern. Rome spoke to him through the eye, +by the picturesque masses of stonework, the +warm harmonious tones of classic remains and +the effects of light upon them. He painted +almost entirely out-of-doors, and has left many +examples drawn from the ruins. His success +in Rome was not remarkable, and he was still +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>a very young man when he retraced his steps. +On regaining his native town, he realised for the +first time the beauty of its canals and palaces, +and he never again wavered in his allegiance.</p> + +<p>Two rivals were already in the field, Luca +Carlevaris, whose works were freely bought by +the rich Venetians, and Marco Ricci, the figures +in whose views of Venice were often touched +in by his uncle, Sebastiano; but Canale’s growing +fame soon dethroned them, “i cacciati del nido,” +as he said, using Dante’s expression. In a +generation full of caprice, delighting in sensational +developments, Canale was methodical to +a fault, and worked steadily, calmly producing +every detail of Venetian landscape with untiring +application and almost monotonous tranquillity. +He lived in the midst of a band of painters who +adored travel. Sebastiano Ricci was always on +the move; Tiepolo spent much of his time in +other cities and countries, and passed the last +years of his life in Spain; Pietro Rotari was +attached to the Court of St. Petersburg; Belotto, +Canale’s nephew, settled in Bohemia; but Canale +remained at home, and, except for two short +visits paid to England, contented himself with +trips to Padua and Verona.</p> + +<p>Early in life Canale entered into relations +with Joseph Smith, the British Consul in Venice, +a connoisseur who had not only formed a fine +collection of pictures, but had a gallery from +which he was very ready to sell to travellers. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>He bought of the young Venetian at a very +low price, and contrived, unfairly enough, to +acquire the right to all his work for a certain +period of time, with the object of sending it, at +a good profit, to London. For a time Canale’s +luminous views were bought by the English +under these auspices, but the artist, presently +discovering that he was making a bad bargain, +came over to England, where he met with an +encouraging reception, especially at Windsor +Castle and from the Duke of Richmond. Canale +spent two years in England and painted on the +Thames and at Cambridge, but he could not +stand the English climate and fled from the +damp and fogs to his own lagoons.</p> + +<p>To describe his paintings is to describe Venice +at every hour of the day and night—Venice +with its long array of noble palaces, with its +Grand Canal and its narrow, picturesque waterways. +He reproduces the Venice we know, and +we see how little it has changed. The gondolas +cluster round the landing-stages of the Piazzetta, +the crowds hurry in and out of the arcades of +the Ducal Palace, or he paints the festivals +that still retained their splendour: the Great +Bucentaur leaving the Riva dei Schiavoni on +the Feast of the Ascension, or San Geremia and +the entrance to the Cannaregio decked in flags +for a feast-day. From one end to another of +the Grand Canal, that “most beautiful street +in the world,” as des Commines called it in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>1495, we can trace every aspect of Canale’s +time, when the city had as yet lost nothing of +its splendour or its animation. At the entrance +stands S. Maria della Salute, that sanctuary dear +to Venetian hearts, built as a votive offering +after the visitation of the plague in 1631. Its +flamboyant dome, with its volutes, its population +of stone saints, its green bronze door catching +the light, pleased Canale, as it pleased Sargent +in our own day, and he painted it over and +over again. The annual fête of the Confraternity +of the Carità takes place at the Scuola di San +Rocco, and Canale paints the old Renaissance +building which shelters so much of Tintoretto’s +finest work, decorated with ropes of greenery +and gay with flags,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> while Tiepolo has put in +the red-robed, periwigged councillors and the +gazing populace. Near it in the National +Gallery hangs a “Regatta” with its array of +boats, its shouting gondoliers, and its shadows +lying across the range of palaces, and telling +the exact hour of the day that it was sketched +in; or, again, the painter has taken peculiar +pleasure in expressing quiet days, with calm +green waters and wide empty piazzas, divided by +sun and shadow, with a few citizens plodding +about their business in the hot midday, or a +quiet little abbé crossing the piazza on his way +to Mass. Canale has made a special study of the +light on wall and façade, and of the transparent +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>waters of the canals and the azure skies in which +float great snowy fleeces.</p> + +<p>His second visit to England was paid in +1751. He was received with open arms by +the great world, and invited to the houses of the +nobility in town and country. The English +were delighted with his taste and with the +mastery with which he painted architectural +scenes, and in spite of advancing years he produced +a number of compositions, which commanded +high prices. The Garden of Vauxhall, +the Rotunda at Ranelagh, Whitehall, Northumberland +House, Eton College, were some of the +subjects which attracted him, and the treatment +of which was signalised by his calm and perfect +balance. He made use of the camera ottica, +which is in principal identical with the camera +oscura. Lanzi says he amended its defects and +taught its proper use, but it must be confessed +that in the careful perspective of some of his +scenes, its traces seem to haunt us and to convey +a certain cold regularity. Canale was a marvellous +engraver. Mantegna, Bellini, and Titian +had placed engraving on a very high level in the +Venetian School, and though at a later date it +became too elaborate, Tiepolo and his son brought +it back to simplicity. Canale aided them, and +his <em>eaux-fortes</em>, of which he has left about thirty, +are filled with light and breadth of treatment, +and he is particularly happy in his brilliant, +transparent water.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p><p>The high prices Canale obtained for his +pictures in his lifetime led to the usual +imitations. He was surrounded by painters +whose whole ambition was limited to copying +him. Among these were Marieschi, Visentini, +Colombini, besides others now forgotten. More +than fifty of his finest works were bought +by Smith for George III. and fill a room at +Windsor. He was made a member of the +Academy at Dresden, and Bruhl, the Prime +Minister of the Elector, obtained from him +twenty-one works which now adorn the gallery +there. Canale died in Venice, where he had +lived nearly all his life, and where his gondola-studio +was a familiar object in the Piazzetta, at +the Lido, or anchored in the long canals.</p> + +<p>His nephew, Bernardo Belotto, is often also +called Canaletto, and it seems that both uncle and +nephew were equally known by the diminutive. +Belotto, too, went to Rome early in his career, +where he attached himself to Panini, a painter +of classic ruins, peopled with warriors and +shepherds. He was, by all accounts, full of +vanity and self-importance, and on a visit to +Germany managed to acquire the title of Count, +which he adhered to with great complacency. +He travelled all over Italy looking for patronage, +and was very eager to find the road to success and +fortune. About the same time as his uncle, he +paid a visit to London and was patronised by +Horace Walpole, but in the full tide of success +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>he was summoned to Dresden, where the Elector, +disappointed at not having secured the services +of the uncle, was fain to console himself with +those of the nephew. The extravagant and +profligate Augustus II., whose one idea was to +extract money by every possible means from +his subjects, in order to adorn his palaces, was +consistently devoted to Belotto, who was in his +element as a Court painter. He paints all his +uncle’s subjects, and it is not always easy to +distinguish between the two; but his paintings +are dull and stiff as compared with those of +Canale, though he is sometimes fine in colour, +and many of his views are admirably drawn.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">SOME WORKS OF CANALE</p> + +<p class="center">It is impossible to draw up any exhaustive list, so many being +in private collections.</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Dresden.</td> <td class="td5">The Grand Canal; Campo S. Giacomo; Piazza S. Marco; + Church and Piazza of SS. Giovanni and Paolo.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Florence.</td> <td class="td5">The Piazzetta.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Hampton Court.</td> <td class="td5">The Colosseum.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Scuola di San Rocco; Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh; + S. Pietro in Castello, Venice.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Louvre: Church of S. Maria della Salute.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Heading; Courtyard of a Palace.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Vienna.</td> <td class="td5">Liechtenstein Gallery: Church and Piazza of S. Mark, Venice; + Canal of the Giudecca, Venice; View on Grand Canal; + The Piazzetta.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Windsor.</td> <td class="td5">About fifty paintings.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Wallace Collection.</td> <td class="td5">The Giudecca; Piazza San Marco; Church of San + Simione; S. Maria della Salute; A Fête on the Grand Canal; + Ducal Palace; Dogana from the Molo; Palazzo Corner; + A Water-fête; The Rialto; S. Maria della Salute; A Canal + in Venice.</td> </tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<p class="center"><strong>FRANCESCO GUARDI</strong></p> + + +<p>An entry in Gradenigo’s diary of 1764, preserved +in the Museo Correr, speaks of “Francesco +Guardi, painter of the quarter of SS. Apostoli, +along the Fondamenta Nuove, a good pupil of +the famous Canaletto, having by the aid of the +camera ottica, most successfully painted two canvases +(not small) by the order of a stranger (an +Englishman), with views of the Piazza San +Marco, towards the Church and the Clock +Tower, and of the Bridge of the Rialto and +buildings towards the Cannaregio, and have +to-day examined them under the colonnades +of the Procurazie and met with universal +applause.”</p> + +<p>Francesco Guardi was a son of the Austrian +Tyrol, and his mountain ancestry may account, +as in the case of Titian, for the freshness and +vigour of his art. Both his father, who settled +in Venice, and his brother were painters. His +son became one in due time, and the profession +being followed by four members of the family +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>accounts for the indifferent works often attributed +to Guardi.</p> + +<p>His indebtedness to Canale is universally +acknowledged, and perhaps it is true that he +never attains to the monumental quality, the +traditional dignity which marks Canale out as +a great master, but he differs from Canale in +temperament, style, and technique. Canale is +a much more exact and serious student of +architectural detail; Guardi, with greater visible +vigour, obliterates detail, and has no hesitation +in drawing in buildings which do not really +appear. In his oval painting of the Ducal Palace +(Wallace Collection) he makes it much loftier +and more spacious than it really is. In his +“Piazzetta” he puts in a corner of the Loggia +where it would not actually be seen. In the +“Fair in Piazza S. Marco” the arch from under +which the Fair appears is gigantic, and he foreshortens +the wing of the royal palace. He curtails +the length of the columns in the piazza and so +avoids monotony of effect, and he often alters +the height of the campaniles he uses, making +them tall and slender or short and broad, as +his picture requires. At one time he produced +some colossal pictures, in several of which Mr. +Simonson, who has written an admirable life of +the painter, believes that the hand of Canale is +perceptible in collaboration; but it was not his +natural element, and he often became heavy in +colour and handling. In 1782 he undertook a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>commission from Pietro Edwards, who was a +noted connoisseur and inspector of State pictures, +and had been appointed superintendent in 1778 of +an official studio for the restoration of old masters.</p> + +<p>Edwards had important dealings with Guardi, +who was directed to paint four leading incidents +in the rejoicings in honour of the visit of +Pius IV. to Venice. The Venetians themselves +had become indifferent patrons of art, but Venice +attracted great numbers of foreign visitors, and +before the second half of the eighteenth century +the export of old masters had already become +an established trade. There is no sign, however, +that Joseph Smith, who retained his consulship +till 1760, extended any patronage to Guardi, +though he enriched George III.’s collection +with works of the chief contemporary artists +of Venice. It is probable that Guardi had been +warned against him by Canale and profited by +the latter’s experience.</p> + +<p>We can divide his work into three categories. +1. Views of Venice. 2. Public ceremonies. +3. Landscapes. Gradenigo mentions casually +that he used the camera ottica, but though we +may consider it probable, we cannot trace the +use of it in his works. He is not only a painter +of architecture, but pays great attention to light +and atmosphere, and aims at subtle effects; a +transparent haze floats over the lagoons, or the +sun pierces though the morning mists. His +four large pendants in the Wallace Collection +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>show his happiest efforts; light glances off the +water and is reflected on the shadowed walls. +His views round the Salute bring vividly before +us those delicious morning hours in Venice +when the green tide has just raced up the Grand +Canal, when a fresh wind is lifting and curling +all the loose sails and fluttering pennons, and +when the gondoliers are straining at the oars, as +their light craft is caught and blown from side +to side upon the rippling water. The sky +occupies much of his space, he makes searching +studies of it, and his favourite effect is a +flash of light shooting across a piled-up mass +of clouds. The line of the horizon is low, and +he exhibits great mastery in painting the wide +lagoons, but he also paints rough seas, and is +one of the few masters of his day—perhaps +the only one—who succeeds in representing a +storm at sea.</p> + +<p>Often as he paints the same subjects he never +becomes mechanical or photographic. We may +sometimes tire of the monotony of Canale’s +unerring perspective and accurate buildings, but +Guardi always finds some new rendering, some +fresh point of interest. Sometimes he gives us +a summer day, when Venice stands out in light, +her white palaces reflected in the sun-illumined +water; sometimes he is arrested by old churches +bathed in shadow and fusing into the rich, dark +tones of twilight. His boats and figures are +introduced with great spirit and <em>brio</em>, and are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>alive with that handling which a French critic +has described as his <em>griffe endiablée</em>.</p> + +<p><a name="della" id="della"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<img src="images/img379.jpg" width="550" height="400" alt="image" title="" /> +</div> +<p class="caption"><em>Francesco Guardi.</em> S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE. <em>London.</em><br /> +(<em>Photo, Mansell and Co.</em>)</p> + +<p>His masterly and spirited painting of crowds +enables him to reproduce for us all those public +ceremonies which Venice retained as long as +the Republic lasted: yearly pilgrimages of the +Doge to Venetian churches, to the Salute to +commemorate the cessation of the plague, to +San Zaccaria on Easter Day, the solemn procession +on Corpus Christi Day, receptions of +ambassadors, and, most gorgeous of all, the Feast +of the Wedding of the Adriatic. He has faithfully +preserved the ancient ceremonial which +accompanied State festivities. In the “Fête +du Jeudi Gras” (Louvre) he illustrates the acrobatic +feats which were performed before Doge +Mocenigo. A huge Temple of Victory is +erected on the Piazzetta, and gondoliers are seen +climbing on each other’s shoulders and dancing +upon ropes. His motley crowds show that the +whole population, patricians as well as people, +took part in the feasts. He has also left many +striking interiors: among others, that of the +Sala del Gran Consiglio, where sometimes as +many as a thousand persons were assembled, the +“Reception of the Doge and Senate by Pius IV.” +(which formed one of the series ordered by +Pietro Edwards), or the fine “Interior of a +Theatre,” exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts +in 1911, belonging to a series of which another +is at Munich.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p><p>In his landscapes Guardi does not pay very +faithful attention to nature. The landscape +painters of the eighteenth century, as Mr. Simonson +points out, were not animated by any very +genuine impulse to study nature minutely. It +was the picturesque element which appealed to +them, and they were chiefly concerned to reproduce +romantic features, grouped according to +fancy. Guardi composes half fantastic scenes, +introducing classic remains, triumphal arches, +airy Palladian monuments. His <em>capricci</em> include +compositions in which Roman ruins, overgrown +with foliage, occupy the foreground of a painting +of Venetian palaces, but in which the combination +is carried out with so much sparkle and +nervous life and such charm of style, that it is +attractive and piquant rather than grotesque.</p> + +<p>England is richest in Guardis, of any country, +but France in one respect is better off, in possessing +no less than eleven fine paintings of public +ceremonials. Guardi may be considered the +originator of small sketches, and perhaps the +precursor of those glib little views which are +handed about the Piazza at the present day. +His drawings are fairly numerous, and are remarkably +delicate and incisive in touch. A +large collection which he left to his son is now +in the Museo Correr. In his later years he was +reduced to poverty and used to exhibit sketches +in the Piazza, parting with them for a few +ducats, and in this way flooding Venice with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>small landscapes. The exact spot occupied by +his <em>bottega</em> is said to be at the corner of the +Palazzo Reale, opposite the Clock Tower. The +house in which he died still exists in the +Campiello della Madonna, No. 5433, Parrocchia +S. Canziano, and has a shrine dedicated to the +Madonna attached to it. When quite an old +man, Guardi paid a visit to the home of his +ancestors, at Mastellano in the Austrian Tyrol, +and made a drawing of Castello Corvello on the +route. To this day his name is remembered +with pride in his Tyrolean valley.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">SOME WORKS OF GUARDI</p> + +<div> +<table style="margin-left: 5em;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> <td class="td6">Bergamo.</td> <td class="td5">Lochis: Landscapes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Berlin.</td> <td class="td5">Grand Canal; Lagoon; Cemetery Island.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">London.</td> <td class="td5">Views in Venice.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Milan.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Civico: Landscapes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6"></td> <td class="td5">Poldi-Pezzoli: Piazzetta; Dogana; Landscapes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Oxford.</td> <td class="td5">Taylorian Museum: Views in Venice.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Padua.</td> <td class="td5">Views in Venice.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Paris.</td> <td class="td5">Procession of the Doge to S. Zaccaria; Embarkment in + Bucentaur; Festival at Salute; “Jeudi Gras” in Venice; + Corpus Christi; Sala di Collegio; Coronation of Doge.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Turin.</td> <td class="td5">Cottage; Staircase; Bridge over Canal.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Venice.</td> <td class="td5">Museo Correr: The Ridotto; Parlour of Convent.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Verona.</td> <td class="td5">Landscapes.</td> </tr> +<tr> <td class="td6">Wallace Collection.</td> <td class="td5">The Rialto; San Giorgio Maggiore (two); + S. Maria della Salute; Archway in Venice; Vaulted Arcades; + The Dogana.</td> </tr> + +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p> +<h2>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> + + +<p>It is an advantage to the student of Italian art to be able to +read French, German, and Italian, for though translations +appear of the most important works, there are many interesting +articles and monographs of minor artists which are otherwise +inaccessible.</p> + +<p>Vasari, not always trustworthy, either in dates, facts, or +opinions, yet delightfully human in his histories, is indispensable, +and new editions and translations are constantly issued. +Sansoni’s edition (Florence), with Milanesi’s notes, is the most +authoritative; and for translations, those of Mrs. Foster (Messrs. +Blashfield and Hopkins), and a new edition in the Temple +classics (Dent, 8 vols., 2s. each vol.).</p> + +<p>Ridolfi, the principal contemporary authority on Venetian +artists, who published his <em>Maraviglie dell’ arte</em> nine years +after Domenico Tintoretto’s death, is only to be read in +Italian, though the anecdotes with which his work abounds +are made use of by every writer.</p> + +<p>Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s <em>Painting in North Italy</em> (Murray) +is a storehouse of painstaking, minute, and, on the whole, +marvellously correct information and sound opinion. It supplies +a foundation, fills gaps, and supplements individual biographies +as no other book does. For the early painters, down to the +time of the Bellini, <em>I Origini dei pittori veneziani</em>, by Professor +Leonello Venturi, Venice, 1907, is a large book, written with +mastery and insight, and well illustrated; <em>La Storia della pittura +veneziana</em> is another careful work, which deals very minutely +with the early school of mosaics.</p> + +<p>In studying the Bellini, the late Mr. S. A. Strong has <em>The +Brothers Bellini</em> (Bell’s Great Masters), and the reader should +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>not fail to read Mr. Roger Fry’s <em>Bellini</em> (Artist’s Library), a +scholarly monograph, short but reliable, and full of suggestion +and appreciation, though written in a cool, critical spirit. +Dr. Hills has dealt ably with <em>Pisanello</em> (Duckworth).</p> + +<p>Molmenti and Ludwig in their monumental work <em>Vittore +Carpaccio</em>, translated by Mr. R. H. Cust (Murray, 1907), and +Paul Kristeller in the equally important <em>Mantegna</em>, translated +by Mr. S. A. Strong (Longmans, 1901), seem to have exhausted +all that there is to be said for the moment concerning these +two painters.</p> + +<p>It is almost superfluous to mention Mr. Berenson’s two +well-known volumes, <em>The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance</em>, +and the <em>North Italian Painters of the Renaissance</em> (Putnam). +They are brilliant essays which supplement every other work, +overflowing with suggestive and critical matter, supplying +original thoughts, and summing up in a few pregnant words +the main features and the tendencies of the succeeding stages.</p> + +<p>In studying Giorgione, we cannot dispense with Pater’s +essay, included in <em>The Renaissance</em>. The author is not always +well informed as to facts—he wrote in the early days of criticism—but +he is rich in idea and feeling. Mr. Herbert Cook’s <em>Life +of Giorgione</em> (Bell’s Great Masters) is full and interesting. +Some authorities question his attributions as being too +numerous, but whether we regard them as authentic works of +the master or as belonging to his school, the illustrations he +gives add materially to our knowledge of the Giorgionesque.</p> + +<p>When we come to Titian we are well off. Crowe and +Cavalcaselle’s <em>Life of Titian</em> (Murray, out of print), in two +large volumes, is well written and full of good material, from +which subsequent writers have borrowed. An excellent Life, +full of penetrating criticism, by Mr. C. Ricketts, was lately +brought out by Methuen (Classics of Art), complete with +illustrations, and including a minute analysis of Titian’s technique. +Sir Claude Phillips’s Monograph on Titian will appeal +to every thoughtful lover of the painter’s genius, and Dr. +Gronau has written a good and scholarly Life (Duckworth).</p> + +<p>Mr. Berenson’s <em>Lorenzo Lotto</em> must be read for its interest +and learning, given with all the author’s charm and lucidity. +It includes an essay on Alvise Vivarini.</p> + +<p>My own <em>Tintoretto</em> (Methuen, Classics of Art) gives a full +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>account of the man and his work, and especially deals exhaustively +with the scheme and details of the Scuola di San Rocco. +Professor Thode has written a detailed and profusely illustrated +Life of Tintoretto in the Knackfuss Series, and the Paradiso has +been treated at length and illustrated in great detail in a very +scholarly <em>édition de luxe</em> by Mr. F. O. Osmaston. It is the +fashion to discard Ruskin, but though we may allow that his +judgments are exaggerated, that he reads more into a picture +than the artist intended, and that he is too fond of preaching +sermons, there are few critics who have so many ideas to give +us, or who are so informed with a deep love of art, and both +<em>Modern Painters</em> and the <em>Stones of Venice</em> should be read.</p> + +<p>M. Charles Yriarte has written a Life of Paolo Veronese, +which is full of charm and knowledge. It is interesting to +take a copy of Boschini’s <em>Della pittura veneziana</em>, 1797, when +visiting the galleries, the palaces, and the churches of Venice. +His lists of the pictures, as they were known in his day, often +open our eyes to doubtful attributions. Second-hand copies +of Boschini are not difficult to pick up. When the later-century +artists are reached, a good sketch of the Venice of +their period is supplied by Philippe Monnier’s delightful <em>Venice +in the Eighteenth Century</em> (Chatto and Windus), which also +has a good chapter on the lesser Venetian masters. The best +Life of Tiepolo is in Italian, by Professor Pompeo Molmenti. +The smaller masters have to be hunted for in many scattered +essays; a knowledge of Goldoni adds point to Longhi’s pictures. +Canaletto and his nephew, Belotto, have been treated by +M. Uzanne, <em>Les Deux Canaletto</em>; and Mr. Simonson has written +an important and charming volume on Francesco Guardi +(Methuen, 1904), with beautiful reproductions of his works. +Among other books which give special information are +Morelli’s two volumes, <em>Italian Painters in Borghese and Doria +Pamphili</em>, and <em>In Dresden and Munich Galleries</em>, translated by +Miss Jocelyn ffoulkes (Murray); and Dr. J. P. Richter’s +magnificent catalogue of the Mond Collection—which, though +published at fifteen guineas, can be seen in the great art libraries—has +some valuable chapters on the Venetian masters.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> +<h2>INDEX</h2> + +<ul> + +<li><a name="Academy" id="Academy"></a>Academy, Florence, <a href="#Page_28">28</a> + <ul><li>Venice, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, + <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, + <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, + <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li></ul></li> + +<li>Adoration of Magi, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li>Adoration of Shepherds, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li>Agnolo Gaddi, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Alemagna, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>-<a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li>Altichiero, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + +<li><a name="Alvise" id="Alvise"></a>Alvise Vivarini, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>-<a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Amalteo, Pomponio, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li>Amigoni, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li>Anconæ, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li>Angelico, Fra, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li>Annunciation, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li>Antonello da Messina, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Antonio da Murano, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li>Antonio Negroponte, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li>Antonio Veneziano, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Aretino, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li>Ascension, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + +<li>Augsburg, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Badile, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li>Balestra, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li>Baptism of Christ, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li><a name="Bartolommeo" id="Bartolommeo"></a>Bartolommeo Vivarini, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li>Basaiti, Marco, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li>Bassano, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>-<a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li>Bastiani, Lazzaro, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li>Battoni, Pompeo, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li>Bellini, Gentile, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>-<a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li>Bellini, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-<a href="#Page_89">89</a>, + <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, + <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, + <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li><a name="Bellini" id="Bellini"></a>Bellini, Jacopo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>-<a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li>Belotto, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>-<a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Bembo, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li>Benson, Mr., <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li>Berenson, Mr., <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Bergamo, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, + <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li>Berlin, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, + <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li>Bissolo, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li>Blanc, M. Charles, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li>Bologna, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li>Bonifazio, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>-<a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li>Bonsignori, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li>Bordone, Paris, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>-<a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li>Borghese, Villa, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Boschini, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Boston, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li>Botticelli, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + +<li><a name="Brera" id="Brera"></a>Brera, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li>Brescia, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li>Bridgewater House, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li>British Museum, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li>Broker’s patent, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li>Brusasorci, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li>Buonconsiglio, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li>Burckhardt, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li><em>Burlington Magazine</em>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li>Byzantine art, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Calderari, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li>Carlevaris, Luca, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li>Caliari, Carlotto, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li>Caliari, Paolo. <em>See</em> <a href="#Veronese">Veronese</a></li> + +<li>Campagnola, Domenico, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li>Canal, Fabio, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li><a name="Canale" id="Canale"></a>Canale, Gian Antonio, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>-<a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Canaletto. <em>See</em> <a href="#Canale">Canale</a></li> + +<li>Caravaggio, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li>Cariani, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> + +<li>Carpaccio, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li>Carracci, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li>Carriera. <em>See</em> <a href="#Rosalba">Rosalba Carriera</a></li> + +<li>Castagno, Andrea del, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li>Castello, Milan, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + +<li>Catena, Vincenzo, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li>Cathedrals, Ascoli, <a href="#Page_47">47</a> + <ul><li>Bassano, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + <li>Conegliano, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + <li>Cremona, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + <li>Murano, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + <li>Spilimbergo, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + <li>Treviso, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + <li>Verona, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li></ul></li> + +<li>Celesti, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li>Chelsea Hospital, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li>Churches— + <ul><li>Bergamo. + <ul><li>S. Alessandro, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + <li>S. Bartolommeo, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + <li>S. Bernardino, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + <li>S. Spirito, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Brescia. + <ul><li>S. Clemente, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + <li>SS. Nazaro e Celso, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Castelfranco. + <ul><li>S. Liberale, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li></ul></li> + <li>S. Daniele. + <ul><li>S. Antonino, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Padua. + <ul><li>Eremitani, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + <li>Il Santo, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + <li>S. Giustina, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + <li>S. Maria in Vanzo, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + <li>S. Zeno, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Pesaro. + <ul><li>S. Francesco, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Piacenza. + <ul><li>Madonna di Campagna, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Ravenna. + <ul><li>S. Domenico, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Rome. + <ul><li>S. Maria del Popolo, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + <li>S. Pietro in Montorio, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Venice. + <ul><li>S. Alvise, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + <li>SS. Apostoli, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + <li>S. Barnabà, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + <li>Carmine, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + <li>S. Cassiano, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + <li>SS. Ermagora and Fortunato, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + <li>S. Fava, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + <li>S. Francesco della Vigna, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + <li>Gesuati, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + <li>S. Giacomo dell’ Orio, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + <li>S. Giobbe, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + <li>S. Giorgio Maggiore, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + <li>S. Giovanni in Bragora, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + <li>S. Giovanni Crisostomo, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + <li>S. Giovanni Elemosinario, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + <li>SS. Giovanni and Paolo, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + <li>S. Maria Formosa, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + <li>S. Maria dei Frari, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, + <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + <li>S. Maria Mater Domini, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + <li>S. Maria dei Miracoli, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + <li>S. Maria dell’ Orto, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + <li>S. Maria della Salute, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> + <li>S. Mark’s, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + <li>S. Pantaleone, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + <li>Pietà, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + <li>S. Pietro in Castello, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + <li>S. Pietro in Murano, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + <li>S. Polo, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + <li>Redentore, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + <li>S. Rocco, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + <li>S. Salvatore, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + <li>Scalzi, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + <li>S. Sebastiano, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + <li>S. Spirito, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + <li>S. Stefano, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + <li>S. Trovaso, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + <li>S. Vitale, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + <li>S. Zaccaria, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Verona. + <ul><li>S. Anastasia, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + <li>S. Antonio, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + <li>S. Fermo, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + <li>S. Tomaso, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Vicenza. + <ul><li>S. Corona, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + <li>Monte Berico, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li></ul></li></ul></li> + +<li>Cima da Conegliano, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> + +<li>Colombini, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li>Confraternity, Carità, <a href="#Page_171">171</a> + <ul><li>S. Mark, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li></ul></li> + +<li>Contarini, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li>Cook, Sir F., <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li>Cook, Mr. Herbert, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Correggio, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li><a name="Correr" id="Correr"></a>Correr Museum (Museo Civico), <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, + <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li>Crivelli, Carlo, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li>Crowe and Cavalcaselle, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Crucifixion, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Dante, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li>David, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li>Doges— + <ul><li>Barbarigo, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + <li>Dandolo, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + <li>Giustiniani, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + <li>Gradenigo, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + <li>Grimani, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + <li>Loredano, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + <li>Mocenigo, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li></ul></li> + +<li>Donatello, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li>Doria Gallery, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Dresden, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li>Dürer, Albert, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Edwards, Pietro, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> + +<li>Este, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li>Este, Isabela d’, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Fabriano, Gentile da, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>Florence, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, + <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li>Florentine, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Florigerio, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li>Fondaco dei Tedeschi, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li>Fragonard, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li>Fry, Mr. Roger, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Fumiani, Gianbattista, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Gaston de Foix, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li>Giambono, Michele, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li>Giordano, Luca, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li>Giorgione, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>-<a href="#Page_149">149</a>, + <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, + <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Giotto, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li>Goldoni, Carlo, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Goncourt, de, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li>Guardi, Francesco, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>-<a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Guariento, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + +<li>Guercino, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li>Guido, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li>Guilds, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li>Guillaume de Guilleville, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Hampton Court, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li>Hazlitt, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> + +<li>Hogarth, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Jacobello del Fiore, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li>Jacopo Bellini. <em>See</em> <a href="#Bellini">Bellini</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Kristeller, M. Paul, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Lancret, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li>Last Judgment, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li>Last Supper, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li>Layard, Lady, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li>Lazzarini, Gregorio, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li>Leonardo, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li>Liberi, Pietro, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Licinio, Bernardino, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li>Licinio, G. A. <em>See</em> <a href="#Pordenone">Pordenone</a></li> + +<li>Lippo, Fra, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li><a name="London" id="London"></a>London (National Gallery), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, + <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li>Longhi, Pietro, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>-<a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li>Lorenzo di San Severino, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li>Lorenzo Veneziano, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li>Loreto, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li>Lotto, Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>-<a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li><a name="Louvre" id="Louvre"></a>Louvre, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, + <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li>Luciani. <em>See</em> <a href="#Sebastian">Sebastian del Piombo</a></li> + +<li>Ludwig, Professor, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Madrid, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li>Mansueti, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li>Mantegna, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, + <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Marieschi, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li>Martino da Udine. <em>See</em> <a href="#Pellegrino">Pellegrino</a></li> + +<li>Maser, Villa, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li>Masolino, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + +<li>Mengs, Raphael, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li>Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li>Milan, Ambrosiana, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a> + <ul><li>Brera. <em>See</em> <a href="#Brera">Brera</a></li></ul></li> + +<li>Mocetto, Girolamo, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li>Molmenti, Professor, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Mond Collection, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li>Monnier, Philippe, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Montagna, Bartolommeo, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>-<a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li>Morelli, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Moretto, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li>Morto da Feltre, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li>Munich, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li>Murano, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li>Museo Civico. <em>See</em> <a href="#Correr">Correr</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Naples, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li>National Gallery. <em>See</em> <a href="#London">London</a></li> + +<li>Niccolo di Pietro, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li>Niccolo Semitocolo, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Osmaston, Mr. F. O., <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li><a name="Padovanino" id="Padovanino"></a>Padovanino, Il, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li>Padua, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, + <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li>Palaces— + <ul><li>Milan. + <ul><li>Archinto, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + <li>Clerici, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + <li>Dugnani, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Rome. + <ul><li>Colonna, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Strà. + <ul><li>Pisani, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Venice. + <ul><li>Ducal, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, + <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> + <li>Giovanelli, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + <li>Labia, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + <li>Rezzonico, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Verona. + <ul><li>Canossa, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li></ul></li> + <li>Würzburg, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li></ul></li> + +<li>Palma Giovine, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li>Palma Vecchio, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + +<li>Paolo da Venezia, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li>Paris. <em>See</em> <a href="#Louvre">Louvre</a></li> + +<li>Parma, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li><a name="Pellegrino" id="Pellegrino"></a>Pellegrino, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li>Pennacchi, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li>Perugino, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + +<li>Pesaro, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li>Pesellino, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li>Piacenza, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li>Piero di Cosimo, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + +<li>Pietà, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li>Pintoricchio, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + +<li>Pisanello (Pisano), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>-<a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li><a name="Pordenone" id="Pordenone"></a>Pordenone, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>-<a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li>Previtali, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Quirizio da Murano, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Raphael, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li>Ravenna, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li>Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li>Ricci, Battista, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li>Ricci, Marco, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li>Ricci, Sebastiano, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li>Richter, Dr. J. P., <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Ricketts, Mr. C., <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Ridolfi, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li>Rimini, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li>Robusti, Domenico, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li>Robusti, Jacopo. <em>See</em> <a href="#Tintoretto">Tintoretto</a></li> + +<li>Robusti, Marietta, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li>Romanino, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>-<a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + +<li>Rome, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li>Rondinelli, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li><a name="Rosalba" id="Rosalba"></a>Rosalba Carriera, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>-<a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li>Rubens, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li>Ruskin, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Sansovino, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li>Santa Croce, Girolamo da, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li>Sarto, Andrea del, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li>Savoldo, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li><a name="Sebastian" id="Sebastian"></a>Sebastian del Piombo, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>-<a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + +<li>Siena, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> + +<li>Signorelli, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li>Simonson, Mr., <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Smith, Joseph, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> + +<li>Speranza, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li>Spilimbergo, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li>Strong, Mr. S. A., <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Taylor, Miss Cameron, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li>Tiepolo, Domenico, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li>Tiepolo, G. B., <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>-<a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li><a name="Tintoretto" id="Tintoretto"></a>Tintoretto, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>-<a href="#Page_251">251</a>, + <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>-<a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li><a name="Titian" id="Titian"></a>Titian, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>-<a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>-<a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, + <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>-<a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, + <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>-<a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, + <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>-<a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Torbido, Francesco, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li>Treviso, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Uccello, Paolo, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li>Uzanne, M. O., <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Valmarana, Villa, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li>Varotari. <em>See</em> <a href="#Padovanino">Padovanino</a></li> + +<li>Vasari, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, + <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li>Vecellio. <em>See</em> <a href="#Titian">Titian</a></li> + +<li>Vecellio, Marco, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li>Vecellio, Orazio, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li>Vecellio, Pomponio, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> + +<li>Velasquez, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li>Venice. <em>See</em> <a href="#Academy">Academy</a></li> + +<li>Venturi, Professor Antonio, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li>Venturi, Professor Leonello, <a href="#Page_vi">vi</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li>Verona, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li><a name="Veronese" id="Veronese"></a>Veronese, Paolo, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>-<a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li>Vicentino, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li>Vicenza, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>-<a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li>Vienna, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, + <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li>Visentini, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li>Viterbo, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + +<li>Vivarini. <em>See</em> <a href="#Alvise">Alvise</a></li> + +<li>Vivarini. <em>See</em> <a href="#Bartolommeo">Bartolommeo</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Wallace Collection, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li>Walpole, Horace, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li>Watteau, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li>Wickhoff, Dr., <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li>Windsor, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Yriarte, M. Charles, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li> </li> + +<li>Zanetti, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li>Zelotti, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li>Zoppo, Marco, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li>Zucchero, Federigo, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> +</ul> + +<p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +These interesting particulars are given by Mr. G. MʻN. Rushforth in +the <em>Burlington Magazine</em> for October 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> +This translation is by Miss Cameron Taylor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> +It is this quality of unarrested movement, so conspicuous +above all in the figure of Bacchus, which attracts us irresistibly in +the Huntress, in Lord Brownlow’s “Diana and Actaeon.” +The construction of the form of the goddess in this beautiful but +little-known picture is admirable. Worn as the colour is, appearing +almost as a monochrome, the landscape is full of atmospheric +suggestion. It is in Titian’s latest manner, and its ample lines and +free unimpeded motion can be due to no inferior brush.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> +Andrea Meldola, the Sclavonian, a native of Dalmatia, landing +in Venice, had a great struggle for existence. He drew from +Parmegianino, and studied Giorgione and Titian. He was probably +an assistant of Titian, and helped him, as in the “Venus and +Adonis” of the National Gallery, which owes much to his hand. +He fails conspicuously in form, his shadows are black, and his +figures often vulgar, but he has a fine sense of colour, and a free, +crisp touch. He was one of the young masters who flooded Venice +with light, sketchy wares.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> +“Venice and the Renaissance,” <em>Edinburgh Review</em>, 1909.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> +Philippe Monnier, <em>Venice in the Eighteenth Century</em>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a> +<a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> +It is thought that it may have been painted from his studio.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30098 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |