diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/30098.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/30098.txt | 8788 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 8788 deletions
diff --git a/old/30098.txt b/old/30098.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 960c213..0000000 --- a/old/30098.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8788 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Venetian School of Painting, by Evelyn
-March Phillipps
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-
-
-
-Title: The Venetian School of Painting
-
-
-Author: Evelyn March Phillipps
-
-
-
-Release Date: September 26, 2009 [eBook #30098]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VENETIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Anne Storer, and the
-Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
-(http://www.pgdp.net)
-
-
-
-Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
- file which includes the original illustrations.
- See 30098-h.htm or 30098-h.zip:
- (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30098/30098-h/30098-h.htm)
- or
- (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30098/30098-h.zip)
-
-
-Transcriber's note:
-
- 1) Variations in the spelling of names and recording of some
- questionable dates have been left as printed in the original
- text.
-
- 2) Chapter IX--Sala del Gran Consiio possibly should be Sala
- del Gran Consiglio.
-
- 3) Likely corrections are noted in brackets within the text
- in the format [TN: . . .].
-
-
-
-
-
-THE VENETIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING
-
-[Illustration: _Giorgione._
- MADONNA WITH S. LIBERALE AND S. FRANCIS.
- _Castelfranco._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-
-THE VENETIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING
-
-by
-
-EVELYN MARCH PHILLIPPS
-
-With Illustrations
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Books for Libraries Press
-Freeport, New York
-
-First Published 1912
-Reprinted 1972
-
-International Standard Book Number: 0-8369-6745-3
-Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-37907
-
-Printed in the United States of America
-By
-New World Book Manufacturing Co., Inc.
-Hallandale, Florida 33009
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-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
-_History of Painting in North Italy_ still remains our sheet anchor; but
-it is lengthy, over full of detail of minor painters, and lacks the
-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.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
- PART I
-
- CHAPTER I PAGE
- VENICE AND HER ART 3
-
- CHAPTER II
- PRIMITIVE ART IN VENICE 11
-
- CHAPTER III
- INFLUENCES OF UMBRIA AND VERONA 21
-
- CHAPTER IV
- THE SCHOOL OF MURANO 29
-
- CHAPTER V
- THE PADUAN INFLUENCE 33
-
- CHAPTER VI
- JACOPO BELLINI 39
-
- CHAPTER VII
- CARLO CRIVELLI 44
-
- CHAPTER VIII
- GENTILE BELLINI AND
- ANTONELLO DA MESSINA 48
-
- CHAPTER IX
- ALVISE VIVARINI 58
-
- CHAPTER X
- CARPACCIO 68
-
- CHAPTER XI
- GIOVANNI BELLINI 81
-
- CHAPTER XII
- GIOVANNI BELLINI (_continued_) 92
-
- CHAPTER XIII
- CIMA DA CONEGLIANO AND OTHER
- FOLLOWERS OF BELLINI 103
-
-
- PART II
-
- CHAPTER XIV
- GIORGIONE 121
-
- CHAPTER XV
- GIORGIONE (_continued_) 132
-
- CHAPTER XVI
- THE GIORGIONESQUE 140
-
- CHAPTER XVII
- TITIAN 144
-
- CHAPTER XVIII
- TITIAN (_continued_) 157
-
- CHAPTER XIX
- TITIAN (_continued_) 173
-
- CHAPTER XX
- PALMA VECCHIO AND LORENZO LOTTO 184
-
- CHAPTER XXI
- SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO 198
-
- CHAPTER XXII
- BONIFAZIO AND PARIS BORDONE 203
-
- CHAPTER XXIII
- PAINTERS OF THE VENETIAN PROVINCES 212
-
- CHAPTER XXIV
- PAOLO VERONESE 228
-
- CHAPTER XXV
- TINTORETTO 243
-
- CHAPTER XXVI
- TINTORETTO (_continued_) 254
-
- CHAPTER XXVII
- BASSANO 269
-
-
- PART III
-
- CHAPTER XXVIII
- THE INTERIM 281
-
- CHAPTER XXIX
- TIEPOLO 297
-
- CHAPTER XXX
- PIETRO LONGHI 309
-
- CHAPTER XXXI
- CANALE 314
-
- CHAPTER XXXII
- FRANCESCO GUARDI 321
-
-
- BIBLIOGRAPHY 329
-
- INDEX 333
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
- BY AT
-
- 1. Madonna with S. Liberale Giorgione Castelfranco
- and S. Francis _Frontispiece_
-
- 2. Adoration of the Antonio da Murano Berlin
- Magi 31
-
- 3. Agony in Garden Jacopo Bellini British Museum 41
-
- 4. Procession of the Gentile Bellini Venice
- Holy Cross 52
-
- 5. Altarpiece of 1480 Alvise Vivarini Venice 60
-
- 6. Arrival of the Carpaccio Venice
- Ambassadors 75
-
- 7. Pieta Giovanni Bellini Brera 87
-
- 8. An Allegory Giovanni Bellini Uffizi 94
-
- 9. Fete Champetre Giorgione Louvre 136
-
- 10. Portrait of Ariosto Titian National Gallery 156
-
- 11. Diana and Actaeon Titian Earl Brownlow 161
-
- 12. Holy Family Palma Vecchio Colonna Gallery,
- Rome 185
-
- 13. Portrait of Laura di Lorenzo Lotto Brera
- Pola 194
-
- 14. Marriage in Cana Paolo Veronese Louvre 234
-
- 15. S. Mary of Egypt Tintoretto Scuola di
- San Rocco 258
-
- 16. Bacchus and Ariadne Tintoretto Ducal Palace 261
-
- 17. Baptism of S. Lucilla Jacopo da Ponte Bassano 274
-
- 18. Antony and Cleopatra Tiepolo Palazzo Labia,
- Venice 304
-
- 19. Visit to the Pietro Longhi National Gallery
- Fortune-Teller 310
-
- 20. S. Maria della Salute Francesco Guardi National Gallery 324
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF PAINTERS
-
-
- Paolo da Venezia, _fl._ 1333-1358.
- Niccolo di Pietro, _fl._ 1394-1404.
- Niccolo Semitocolo, _fl._ 1364.
- Stefano di Venezia, _fl._ 1353.
- Lorenzo Veneziano, _fl._ 1357-1379.
- Chatarinus, _fl._ 1372.
- Jacobello del Fiore, _fl._ 1415-1439.
- Gentile da Fabriano, 1360-1428.
- Vittore Pisano (Pisanello), _circa_ 1385-1455.
- Michele Giambono, _fl._ 1470.
- Giovanni Alemanus, _fl._ 1440-1447.
- Antonio da Murano, _circa_ 1430-1470.
- Bartolommeo Vivarini, _fl._ 1420-1499.
- Alvise Vivarini, _fl._ 1461-1503.
- Antonello da Messina, _circa_ 1444-1493.
- Jacopo Bellini, _fl._ 1430-1466.
- Jacopo dei Barbari, _circa_ 1450-1516.
- Andrea Mantegna, 1431-1506.
- Carlo Crivelli, 1430-1493.
- Bartolommeo Montagna, 1450-1523.
- Francesco Buonsignori, 1453-1519.
- Gentile Bellini, _circa_ 1427-1507.
- Giovanni Bellini, 1426-1516.
- Lazzaro Bastiani, _fl._ 1470-1508.
- Vittore Carpaccio, _fl._ 1478-1522.
- Girolamo da Santa Croce.
- Mansueti, _fl._ 1474-1510.
- Giovanni Battista da Conegliano (Cima), 1460-1517.
- Vincenzo Catena, _fl._ 1495-1531.
- Bissolo, 1464-1528.
- Marco Basaiti, _circa_ 1470-1527.
- Andrea Previtali, _fl._ 1502-1525.
- Bartolommeo Veneto, _fl._ 1505-1555.
- N. Rondinelli, _fl._ 1480-1500.
- Girolamo Savoldo, 1480-1548.
- Giorgio Barbarelli (Giorgione), 1478-1511.
- Giovanni Busi (Cariani), _circa_ 1480-1544.
- Tiziano Vecellio (Titian), 1477-1576.
- Palma Vecchio, 1480-1528.
- Lorenzo Lotto, 1480-1556.
- Martino da Udine (Pellegrino di San Daniele).
- Morto da Feltre, _circa_ 1474-1522.
- Romanino, 1485-1566.
- Sebastian Luciani (del Piombo), 1485-1547.
- Giovanni Antonino Licinio (Pordenone), 1483-1540.
- Bernardino Licinio, _fl._ 1520-1544.
- Alessandro Bonvicino (Moretto), _circa_ 1498-1554.
- Bonifazio de Pitatis (Veronese), _fl._ 1510-1540.
- Paris Bordone, 1510-1570.
- Jacopo da Ponte (Bassano), 1510-1592.
- Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto), 1518-1592.
- Paolo Caliari (Veronese), 1528-1588.
- Domenico Robusti, 1562-1637.
- Palma Giovine, 1544-1628.
- Alessandro Varotari (Il Padovanino), 1590-1650.
- Gianbattista Fumiani, 1643-1710.
- Sebastiano Ricci, 1662-1734.
- Gregorio Lazzarini, 1657-1735.
- Rosalba Carriera, 1675-1757.
- G. B. Piazetta, 1682-1754.
- Gianbattista Tiepolo, 1696-1770.
- Antonio Canale (Canaletto), 1697-1768.
- Belotto, 1720-1780.
- Francesco Guardi, 1712-1793.
-
-
-
-
-PART I
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-VENICE AND HER ART
-
-
-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.
-
-The other schools of Italy, with all their superficial varieties of
-treatment and feeling, depended for their very life upon the extent to
-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.
-
-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 _form_, for
-the representation 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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 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.
-
-The painters of Venice were of the people 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-PRIMITIVE ART IN VENICE
-
-
-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 facade 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.
-
-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 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
-_cassoni_ 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 anconae 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 anconae 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," 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.
-
-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
-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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 naif 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.
-
-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.
-
-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
-"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
-anconae 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _servus_ 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.
-
-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.[1]
-
- [1] These interesting particulars are given by Mr. G. M'N.
- Rushforth in the _Burlington Magazine_ for October 1911.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Paolo da Venezia._
-
- Venice. St. Mark's: The Pala d' Oro.
- Vicenza. Death of the Virgin.
-
-
- _Lorenzo da Venezia._
-
- Venice. Academy: Altarpiece.
- Correr Museum: Saviour giving Keys to St. Peter.
- S. Giovanni in Bragora: Ancona.
- Berlin. Two Saints.
-
-
- _Nicoletto Semitocolo._
-
- Venice. Academy: Altarpiece.
- Padua. Biblioteca Archivescovo: Altarpiece.
-
-
- _Stefano da Venezia._
-
- Venice. Academy: Coronation of Virgin, with false signature of
- Semitocolo.
-
-
- _Jacobello del Fiore._
-
- Venice. Academy: Justice.
- S. Trovaso: S. Grisogono.
-
-
- _Niccolo di Pietro._
-
- Venice. S. Maria dei Miracoli: Altarpiece.
-
-
- _Michele Giambono._
-
- Venice. Academy: St. James the Great and other Saints.
- London. Mond Collection: A "Throne."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-INFLUENCES OF UMBRIA AND VERONA
-
-
-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 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. Trinita, and he sent
-back two portraits after he had returned to his native Fabriano.
-
-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.
-
-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:
-
- RULES OF THE VERONESE GUILD (_abridged_)
-
- 1. No one to become a member who had not practised art for
- twelve years.
-
- 2. Twelve artists to be elected members.
-
- 3. The reception of a new member depends on his being a senior.
-
- 4. The members are obliged in the winter season to take upon
- themselves the instruction of all the pupils in turn.
-
- 5. A member is liable to be expelled for theft.
-
- 6. Each member is bound to extend to another fraternal
- assistance in necessity.
-
- 7. To maintain general agreement in any controversies.
-
- 8. To extend hospitality to strange artists.
-
- 9. To offer to one another reciprocal comfort.
-
- 10. To follow the funerals of members with torches.
-
- 11. The President is to exercise reference authority.
-
- 12. The member who has the longest membership to be President.
-
-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
-_Gastaldiones_, 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 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.
-
-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 anconae,
-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 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.
-
-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 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 _cap-a-pied_ 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 wild nature
-comes out in them, and his interest in beauty and chivalry as opposed to
-the outworn conventionalities of ecclesiastic demands.
-
-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 Venetians, and
-though he may have taught them the way to draw, he has not left any
-traces of a following.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Gentile da Fabriano._
-
- Florence. Academy: Adoration of the Magi.
- Milan. Brera: Altarpiece.
-
-
- _Altichiero._
-
- Padua. Capella S. Felice, S. Antonio: Frescoes.
- Capella S. Giorgio, S. Anastasia: The Cavalli Family.
-
-
- _Pisanello._
-
- Padua. S. Anastasia: St. George and the Dragon.
- Verona. S. Fermo: Annunciation.
- London. S. George and S. Jerome; S. Eustace and the Stag.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-THE SCHOOL OF MURANO
-
-
-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 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 the tender expression which came into Venetian art with Gentile.
-
- [Illustration: _Antonio da Murano._
- ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
- _Berlin._
- (_Photo, Hanfstaengl._)]
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Giovanni d' Alemanus and Antonio da Murano._
-
- Venice. Christ and the Virgin in Glory; Virgin enthroned, with Saints.
-
-
- _Antonio da Murano._
-
- Berlin. Adoration of Magi.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-THE PADUAN INFLUENCE
-
-
-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 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 _savants_, lying safely removed from the busy
-stream of commercial life, should cultivate 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.
-
-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
-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.
-
-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 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 _Opus factum_,
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Antonio da Murano and Bartolommeo Vivarini._
-
- Bologna. Altarpiece.
-
-
- _Bartolommeo Vivarini._
-
- Venice. Academy: Altarpiece, 1464; Two Saints.
- Frari: Madonna and four Saints.
- S. Giovanni in Bragora: Madonna and two Saints.
- S. Maria Formosa: Triptych.
- London. Madonna and Saints.
- Vienna. S. Ambrose and Saints.
-
-
- _Antonio da Negroponte._
-
- Venice. S. Francesco della Vigna: Altarpiece.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-JACOPO BELLINI
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Jacopo Bellini._
- AGONY IN GARDEN--DRAWING.
- _British Museum._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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 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, 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 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 _milieu_ and
-to become the leader of the movement of painting in the north of Italy.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Jacopo Bellini._
-
- Brescia. Annunciation and Predelle.
- Verona. Christ on Cross.
- Venice. Academy: Madonna.
- Museo Correr: Crucifixion.
- London. British Museum: Sketch-book.
- Paris. Madonna and Leonello d' Este: Sketch-book.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-CARLO CRIVELLI
-
-
-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 _putti_, holding
-the instruments of the Passion, of the type elaborated by Squarcione and
-Marco Zoppo, and which, in their improved state, we are accustomed to
-think of as Mantegnesque.
-
-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.
-
-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 Pietas. The love of gilded patterns
-and fanciful detail was deep-seated in all the Umbrian country. His
-altarpieces 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.
-
-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 _Venetus_ 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Venice. SS. Jerome and Augustine.
- Ascoli. Duomo: Altarpiece and Pieta.
- Berlin. Madonna and six Saints.
- London. Pieta; The Blessed Ferretti; Madonna and Saints; Annunciation;
- Ancona in thirteen compartments; The Immaculate Conception.
- Mr. Benson: Madonna.
- Sir Francis Cook: Madonna enthroned.
- Mond Collection: SS. Peter and Paul.
- Lord Northbrook: Madonna; Resurrection; Saints; Crucifixion;
- Madonna; Madonna and Saints.
- Milan. Brera: SS. James, Bernardino, and Pellegrino; SS. Anthony Abbot,
- Jerome, and Andrew.
- Poldi-Pezzoli: S. Francis in Adoration.
- Rome. Vatican: Pieta.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-GENTILE BELLINI AND ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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
-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.
-
-The first examples of great canvases, illustrating 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Gentile Bellini._
- PROCESSION OF THE HOLY CROSS.
- _Venice._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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 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 Salo, 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 cortege,
-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, 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 _en fete_. 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 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 facades.
-
-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.
-
-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 the quattrocento would have thought, the most ambitious.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Gentile Bellini._
-
- London. S. Peter Martyr; Portrait.
- Milan. Brera: Preaching of St. Mark.
- Venice. Doge Lorenzo Giustiniani; Miracle of True Cross; Procession of
- True Cross; Healing by True Cross.
- Lady Layard. Portrait of Sultan.
-
-
- _Antonello da Messina._
-
- Antwerp. Crucifixion, 1475.
- Berlin. Three Portraits.
- London. The Saviour, 1465; Portrait; Crucifixion, 1477.
- Messina. Madonna and Saints, 1473.
- Paris. Condottiere.
- Milan. Portrait of a Humanist.
- Venice. Academy: Ecce Homo.
- Vicenza. Christ at the Column.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-ALVISE VIVARINI
-
-
-Contemporary with Giovanni Bellini were artists still firmly attached to
-the past, who were far from suspecting that he was to outstrip them.
-
-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 her painters. Albert Duerer, 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.
-
-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 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 anconae 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 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Alvise Vivarini._
- ALTARPIECE OF 1480.
- _Venice._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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:--
-
- TO THE MOST SERENE THE PRINCE AND THE MOST EXCELLENT
- SIGNORIA--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 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 Sala del Gran Consiio, 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Berlin. Madonna enthroned, with six Saints.
- London. Portrait of Youth.
- Milan. Bonomi-Cereda Collection: Portrait of a Man.
- Naples. Madonna with SS. Francis and Bernardino.
- Paris. Portrait of Bernardo di Salla.
- Venice. Academy: Seven panels of single Saints; Madonna and six Saints,
- 1480.
- Frari: S. Ambrose enthroned.
- S. Giovanni in Bragora: Madonna adoring Child; Resurrection
- and Predelle.
- Redentore: Sacristy: Madonna and Child, with Angels.
- Vienna. Madonna.
- Windsor. Man feeding a Hawk.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-CARPACCIO
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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 _maestro_ on his own account.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-The narrative art needed by the confraternities was supplied in
-perfection by Carpaccio, 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, 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:
-
- 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.
-
- 2. (On same canvas) Ursula discusses the proposal with her
- father. 1496-98.
-
- 3. The King of Brittany dismisses the ambassadors. 1496-98.
-
- 4. The ambassadors return to the King of England. 1496-98.
-
- 5. An angel appears to Ursula in her sleep. 1492.
-
- 6, 7, 8. The betrothed couple take leave of their respective
- parents, and the Prince meets Ursula. 1495.
-
- 9. The betrothed couple and the 11,000 virgins meet the Pope.
- 1492.
-
- 10. They arrive at Cologne. 1490.
-
- 11, 12. The massacre by the Huns. The Funeral. 1495.
-
- 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 naif as the angel. In the funeral scene the
-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 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 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Carpaccio._
- ARRIVAL OF THE AMBASSADORS.
- _Venice._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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 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" 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. 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 _genre_ 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Berlin. Madonna and Saints; Consecration of Stephen.
- Ferrara. Death of Virgin.
- Milan. Presentation of Virgin; Marriage of Virgin; St. Stephen
- disputing.
- Paris. St. Stephen preaching.
- Stuttgart. Martyrdom of St. Stephen.
- Venice. Academy: The History of St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins;
- Presentation in the Temple.
- Museo Correr: Visitation; Two Courtesans.
- 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.
- S. Vitale: Altarpiece to S. Vitale.
- Lady Layard. Death of the Virgin; St. Ursula taking leave
- of her Father.
- Vienna. Christ adored by Angels.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-GIOVANNI BELLINI
-
-
-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.
-
-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, 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-Mantegna has made use of the most formal and Squarcionesque contours in
-his surroundings. The rocks are of an unnatural, geological structure.
-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.
-
-Even earlier than this picture, critics place the "Crucifixion" and
-"Transfiguration" of the Museo Correr and our own "Salvator Mundi." 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 _Life of Bellini_, 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.
-
-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 Pietas.
-The treatment of the Christ was a development of the early _motif_ of
-angels flying forward on either side of the Cross, but here the sacred
-blood pouring into the chalice 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.
-
-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 Pieta, which he has made
-peculiarly his own.
-
- [Illustration: _Giovanni Bellini._
- PIETA.
- _Brera, Milan._
- (_Photo, Brogi._)]
-
-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 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 Pieta 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.
-
-Giovanni Bellini's Pietas 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.
-
-Mary and St. John _inside_ 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.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 _bottega_ 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-GIOVANNI BELLINI (_continued_)
-
-
-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 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, _plein air_
-scene: the Mother benign, the Child soft and playful, the old Doge
-Barbarigo and the patron saints kneeling among bright birds, and a
-garden and mediaeval 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.
-
-Among Bellini's most fascinating achievements in the last years of the
-fifteenth century are his allegorical paintings, known to us by the
-"Pelerinage de l'Ame" in the Uffizi and the little series in the
-Academy. The meaning of the first has been unravelled by Dr. Ludwig from
-a mediaeval 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:
-
- There is no pilgrim who is not sometimes sad
- Who has not those who wound his heart,
- And to whom it is not often necessary
- To play and be solaced
- And be soothed like a child
- With something comforting.
- Know that those playing
- There in order to allay their sorrow
- Have found beneath that tree
- An apple that great comfort gives
- To those that play with it.[2]
-
- [2] This translation is by Miss Cameron Taylor.
-
- [Illustration: _Giovanni Bellini._
- AN ALLEGORY.
- _Florence._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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 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 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."
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-In the preceding year Albert Duerer had visited Venice for the second
-time, and Bellini had received him with great cordiality. Duerer writes,
-"Bellini is very old, but is still the best painter in Venice"; and
-adds, "The things I 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.
-
-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 _abandon_ 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 of accustomed dignity and thought, while the technique has all the
-perfection of the painter's prime.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Bergamo. Lochis: Madonna (E.).
- Morelli: Two Madonnas.
- Berlin. Pieta (L.); Dead Christ.
- Florence. Uffizi: Allegory; The Souls in Paradise (L.).
- London. Portrait of Doge (L.); Madonna (L.); Agony in Garden (E.);
- Salvator Mundi (E.).
- Milan. Brera: Pieta (E.); Madonna; Madonna, 1510.
- Mond Collection. Dead Christ; Madonna (E.).
- Murano. S. Pietro: Madonna with Saints and Doge Barbarigo, 1488.
- Naples. Sala Grande: Transfiguration.
- Pesaro. S. Francesco: Altarpiece.
- Rimini. Dead Christ (E.).
- Venice. Academy: Three Madonnas; Five small allegorical paintings (L.);
- Madonna with SS. Catherine and Magdalene; Madonna with
- SS. Paul and George; Madonna with five Saints.
- Museo Correr: Crucifixion (E.); Transfiguration (E.); Dead
- Christ; Dead Christ with Angels.
- Palazzo Ducale, Sala di Tre: Pieta (E.).
- Frari: Triptych; Madonna and Saints, 1488.
- S. Giovanni Crisostomo: S. Chrysostom with SS. Jerome and
- Augustine, 1513.
- S. Maria dell' Orto: Madonna (E.).
- S. Zaccaria: Madonna and Saints, 1505.
- Vicenza. S. Corona: Baptism, 1510.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-CIMA DA CONEGLIANO AND OTHER FOLLOWERS OF BELLINI
-
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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
-_Coneglianensis_: 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 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 Pieta 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 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 _Cima_, 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 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 his
-architecture alike convey something of a peculiarly refined, brilliant
-elegance.
-
-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.
-
-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
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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; 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.
-
-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.
-
-Cardinal Bembo writes in 1525 to Pietro Lippomano, to announce that, at
-his request, he is continuing his patronage of Catena:
-
- Though I had done all that lay in my power for 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.
-
-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" 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 _putti_. The _putti_, looking thoughtfully at the dead, is a _motif_
-beloved of Bellini, but Basaiti cannot give them Bellini's pathos and
-significance; they are merely childish and seem to be amused.
-
-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, 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.
-
-It will be seen from this list how difficult it is to unravel the tale
-of the false Bellinis. The 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Cima._
-
- Berlin. Madonna with four Saints; Two Madonnas.
- Conegliano. Duomo: Madonna and Saints, 1493.
- Dresden. The Saviour; Presentation of Virgin.
- London. Two Madonnas; Incredulity of S. Thomas; S. Jerome.
- Milan. Brera: Six pictures of Saints; Madonna.
- Parma. Madonna with Saints; Another; Endymion; Apollo and Marsyas.
- Paris. Madonna with Saints.
- Venice. Academy: Madonna with SS. John and Paul; Pieta; Madonna
- with six Saints; Incredulity of S. Thomas; Tobias and the
- Angel.
- Carmine: Adoration of the Shepherds.
- S. Giovanni in Bragora: Baptism, 1494; SS. Helen and
- Constantine; Three Predelle; Finding of True Cross.
- SS. Giovanni and Paolo: Coronation of the Virgin.
- S. Maria dell' Orto: S. John Baptist and SS. Paul, Jerome,
- Mark, and Peter.
- Lady Layard. Madonna with SS. Francis and Paul; Madonna with
- SS. Nicholas of Bari and John Baptist.
- Vicenza. Madonna with SS. Jerome and John, 1489.
-
-
- _Vincenzo Catena._
-
- Bergamo. Carrara: Christ at Emmaus.
- Berlin. Portrait of Fugger; Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.).
- Dresden. Holy Family (L.).
- London. Warrior adoring Infant Christ (L.); S. Jerome in his Study (L.);
- Adoration of Magi (L.).
- Mr. Benson: Holy Family.
- Lord Brownlow: Nativity.
- Mond Collection: Madonna, Saints, and Donors (E.).
- Paris. Venetian Ambassadors at Cairo.
- Venice. Ducal Palace: Madonna, Saints, and Doge Loredan (E.).
- Giovanelli Palace: Madonna and Saints.
- S. Maria Mater Domini: S. Cristina.
- S. Trovaso: Madonna.
- Vienna. Portrait of a Canon.
-
-
- _Marco Basaiti._
-
- Bergamo. The Saviour, 1517; Two Portraits.
- Berlin. Pieta; Altarpiece; S. Sebastian; Madonna (E.).
- London. S. Jerome; Madonna.
- Milan. Ambrosiana: Risen Christ.
- Munich. Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.).
- Murano. S. Pietro: Assumption.
- Padua. Portrait, 1521; Madonna with SS. Liberale and Peter.
- Venice. Academy: Saints; Dead Christ; Christ in the Garden, 1510;
- Calling of Children of Zebedee, 1510.
- Museo Correr: Madonna and Donor; Christ and Angels.
- Salute: S. Sebastian.
- Vienna. Calling of Children of Zebedee, 1515.
-
-
- _Andrea Previtali._
-
- Bergamo. Carrara: Pentecost; Marriage of S. Catherine; Altarpiece;
- Madonna, 1514; Madonna with Saints and Donors.
- Lochis: Madonna and Saint.
- Count Moroni: Madonna and Saints; Family Group.
- S. Alessandro in Croce: Crucifixion, 1524.
- S. Spirito: S. John Baptist and Saints, 1515; Madonna and
- four Female Saints, 1525.
- Berlin. Madonna and Saints; Marriage of S. Catherine.
- Dresden. Madonna and Saints.
- London. Madonna and Donor (E.).
- Milan. Brera: Christ in Garden, 1512.
- Oxford. Christchurch Library: Madonna.
- Venice. Ducal Palace: Christ in Limbo; Crossing of the Red Sea.
- Redentore: Nativity; Crucifixion.
- Verona. Stoning of Stephen; Immaculate Conception.
-
-
- _N. Rondinelli._
-
- Berlin. Madonna.
- Florence. Uffizi: Madonna and Saints.
- Milan. Brera: Madonna with four Saints and three Angels.
- Paris. Madonna and Saints.
- Ravenna. Two Madonnas with Saints.
- S. Domenico: Organ Shutters; Madonna and Saints.
- Venice. Museo Correr: Madonna; Madonna with Saints and Donors.
- Giovanelli Palace: Two Madonnas.
-
-
- _Bissolo._
-
- London. Mr. Benson: Madonna and Saints.
- Mond Collection: Madonna and Saints.
- Venice. Academy: Dead Christ; Madonna and Saints; Presentation in Temple.
- S. Giovanni in Bragora: Triptych.
- Redentore: Madonna and Saints.
- S. Maria Mater Domini: Transfiguration.
- Lady Layard: Madonna and Saints.
-
-
-
-
- PART II
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-GIORGIONE
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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. 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-And the immediate result was the picture of _no subject_. 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 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 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.
-
-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 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 facades 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 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 facade. 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 the splendid execution, and adds, "Colour gives more
-pleasure in Venice than anywhere else."
-
-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 Aeneas 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.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV
-
-GIORGIONE (_continued_)
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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. 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _fetes champetres_ and concerts could not _be_
-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.
-
-In the "Fete Champetre" 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.
-
-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 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Giorgione._
- FETE CHAMPETRE.
- _Louvre._
- (_Photo, Alinari._)]
-
-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.
-
-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 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."
-
-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. 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Berlin. Portrait of a Man.
- Buda-Pesth. Portrait of a Man.
- Castelfranco. Duomo: Madonna with SS. Francis and Liberale.
- Dresden. Sleeping Venus.
- Florence. Uffizi: Trial of Moses (E.); Judgment of Solomon (E.); Knight
- of Malta.
- Hampton Court. A Shepherd.
- Madrid. Madonna with SS. Roch and Anthony of Padua.
- Paris. Fete Champetre.
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Portrait of a Lady.
- Venice. Seminario: Apollo and Daphne.
- Palazzo Giovanelli: Gipsy and Soldier.
- San Rocco: Christ bearing Cross.
- Boston. Mrs. Gardner: Christ bearing Cross.
- London. Sketch of a Knight; Adoration of Shepherds.
- Viscount Allendale: Adoration of Shepherds.
- Vienna. Evander showing Aeneas the Future Site of Rome.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI
-
-THE GIORGIONESQUE
-
-
-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 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 _Amoretti_ 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-But Giorgione was not to leave his message to the mercy of mere
-disciples and imitators, however apt. Growing up around him were 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Cariani._
-
- Bergamo. Carrara: Madonna and Saints.
- Lochis: Woman and Shepherd; Portraits; Saints.
- Morelli: Madonna (L.).
- Roncalli Collection: Family Group.
- Hampton Court. Adoration of Shepherds (L.); Venus (L.).
- London. Death of S. Peter Martyr (L.); Madonna and Saints (L.).
- Milan. Brera: Madonna and Saints (L.); Madonna (L.).
- Ambrosiana: Way to Golgotha.
- Paris. Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.); Holy Family and Saints.
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Sleeping Venus; Madonna and S. Peter.
- Venice. Holy Family; Portraits.
- Vienna. Christ bearing Cross; The "Bravo."
-
-
- _School of Giorgione._
-
- London. Unknown subject; Adoration of Shepherds; Venus and Adonis;
- Landscape, with Nymphs and Cupids; The Garden of Love.
- Mr. Benson. Lovers and Pilgrim.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII
-
-TITIAN
-
-
-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.
-
-The district formed part of the dependencies 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-Titian is said to have passed from the _bottega_ 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 following classic figures,
-Titian broke entirely with Greek art and only thought of picturesque
-nature and contemporary costume.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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, and the
-"Madonna with St. Bridget and S. Ulfus" at Madrid, and while it has been
-surmised that the example of the precise Albert Duerer, 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 exquisite surface, and at
-this time his works are remarkable for their brilliant gloss and finish.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-In such a masterpiece as "Sacred and Profane 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! 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.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-We do not wonder that all the leading personages of Italy wished to be
-painted by 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Titian._
- ARIOSTO.
- _London._
- (_Photo, Mansell and Co._)]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII
-
-TITIAN (_continued_)
-
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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, "_Chi boit et ne reboit, ne sceais que boir soit_."
-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.[3] Yet almost before
-this series was put in place Titian was 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 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.
-
- [3] 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Titian._
- DIANA AND ACTAEON.
- _Earl Brownlow._
- (_The Medici Society, Ltd._)]
-
-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.
-
-With Leonardo and with Titian, painters had 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.
-
-In the spring of 1528 the confraternity of St. Peter Martyr invited
-artists to send in 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 martyr and the two lovely
-winged boys, bathed in a flood of blue aether, 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.
-
-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 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 he entertained his
-friends and distinguished foreign visitors. Priscianese, a well-known
-Humanist and _savant_ 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."
-
-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, 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 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 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 1439 [TN: Pordenone died in 1539] 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
-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.
-
-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 Carita, 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX
-
-Titian (_continued_)
-
-
-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.
-
-It was in 1543 that his relations with the Farnese, whose young cardinal
-he had been 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 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 the grandiose effect
-that is given by avoidance of detail and simplification of method.
-
-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.
-
-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
-Muehlberg, 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 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.
-
-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 _joie de vivre_, 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 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.
-"Danae," "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.
-
-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.
-
-A letter written to the King of Spain's secretary in 1574 gives
-a list "in part" of 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 "Pieta" 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 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
-plague and died immediately after, and the painter's house was sacked
-by thieves and many precious things stolen.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Ancona. Crucifixion (L.).
- S. Domenico: Madonna with Saints and Donor, 1520.
- Antwerp. Pope Alexander VI. presenting Jacopo Pesaro.
- Berlin. Infant Daughter of Strozzi, 1542; Portrait of Himself (L.);
- Lavinia bearing Charges.
- Brescia. SS. Nazaro e Celso: Altarpiece, 1522.
- Dresden. 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.
- Florence. Pitti: La Bella; Aretino, 1545; Magdalen; The Young Englishman;
- The Concert (E.); Philip II.; Ippolito de Medici, 1533;
- Tomaso Mosti.
- 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.
- London. Holy Family and Shepherd; Bacchus and Ariadne (E.); Noli me
- tangere (E.); Madonna with SS. John and Catherine.
- Bridgewater House: Holy Family (E.); Venus of the Shell; Three
- Ages of Man; Diana and Actaeon, 1559; Callisto, 1559.
- Earl Brownlow: Diana and Actaeon (L.).
- Sir F. Cook: Portrait of Laura de Dianti.
- Madrid. Madonna with SS. Ulfus and Bridget (E.); Bacchanal; The Garden
- of Loves; Danae, 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 Muehlberg, 1548; Charles V. and his Dog, 1533; Philip II.,
- 1550; Philip II.; The Infant; Don Fernando and Victory;
- Portrait; Portrait of Himself; Duke of Alva; Venus and
- Adonis; Fall of Man; Empress Isabella.
- Medole (near Brescia). Christ appearing to His Mother.
- Munich. Vanitas; Portrait of Charles V., 1548; Madonna and Saints; Man
- with Baton.
- Naples. Paul III. and Cardinals, 1545; Danae.
- Padua. Scuola del Santo: Frescoes; S. Anthony granting Speech to an
- Infant; The Youth who cut off his Leg; The Jealous Husband,
- 1511.
- Paris. 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.
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Sacred and Profane Love (E.); St. Dominio (L.);
- Education of Cupid (L.).
- Capitol: Baptism (E.).
- Doria: Daughter of Herodias.
- Vatican: Madonna in Glory and six Saints, 1523.
- Treviso. Duomo: Annunciation.
- Urbino. Resurrection (L.); Last Supper (L.).
- Venice. Academy: Presentation of Virgin, 1540; S. John in the Desert;
- Assumption, 1518; Pieta, 1573.
- Palazzo Ducale Staircase: S. Christopher, 1523.
- Sala di Quattro Porte: Doge Giovanni before Faith, 1555.
- Frari: Pesaro Madonna, 1526.
- S. Giovanni Elemosinario: S. John the Almsgiver, 1523.
- Scuola di San Rocco: Annunciation (E.).
- Salute Sacristy: Descent of the Holy Spirit; St. Mark enthroned
- with Saints; David and Goliath; Sacrifice of Isaac; Cain
- and Abel.
- S. Salvatore: Annunciation (L.); Transfiguration (L.).
- Verona. Duomo: Assumption.
- Vienna. 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.
- Wallace Collection. Perseus and Andromeda. (In collaboration
- with his nephew, Francesco Vecellio.)
- Louvre. Madonna and Saints. (The same by Francesco alone.)
- Glasgow. Madonna and Saints.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX
-
-PALMA VECCHIO AND LORENZO LOTTO
-
-
-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 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 _Bombadieri_ 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 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Palma Vecchio._
- HOLY FAMILY.
- _Colonna Gallery, Rome._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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, bears traces of
-Bellini's manner. A Pieta 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.
-
-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 _par excellence_ 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 goodly
-share of that humour that is allied to pathos.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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."
-
-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 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.
-
-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. 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
-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.
-
- [Illustration: _Lorenzo Lotto._
- PORTRAIT OF LAURA DI POLA.
- _Brera._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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 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."
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Palma Vecchio._
-
- Bergamo. Lochis: Madonna and Saints (L.).
- Cambridge. Fitzwilliam Museum: Venus (L.).
- Dresden. Madonna; SS. John, Catherine; Three Sisters; Holy Family;
- Meeting of Jacob and Rachel (L.).
- London. Hampton Court: Santa Conversazione; Portrait of a Poet.
- Milan. Brera: SS. Helen, Constantine, Roch, and Sebastian;
- Adoration of Magi (L.), finished by Cariani.
- Naples. Santa Conversazione with Donors.
- Paris. Adoration of Shepherds.
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Lucrece (L.); Madonna with Saints and Donor.
- Capitol: Christ and Woman taken in Adultery.
- Palazzo Colonna: Madonna, S. Peter, and Donor.
- Venice. Academy: St. Peter enthroned and six Saints; Assumption.
- Giovanelli: Sposalizio (L.).
- S. Maria Formosa: Altarpiece.
- Vienna. Santa Conversazione; Violante (L.); Five Portraits of Women.
-
-
- _Lorenzo Lotto._
-
- Ancona. Assumption, 1550; Madonna with Saints (L.).
- Asolo. Madonna in Glory, 1506.
- Bergamo. Carrara: Marriage of S. Catherine; Predelle.
- Lochis: Holy Family and S. Catherine; Predelle; Portrait.
- S. Bartolommeo: Altarpiece, 1516.
- S. Alessandro in Colonna: Pieta.
- S. Bernardino: Altarpiece.
- S. Spirito: Altarpiece.
- Berlin. Christ taking leave of His Mother; Portraits.
- Brescia. Nativity.
- Cingoli. S. Domenico: Madonna and Saints and fifteen Small Scenes.
- Florence. Uffizi: Holy Family.
- London. Hampton Court: Portrait of Andrea Odoni, 1527; Portrait (E.);
- Portraits of Agostino and Niccolo della Torre, 1515;
- Family Group; Portrait of Prothonotary Giuliano.
- Bridgewater House: Madonna and Saints (E.).
- Loreto. Palazzo Apostolico: Saints; Nativity; S. Michael and Lucifer
- (L.); Presentation (L.); Baptism (L.); Adoration of Magi (L.).
- Recanati. Municipio: Altarpiece, 1508; Transfiguration (E.).
- S. Maria Sopra Mercanti: Annunciation.
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Madonna with S. Onofrio and a Bishop, 1508.
- Rospigliosi: Love and Chastity.
- Venice. Carmine: S. Nicholas in Glory, 1529.
- S. Giacomo dall' Orio: Madonna with Saints, 1546.
- SS. Giovanni e Paolo: S. Antonino bestowing Alms, 1542.
- Vienna. Santa Conversazione, etc.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI
-
-SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO
-
-
-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 _dilettanti_, who
-rivalled one another in their offers.
-
-Only one work of Sebastian's is known belonging 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 painter, [TN: Chigi was a banker] 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
-"Pieta" 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
-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 _Ignudi_ 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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. 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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Florence. Uffizi: Fornarina, 1512; Death of Adonis.
- Pitti: Martyrdom of S. Agatha, 1520; Portrait (L.).
- London. Resurrection of Lazarus, 1519; Portraits.
- Naples. Holy Family; Portraits.
- Paris. Visitation, 1521.
- Rome. Portrait of Andrea Doria (L.).
- Farnesina: Frescoes, 1511.
- S. Pietro in Montorio. Frescoes.
- Treviso. S. Niccolo: Incredulity of S. Thomas (E.).
- Venice. Academy: Visitation (E.).
- S. Giovanni Chrisostomo: S. Chrysostom enthroned (E.).
- Viterbo. Pieta (L.).
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII
-
-BONIFAZIO AND PARIS BORDONE
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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 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.
-
-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:
-
-In the days of Doge Gradenigo, one February, 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, and was assigned a provision for life
-from the Senate.
-
-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.
-
-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 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."
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Bonifazio Veronese._
-
- Dresden. Finding of Moses.
- Florence. Pitti: Madonna; S. Elizabeth and Donor (E.); Rest in Flight
- into Egypt; Finding of Moses.
- Hampton Court. Santa Conversazione.
- London. Santa Conversazione (E.).
- Milan. Brera: Finding of Moses.
- Paris. Santa Conversazione.
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Mother of Zebedee's Children; Return of the
- Prodigal Son.
- Colonna: Holy Family with Saints.
- Venice. Academy: Rich Man's Feast; Massacre of Innocents; Judgment of
- Solomon, 1533; Adoration of Kings.
- Giovanelli: Santa Conversazione.
- Vienna. Santa Conversazione; Triumph of Love; Triumph of Chastity;
- Salome.
-
-
- _Paris Bordone._
-
- Bergamo. Lochis: Vintage Scenes.
- Berlin. Portrait of Man in Black; Chess Players; Madonna and four
- Saints.
- Dresden. Apollo and Marsyas; Diana; Holy Family.
- Florence. Pitti: Portrait of Woman.
- Genoa. Brignole Sale: Portraits of Men; Santa Conversazione.
- Hampton Court. Madonna and Donors.
- London. Daphnis and Chloe; Portrait of Lady.
- Bridgewater House: Holy Family.
- Milan. Brera: Descent of Holy Spirit; Baptism; S. Dominio presented
- to the Saviour by Virgin; Madonna and Saints; Venal Love.
- S. Maria pr. Celso: Madonna and S. Jerome.
- Munich. Portrait; Man counting Jewels.
- Paris. Portraits.
- Rome. Colonna: Holy Family and Saints.
- Treviso. Madonna and Saints.
- Duomo: Adoration of Shepherds; Madonna and Saints.
- Venice. Academy: Fisherman and Doge; Paradise; Storm calmed by S. Mark.
- Palazzo Ducale Chapel: Dead Christ.
- Giovanelli: Madonna and Saints.
- S. Giovanni in Bragora; Last Supper.
- Vienna. Allegorical Pictures; Lady at Toilet; Young Woman.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII
-
-PAINTERS OF THE VENETIAN PROVINCES
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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 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.
-
-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 in his native province, reached Venice. In
-1519 he was invited to Treviso to fresco the facade 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 every one admired him, and all the artists set to
-work to imitate his energetic foreshortening, vehement movement and huge
-proportions.
-
-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 facade 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-His kinsman, Bernardino Licinio, is represented in the National Gallery
-by a half-length 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 arches, after the manner
-of the Vivarini and Cima; a gorgeous scheme of accessory is framed in
-noble architecture.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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
-Pieta 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 "Pieta" 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.
-
-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 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 "Pieta" 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 Duerer'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.
-
-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
-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.
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- _Pordenone._
-
- Casara. Old Church: Frescoes, 1525.
- Colatto. S. Salvatore: Frescoes (E.).
- Cremona. Duomo: Frescoes; Christ before Pilate; Way to Golgotha;
- Nailing to Cross; Crucifixion, 1521; Madonna enthroned
- with Saints and Donor, 1522.
- Murano. S. Maria d. Angeli: Annunciation (L.).
- Piacenza. Madonna in Campagna: Frescoes and Altarpiece, 1529-31.
- Pordenone. Duomo: Madonna of Mercy, 1515; S. Mark enthroned with Saints,
- 1535.
- Municipio: SS. Gothard, Roch, and Sebastian, 1525.
- Spilimbergo. Duomo: Assumption; Conversion of S. Paul.
- Sensigana. Madonna and Saints.
- Torre. Madonna and Saints.
- Treviso. Duomo: Adoration of Magi; Frescoes, 1520.
- Venice. Academy: Portraits; Madonna, Saints, and the Ottobono Family;
- Saints.
- S. Giovanni Elemosinario: Saints.
- S. Rocco: Saints, 1528.
-
-
- _Pellegrino._
-
- San Daniele. Frescoes in S. Antonio.
- Cividale. S. Maria: Madonna with six Saints.
- Venice. Academy: Annunciation.
-
-
- _Romanino._
-
- Bergamo. S. Alessandro in Colonna: Assumption.
- Berlin. Madonna and Saints; Pieta.
- Brescia. Galleria Martinengo: Portrait; Christ bearing Cross; Nativity;
- Coronation.
- Duomo: Sacristy: Birth of Virgin; Visitation.
- S. Francesco: Madonna and Saints; Sposalizio.
- Cremona. Duomo: Frescoes.
- London. Polyptych; Portrait.
- Padua. Last Supper; Madonna and Saints.
- Sato, Lago di Garda. Duomo: Saints and Donor.
- Trent. Castello: Frescoes.
- Verona. St. Jerome. S. Giorgio in Braida: Organ shutters.
-
-
- _Moretto._
-
- Bergamo. Lochis: Holy Family; Christ bearing Cross; Donor.
- Brescia. Galleria Martinengo: Nativity and Saints; Madonna
- appearing to S. Francis; Saints; Madonna in Glory
- with Saints; Christ at Emmaus; Annunciation.
- S. Clemente: High Altar and four other Altarpieces.
- S. Francesco: Altarpiece.
- S. Giovanni Evangelista: High Altar; Third Altar.
- S. Maria in Calchera: Dead Christ and Saints;
- Magdalen washing Feet of Christ.
- S. Maria delle Grazie: High Altar.
- SS. Nazaro and Celso: Two Altarpieces; Sacristy:
- Nativity.
- Seminario di S. Angelo: High Altar.
- London. Portrait of Count Sciarra Martinengo; Portrait;
- Madonna and Saints; Two Angels.
- Milan. Brera: Madonna and Saints; Assumption.
- Castello: Triptych; Saints.
- Rome. Vatican: Madonna enthroned with Saints.
- Venice. S. Maria della Pieta: Christ in the House of Levi.
- Verona. S. Giorgio in Braida: Madonna and Saints.
-
-
- _Bartolommeo Montagna._
-
- Bergamo. Lochis: Madonna and Saint, 1487.
- Berlin. Madonna, Saints, and Donors, 1500.
- Milan. Brera: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.
- Padua. Scuola del Santo: Fresco; Opening of S. Antony's Tomb.
- Pavia. Certosa: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.
- Venice. Academy: Madonna and Saints; Christ with Saints.
- Verona. SS. Nazaro e Celso: Saints; Pieta; Frescoes, 1491-93.
- Vicenza. Holy Family; Madonna enthroned; Two Madonnas with Saints;
- Three Madonnas.
- Duomo: Altarpiece; Frescoes.
- S. Corona: Madonna and Saints.
- Monte Berico: Pieta, 1500; Fresco.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV
-
-PAOLO VERONESE
-
-
-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 but delights in soft, faded tints; old
-rose and _turquoise morte_. 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."
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _coup d'oeil_ 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, 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.
-
-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 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 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: L280 for work which occupied
-quite eight months.
-
-Veronese must have delighted in painting this work. Needless to say, it
-is not in the least 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.
-
-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.
-
- [Illustration: _Paolo Veronese._
- MARRIAGE IN CANA.
- _Louvre._
- (_Photo, Mansell and Co._)]
-
-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 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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
-_spectacle_. 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 aesthetic creed. He was
-set at liberty on condition that he took out one or two of the most
-offending figures. 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.
-
-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
-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 naivete 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."
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _is_ 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,
-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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Dresden. Madonna with Cuccina Family; Adoration of Magi;
- Marriage of Cana.
- Florence. Pitti: Portrait of Daniele Barbaro.
- Uffizi: Martyrdom of S. Giustina; Holy Family (E.).
- London. Consecration of S. Niccolas; The Family of Darius before
- Alexander; Adoration of the Magi.
- Maser. Villa Barbaro: Frescoes.
- Padua. S. Giustina: Martyrdom of S. Giustina.
- Paris. Christ at Emmaus; Marriage of Cana.
- Venice. Academy: Battle of Lepanto; Feast in the House of Levi; Madonna
- with Saints.
- Ducal Palace: Triumph of Venice; Rape of Europa; Venice
- enthroned.
- S. Barnaba: Holy Family.
- S. Francesco della Vigna: Holy Family.
- 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.
- Verona. Portrait of Pasio Guadienti, 1556.
- S. Giorgio: Martyrdom of S. George.
- Vicenza. Monte Berico: Feast of St. Gregory, 1572.
- Vienna. Christ at the House of Jairus.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV
-
-TINTORETTO
-
-
-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," _il tentoretto_, 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 formed a close friendship with Andrea
-Schiavone,[4] 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 of shine and shadow was the most
-victorious of all his inspirations.
-
- [4] 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.
-
-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.
-
-The picture was universally admired, and was followed by three more
-dealing with the patron 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.
-
-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 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 _piano nobile_ and let off the floors
-they did not require.
-
-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
-_habitues_ 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 _litterati_ of Venice.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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, 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 (L50) a year for life, being
-bound every year to furnish three pictures.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI
-
-TINTORETTO (_continued_)
-
-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 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."
-
-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 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."[5]
-
- [5] "Venice and the Renaissance," _Edinburgh Review_, 1909.
-
-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
-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 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."
-
-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 _must_ 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 purple of bishops' and
-cardinals' robes reflected in the gleaming pavement.
-
- [Illustration: _Tintoretto._ _Scuola di San Rocco._
- S. MARY OF EGYPT.
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Tintoretto._
- BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
- _Ducal Palace, Venice._
- (_Photo, Anderson._)]
-
-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 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 added charm, and every scrap of detail, the leafy
-boughs, the cross and crozier, is important to the composition.
-
-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 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 Pieta 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 nothing to chance,
-though he had his own way of making sure of the result.
-
-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 aether, which tells us of the boundless space which
-surrounds the serried ranks of the Blessed.
-
-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.
-
-There is no room here to study Tintoretto as 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Augsburg. Christ in the House of Martha and Mary.
- Berlin. Portraits; Madonna and Saints; Luna and the Hours; Procurator
- before S. Mark.
- Dresden. Lady in Black; The Rescue; Portraits.
- Florence. Pitti: Portraits of Men; Luigi Cornaro; Vincenzo Zeno.
- Uffizi: Portrait of Himself; Admiral Venier; Portrait of Old
- Man; Jacopo Sansovino; Portrait.
- Hampton Court. Esther before Ahasuerus; Nine Muses; Portrait of
- Dominican; Knight of Malta.
- London. S. George and the Dragon; Christ washing Feet of Disciples;
- Origin of Milky Way.
- Bridgewater House: Entombment; Portrait.
- Madrid. Battle on Land and Sea; Solomon and the Queen of Sheba;
- Susanna and the Elders; Finding of Moses; Esther before
- Ahasuerus; Judith and Holofernes.
- Milan. Brera: S. Helena, Saints and Donors; Finding of the Body of S.
- Mark (E.).
- Paris. Susanna and the Elders; Sketch for Paradise; Portrait of
- Himself.
- Rome. Capitol: Baptism; Ecce Homo; The Flagellation.
- Colonna: Adoration of the Holy Spirit; Old Man playing Spinet;
- Portraits.
- Turin. The Trinity.
- Venice. 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.
- 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.
- Ante-Collegio: Mercury and Three Graces; Vulcan's Forge;
- Bacchus and Ariadne; Pallas resisting Mars, abt. 1578.
- Ante-room of Chapel: SS. George, Margaret, and Louis;
- SS. Andrew and Jerome.
- Senato: S. Mark presenting Doge Loredano to the Virgin.
- Sala Quattro Porte: Ceiling. Ante-room: Portraits; Ceiling,
- Doge Priuli with Justice. Passage to Council of Ten:
- Portraits; Nobles illumined by Holy Spirit.
- Sala del Gran Consiglio: Paradise, 1590.
- Sala dello Scrutino: Battle of Zara.
- Palazzo Reale: Transportation of Body of S. Mark; S. Mark
- rescues a Shipwrecked Saracen; Philosophers.
- Giovanelli Palace: Battlepiece; Portraits.
- S. Cassiano: Crucifixion; Christ in Limbo; Resurrection.
- S. Giorgio Maggiore: Last Supper; Gathering of Manna;
- Entombment (in Mortuary Chapel).
- S. Maria Mater Domini: Finding of True Cross.
- S. Maria dell' Orto: Last Judgment (E.); Golden Calf (E.);
- Presentation of Virgin (E.); Martyrdom of S. Agnes.
- S. Polo: Last Supper; Assumption of Virgin.
- 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.
- 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.
- Salute: Marriage of Cana, 1561; Martyrdom of S. Stephen.
- S. Silvestro: Baptism.
- S. Stefano: Last Supper; Washing of Feet; Agony in Garden.
- S. Trovaso: Temptation of S. Anthony.
- Vienna. Susanna and the Elders; Sebastian Venier; Portraits of
- Procurators, Senators, and Men (fifteen in all); Old Man and
- Boy; Portrait of Lady.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII
-
-BASSANO
-
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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
-facades 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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
-facade 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.
-
-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, 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."
-
-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.
-
-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. 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.
-
-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.
-
-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" (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.
-
- [Illustration: _Jacopo da Ponte._
- BAPTISM OF S. LUCILLA.
- _Bassano._
- (_Photo, Alinari._)]
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Augsburg. Madonna and Saints.
- Bassano. 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.).
- Duomo: S. Lucia in Glory; Martyrdom of S. Stephen (L.);
- Nativity.
- S. Giovanni: Madonna and Saints.
- Bergamo. Carrara: Portrait.
- Lochis: Portraits.
- Cittadella. Duomo: Christ at Emmaus.
- Dresden. Israelites in Desert; Moses striking Rock; Conversion of
- S. Paul.
- Hampton Court. Portraits; Jacob's Journey; Boaz and Ruth; Shepherds (E.);
- Christ in House of Pharisee; Assumption of Virgin; Men
- fighting Bears; Tribute Money.
- London. Portrait of Man; Christ and the Money-Changers; Good Samaritan.
- Milan. Ambrosiana: Adoration of Shepherds (E.); Annunciation to
- Shepherds (L.).
- Munich. Portraits; S. Jerome; Deposition.
- Padua. S. Maria in Vanzo: Entombment.
- Paris. Christ bearing Cross; Vintage (L.).
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Last Supper; The Trinity.
- Venice. Academy: Christ in Garden; A Venetian Noble; S. Elenterino
- blessing the Faithful.
- Ducal Palace, Ante-Collegio: Jacob's Journey.
- S. Giacomo dell' Orio: Madonna and Saints.
- Vicenza. Madonna and Saints; Madonna; St. Mark and Senators.
- Vienna. 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.
- Academy: Deposition; Portrait.
-
-
-
-
-PART III
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII
-
-THE INTERIM
-
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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."
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 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 _tenebrosi_. 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 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
-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 _putti_. 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-A long period of peace had rocked the Venetian people into calm
-security. There was, indeed, a little spasmodic fighting in Corfu,
-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; the
-convents boasted their _salons_, where nuns in low dresses, with pearls
-in their hair, received the advances of nobles and gallant abbes.
-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 _cicisbeo_ or _cavaliere servente_.
-
-The older portion of the middle class was 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 _bourgeoisie_ 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.
-
-The influence of the "lady" was becoming increasingly felt by society.
-Confidential little boudoirs, small and cosy apartments were the 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.
-
-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 began life as a lace-maker, but when trade was bad, Jean
-Steve, 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.
-
-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 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 _milieu_ 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.
-
-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 _bauta_, 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.
-
-
-SOME EXAMPLES
-
- _Francesco da Ponte._
-
- Venice. 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.
- Chiesetta: Circumcision; Way to Calvary.
- Sala dell' Scrutino: Padua taken by Night from the Carraresi.
-
-
- _Leandro da Ponte._
-
- Venice. Sala del Maggior Consiglio: The Patriarch giving a
- Blessed Candle to the Doge.
- 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.
- Sala of Archeological Museum: Virgin in Glory, with the
- Avogadori Family.
-
-
- _Palma Giovine._
-
- Dresden. Presentation of the Virgin.
- Florence. Uffizi: S. Margaret.
- Munich. Deposition; Nativity; Ecce Homo; Flagellation.
- Venice. Academy: Scenes from the Apocalypse; S. Francis.
- Ducal Palace: The Last Judgment.
- Vienna. Cain and Abel; Daughter of Herodias; Pieta;
- Immaculate Conception.
-
-
- _Il Padovanino._
-
- Florence. Uffizi: Lucretia.
- London. Cornelia and her Children.
- Paris. Venus and Cupid.
- Rome. Villa Borghese: Toilet of Minerva.
- Venice. Academy: The Marriage of Cana; Madonna in Glory; Vanity,
- Orpheus, and Eurydice; Rape of Proserpine; Virgin in Glory.
- Verona. Man and Woman playing Chess; Triumph of Bacchus.
- Vienna. Woman taken in Adultery; Holy Family.
-
-
- _Pietro Liberi._
-
- Venice. Ducal Palace: Battle of the Dardanelles.
-
-
- _Andrea Vicentino._
-
- Venice. Museo Civico: The Marriage of a Dogaressa.
-
-
- _G. A. Fumiani._
-
- Venice. San Pantaleone: Ceiling.
- Church of the Carita: Christ disputing with the Doctors.
-
-
- _A. Balestra._
-
- Verona. S. Tomaso: Annunciation.
-
-
- _G. Lazzarini._
-
- Venice. S. Pietro in Castello.
- The Charity of S. Lorenzo Giustiniani.
-
-
- _Sebastiano Ricci._
-
- Venice. S. Rocco: The Glorification of the Cross.
- Gesuati: Pope Pius V. and Saints.
- London. Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Half-dome.
-
-
- _G. B. Pittoni._
-
- Vicenza. The Bath of Diana.
-
-
- _G. B. Piazetta._
-
- Venice. Chiesa della Fava: Madonna and S. Philip Neri.
- Academy: Crucifixion; The Fortune-Teller.
-
-
- _Rosalba Carriera._
-
- Venice. Academy: pastels.
- Dresden. Pastels.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX
-
-TIEPOLO
-
-
-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, 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.
-
-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 _plein-air_ artist, the
-luminarist, the impressionist, owe no small share of their knowledge to
-his inspiration.
-
-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 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 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 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 Wuerzburg 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.
-
-When the Academy was instituted in 1755, 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.
-
-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 Pieta, the
-"Triumph of Hercules" in Palazzo Canossa in Verona, or the decorations
-in the magnificent villa of the Pisani at Stra, 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 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 _amoretti_ are disporting in all
-directions, flinging themselves from on high in delicious _abandon_,
-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 _fetes champetres_, 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.
-
-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--Aeneas conducted
-by Venus from Time to Immortality, and other deifications of Spanish
-royalty.
-
- [Illustration: _Tiepolo._
- ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
- _Palazzo Labia, Venice._]
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _amoretti_. 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. 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."[6]
-
- [6] Philippe Monnier, _Venice in the Eighteenth Century_.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Aranjuez. Royal Palace: Frescoes; Altarpiece.
- Orangery: Frescoes.
- Bergamo. Cappella Colleoni: Scenes from the Life of the Baptist.
- Berlin. Martyrdom of S. Agatha; S. Dominia and the Rosary.
- London. Sketches; Deposition.
- Madrid. Escurial; Ceilings.
- Milan. Palazzi Clerici, Archinto, and Dugnano: Frescoes.
- Brera: Loves of Rinaldo and Armida.
- Paris. Christ at Emmaus.
- Stra. Villa Pisani: Ceiling.
- Venice. Academy: S. Joseph, the Child, and Saints; S. Helena finding
- the Cross.
- Palazzo Ducale: Sala di Quattro Porte: Neptune and Venice.
- Palazzo Labia: Frescoes; Antony and Cleopatra.
- Palazzo Rezzonico: Two Ceilings.
- S. Alvise: Flagellation; Way to Golgotha.
- SS. Apostoli: Communion of S. Lucy.
- S. Fava: The Virgin and her Parents.
- Gesuati: Ceiling; Altarpiece.
- S. Maria della Pieta: Triumph of Faith.
- S. Paolo: Stations of the Cross.
- Scalzi: Transportation of the Holy House of Loretto.
- Scuola del Carmine: Ceiling.
- Verona. Palazzo Canossa: Triumph of Hercules.
- Vicenza. Museo Entrance Hall: Immaculate Conception.
- Villa Valmarana: Frescoes; Subjects from Homer, Virgil,
- Ariosto, and Tasso; Masks and Oriental Scenes.
- Wuerzburg. Palace of the Archbishop: Ceilings; Fetes Galantes; Assumption;
- Fall of Rebel Angels.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX
-
-PIETRO LONGHI
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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 _bauta_ was almost a national costume. Longhi
-holds that post which in French art is filled by Watteau, Fragonard,
-and Lancret, the painters of _fetes galantes_, 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 _neglige_, 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 abbe
-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 _bauti_ 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 ear to the whispers of the world. Their
-dresses are trimmed with _point de Venise_, 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 a 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. 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.
-
- [Illustration: _Pietro Longhi._
- VISIT TO THE FORTUNE-TELLER.
- _London._
- (_Photo, Hanfstaengl._)]
-
-
-PRINCIPAL WORKS
-
- Bergamo. Lochis: At the Gaming Table; Taking Coffee.
- Baglioni: The Festival of the Padrona.
- Dresden. Portrait of a Lady.
- Hampton Court. Three genre-pictures.
- London. Visit to a Circus; Visit to a Fortune-Teller; Portrait.
- Mond Collection: Card party; Portrait.
- Venice. Academy: Six genre-paintings.
- Correr Museum: Eleven paintings of Venetian life; Portrait of
- Goldoni.
- Palazzo Grassi: Frescoes; Scenes of fashionable life.
- Quirini-Stampalia: Eight paintings; Portraits.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI
-
-CANALE
-
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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. 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.
-
-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 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 fete of the Confraternity of
-the Carita 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,[7] 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 abbe crossing the piazza
-on his way to Mass. Canale has made a special study of the light on wall
-and facade, and of the transparent waters of the canals and the azure
-skies in which float great snowy fleeces.
-
- [7] It is thought that it may have been painted from his studio.
-
-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 _eaux-fortes_, 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.
-
-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.
-
-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
-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.
-
-
-SOME WORKS OF CANALE
-
-It is impossible to draw up any exhaustive list, so many being in
-private collections.
-
- Dresden. The Grand Canal; Campo S. Giacomo; Piazza S. Marco;
- Church and Piazza of SS. Giovanni and Paolo.
- Florence. The Piazzetta.
- Hampton Court. The Colosseum.
- London. Scuola di San Rocco; Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh;
- S. Pietro in Castello, Venice.
- Paris. Louvre: Church of S. Maria della Salute.
- Venice. Heading; Courtyard of a Palace.
- Vienna. Liechtenstein Gallery: Church and Piazza of S. Mark, Venice;
- Canal of the Giudecca, Venice; View on Grand Canal;
- The Piazzetta.
- Windsor. About fifty paintings.
- Wallace Collection. The Giudecca; Piazza San Marco; Church of San
- Simione; S. Maria della Salute; A Fete on the Grand Canal;
- Ducal Palace; Dogana from the Molo; Palazzo Corner;
- A Water-fete; The Rialto; S. Maria della Salute; A Canal
- in Venice.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII
-
-FRANCESCO GUARDI
-
-
-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."
-
-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 accounts
-for the indifferent works often attributed to Guardi.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _brio_, and are alive
-with that handling which a French critic has described as his _griffe
-endiablee_.
-
- [Illustration: _Francesco Guardi._
- S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE.
- _London._
- (_Photo, Mansell and Co._)]
-
-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 "Fete 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.
-
-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
-_capricci_ 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.
-
-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 small landscapes. The exact spot occupied by his _bottega_
-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.
-
-
-SOME WORKS OF GUARDI
-
- Bergamo. Lochis: Landscapes.
- Berlin. Grand Canal; Lagoon; Cemetery Island.
- London. Views in Venice.
- Milan. Museo Civico: Landscapes.
- Poldi-Pezzoli: Piazzetta; Dogana; Landscapes.
- Oxford. Taylorian Museum: Views in Venice.
- Padua. Views in Venice.
- Paris. 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.
- Turin. Cottage; Staircase; Bridge over Canal.
- Venice. Museo Correr: The Ridotto; Parlour of Convent.
- Verona. Landscapes.
- Wallace Collection. The Rialto; San Giorgio Maggiore (two);
- S. Maria della Salute; Archway in Venice; Vaulted Arcades;
- The Dogana.
-
-
-
-
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
-
-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.
-
-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.).
-
-Ridolfi, the principal contemporary authority on Venetian artists, who
-published his _Maraviglie dell' arte_ 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.
-
-Crowe and Cavalcaselle's _Painting in North Italy_ (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, _I Origini dei
-pittori veneziani_, by Professor Leonello Venturi, Venice, 1907, is a
-large book, written with mastery and insight, and well illustrated; _La
-Storia della pittura veneziana_ is another careful work, which deals
-very minutely with the early school of mosaics.
-
-In studying the Bellini, the late Mr. S. A. Strong has _The Brothers
-Bellini_ (Bell's Great Masters), and the reader should not fail to read
-Mr. Roger Fry's _Bellini_ (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
-_Pisanello_ (Duckworth).
-
-Molmenti and Ludwig in their monumental work _Vittore Carpaccio_,
-translated by Mr. R. H. Cust (Murray, 1907), and Paul Kristeller in the
-equally important _Mantegna_, 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.
-
-It is almost superfluous to mention Mr. Berenson's two well-known
-volumes, _The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance_, and the _North
-Italian Painters of the Renaissance_ (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.
-
-In studying Giorgione, we cannot dispense with Pater's essay, included
-in _The Renaissance_. 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 _Life of Giorgione_ (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.
-
-When we come to Titian we are well off. Crowe and Cavalcaselle's _Life
-of Titian_ (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).
-
-Mr. Berenson's _Lorenzo Lotto_ must be read for its interest and
-learning, given with all the author's charm and lucidity. It includes an
-essay on Alvise Vivarini.
-
-My own _Tintoretto_ (Methuen, Classics of Art) gives a full 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 _edition de luxe_ 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 _Modern Painters_ and the
-_Stones of Venice_ should be read.
-
-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
-_Della pittura veneziana_, 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 _Venice in the
-Eighteenth Century_ (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, _Les Deux Canaletto_; 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, _Italian Painters in Borghese and
-Doria Pamphili_, and _In Dresden and Munich Galleries_, 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.
-
-
-
-
-INDEX
-
-
- Academy, Florence, 28
- Venice, 13, 16, 19, 32, 36, 38, 40, 43, 47, 52,
- 57, 67, 80, 102, 116, 117, 171, 183, 196, 202,
- 205, 206, 210, 211, 217, 219, 226, 227, 242,
- 262, 267, 271, 277, 281, 286, 295, 296, 308,
- 313, 320
- Adoration of Magi, 28, 31, 116, 131, 197, 205, 287
- Adoration of Shepherds, 116, 196, 222,
- 273, 275
- Agnolo Gaddi, 15
- Alemagna, Giovanni, 29-32, 36, 37, 58
- Altichiero, 24, 25
- Alvise Vivarini, 58-63, 65, 66, 69, 79,
- 104, 105, 112, 187, 190, 223, 330
- Amalteo, Pomponio, 219
- Amigoni, 292
- Anconae, 12, 17, 18, 24, 36, 45, 59, 60, 187
- Angelico, Fra, 48
- Annunciation, 16, 26, 45, 178, 183, 258, 286
- Antonello da Messina, 50, 51, 59, 62, 66
- Antonio da Murano, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37, 58
- Antonio Negroponte, 37, 44
- Antonio Veneziano, 15
- Aretino, 163, 166, 167, 172-174, 182, 192,
- 201, 234, 236, 240
- Ascension, 41
- Augsburg, 176, 266, 276
-
- Badile, 229
- Balestra, 287
- Baptism of Christ, 41, 98, 255
- Bartolommeo Vivarini, 32, 36, 37, 38, 48, 58, 59,
- 64, 189, 223, 225
- Basaiti, Marco, 104, 111-116
- Bassano, 10, 247, 269-276, 282
- Bastiani, Lazzaro, 70, 73, 79
- Battoni, Pompeo, 297, 298
- Bellini, Gentile, 48-57, 68, 70, 81, 83, 89, 90,
- 99, 101, 103, 146
- Bellini, Giovanni, 10, 43, 48, 55, 61, 62, 63, 69,
- 78, 81, 82, 84-89, 90, 92, 94-101, 103, 104,
- 107, 109, 112-114, 122, 123, 127, 129, 130,
- 134, 140, 146, 147, 152, 155, 158, 159, 179,
- 186, 187, 223, 225, 318, 329, 330
- Bellini, Jacopo, 27, 28, 39-43, 58, 81-84, 86
- Belotto, 315, 319-331
- Bembo, Cardinal, 97, 111, 174, 240
- Benson, Mr., 47, 80, 116, 117, 143
- Berenson, Mr., 156, 187, 195, 210, 221, 229, 243,
- 307, 330
- Bergamo, 101, 114, 116, 117, 141, 143, 185, 188,
- 190, 196, 211, 219, 226, 227, 276, 308, 313, 328
- Berlin, 19, 32, 35, 47, 57, 66, 80, 101, 115-117,
- 139, 182, 196, 211, 223, 226, 227, 266, 308, 328
- Bissolo, 104, 114, 115, 117
- Blanc, M. Charles, 240, 288, 298
- Bologna, 36, 38, 60, 167, 288, 309
- Bonifazio, 203-206, 210, 243, 245, 250, 270, 281, 310
- Bonsignori, 224, 275
- Bordone, Paris, 203, 206, 208-211, 219, 231, 290
- Borghese, Villa, 154, 188, 194, 197, 331
- Boschini, 104, 282, 287, 331
- Boston, 139
- Botticelli, 127, 159
- Brera, 47, 57, 101, 115, 117, 143, 194, 205, 209,
- 211, 251, 304
- Brescia, 182, 196, 219, 220, 222, 226, 227
- Bridgewater House, 182, 211
- British Museum, 41, 263
- Broker's patent, 130, 169, 248
- Brusasorci, 229
- Buonconsiglio, 223, 224
- Burckhardt, 298
- _Burlington Magazine_, 18
- Byzantine art, 11, 13, 21
-
- Calderari, 219
- Carlevaris, Luca, 292, 315
- Caliari, Carlotto, 282
- Caliari, Paolo. _See_ Veronese
- Campagnola, Domenico, 151
- Canal, Fabio, 307
- Canale, Gian Antonio, 292, 298, 314-320, 322, 331
- Canaletto. _See_ Canale
- Caravaggio, 288
- Cariani, 141-143, 204
- Carpaccio, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80, 103,
- 122, 123, 146, 191
- Carracci, 88, 288, 298
- Carriera. _See_ Rosalba Carriera
- Castagno, Andrea del, 27, 48
- Castello, Milan, 51
- Catena, Vincenzo, 104, 108-111, 114, 202, 206
- Cathedrals, Ascoli, 47
- Bassano, 270, 276
- Conegliano, 115
- Cremona, 215, 220, 226
- Murano, 109
- Spilimbergo, 226
- Treviso, 183, 211, 215, 226
- Verona, 183, 227
- Celesti, 287
- Chelsea Hospital, 289
- Churches--
- Bergamo.
- S. Alessandro, 117, 196
- S. Bartolommeo, 188
- S. Bernardino, 190
- S. Spirito, 114, 117, 196
- Brescia.
- S. Clemente, 227
- SS. Nazaro e Celso, 182
- Castelfranco.
- S. Liberale, 132
- S. Daniele.
- S. Antonino, 212, 214, 226
- Padua.
- Eremitani, 48, 83, 224
- Il Santo, 25, 227
- S. Giustina, 220, 242
- S. Maria in Vanzo, 276
- S. Zeno, 48
- Pesaro.
- S. Francesco, 102
- Piacenza.
- Madonna di Campagna, 216
- Ravenna.
- S. Domenico, 117
- Rome.
- S. Maria del Popolo, 200
- S. Pietro in Montorio, 200, 202
- Venice.
- S. Alvise, 304
- SS. Apostoli, 307, 308
- S. Barnaba, 242
- Carmine, 107, 116, 197
- S. Cassiano, 267
- SS. Ermagora and Fortunato, 245
- S. Fava, 288, 308
- S. Francesco della Vigna, 37, 38, 242
- Gesuati, 296
- S. Giacomo dell' Orio, 197, 277
- S. Giobbe, 67, 78, 92, 95, 113
- S. Giorgio Maggiore, 259, 263, 267
- S. Giovanni in Bragora, 17, 38, 64, 67, 98,
- 106, 116, 211
- S. Giovanni Crisostomo, 98, 102
- S. Giovanni Elemosinario, 168, 287
- SS. Giovanni and Paolo, 53, 101, 116
- S. Maria Formosa, 31, 38, 196
- S. Maria dei Frari, 38, 65, 67, 92, 93, 102,
- 112, 157, 161, 180, 183, 219, 275, 307
- S. Maria Mater Domini, 109, 116, 267
- S. Maria dei Miracoli, 20
- S. Maria dell' Orto, 102, 106, 116, 249, 267
- S. Maria della Salute, 173, 262, 267, 317, 324, 325
- S. Mark's, 14, 19, 27, 49, 53, 247, 287
- S. Pantaleone, 30, 285, 287
- Pieta, 221, 227, 308
- S. Pietro in Castello, 287, 296
- S. Pietro in Murano, 92, 93
- S. Polo, 259, 267
- Redentore, 63, 64, 67, 117
- S. Rocco, 267, 296
- S. Salvatore, 178, 183
- Scalzi, 308
- S. Sebastiano, 230, 236, 241, 242
- S. Spirito, 173
- S. Stefano, 260, 267
- S. Trovaso, 16, 116, 267
- S. Vitale, 79, 80
- S. Zaccaria, 17, 97, 112, 134, 325
- Verona.
- S. Anastasia, 24, 25, 28, 31, 41
- S. Antonio, 24, 28
- S. Fermo, 26, 28
- S. Tomaso, 296
- Vicenza.
- S. Corona, 98, 102, 227
- Monte Berico, 105, 223, 224, 227, 242
- Cima da Conegliano, 66, 98, 99, 103-108, 123, 322
- Colombini, 319
- Confraternity, Carita, 171
- S. Mark, 69, 206, 245
- Contarini, Giovanni, 287
- Cook, Sir F., 183
- Cook, Mr. Herbert, 330
- Correggio, 189, 300
- Correr Museum (Museo Civico), 19, 79, 84, 87, 102,
- 117, 287, 311, 313, 326
- Crivelli, Carlo, 38, 44-47, 189
- Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 215, 329, 330
- Crucifixion, 25, 41, 84, 255, 256, 262
-
- Dante, 264
- David, 297, 313
- Doges--
- Barbarigo, 93
- Dandolo, 11
- Giustiniani, 49
- Gradenigo, 206
- Grimani, 170
- Loredano, 100, 109
- Mocenigo, 325
- Donatello, 34, 82, 87
- Doria Gallery, 194, 331
- Dresden, 139, 182, 196, 210, 211, 242, 266, 276,
- 294, 296, 320
- Duerer, Albert, 59, 99, 150
-
- Edwards, Pietro, 323, 325
- Este, 305
- Este, Isabela d', 96, 97, 159, 229
-
- Fabriano, Gentile da, 19, 21, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31,
- 33, 39, 42, 62
- Florence, 4, 9, 21, 22, 28, 101, 117, 122, 123,
- 139, 182, 197, 202, 211, 242, 266
- Florentine, 3, 5, 7, 35, 121, 122, 125, 135, 153,
- 199, 200, 251
- Florigerio, 217
- Fondaco dei Tedeschi, 129, 130, 147
- Fragonard, 33
- Fry, Mr. Roger, 85, 89, 330
- Fumiani, Gianbattista, 285, 286
-
- Gaston de Foix, 222
- Giambono, Michele, 17, 18, 27
- Giordano, Luca, 285
- Giorgione, 10, 65, 97, 113, 125, 126-135, 137,
- 139-142, 147-149, 152-155, 166, 177, 179,
- 184-187, 193, 206, 210, 213, 214, 216, 219,
- 222, 310, 330
- Giotto, 4, 11, 15, 24, 33, 86
- Goldoni, Carlo, 312, 331
- Goncourt, de, 313
- Guardi, Francesco, 298, 321-324, 326, 328, 331
- Guariento, 15, 17, 62, 122
- Guercino, 297
- Guido, 297
- Guilds, 12, 16, 22, 23, 29, 39, 75, 198, 251
- Guillaume de Guilleville, 94
-
- Hampton Court, 143, 210, 211, 219, 266, 289, 320
- Hazlitt, 6, 8
- Hogarth, 289, 312
-
- Jacobello del Fiore, 16, 19, 27, 164
- Jacopo Bellini. _See_ Bellini
-
- Kristeller, M. Paul, 330
-
- Lancret, 311
- Last Judgment, 238
- Last Supper, 237, 208, 259
- Layard, Lady, 50, 57, 80, 116
- Lazzarini, Gregorio, 286, 287, 296, 300
- Leonardo, 122, 127, 136, 140, 159, 162
- Liberi, Pietro, 285, 287, 295
- Licinio, Bernardino, 218
- Licinio, G. A. _See_ Pordenone
- Lippo, Fra, 48
- London (National Gallery), 47, 57, 66, 100, 101,
- 115-117, 133, 141, 143, 156, 159, 182, 197,
- 201, 202, 208, 211, 218, 221, 222, 226, 227,
- 242, 261, 266, 276, 308, 313, 320, 328
- Longhi, Pietro, 288, 298, 309-313
- Lorenzo di San Severino, 46
- Lorenzo Veneziano, 16, 17, 19
- Loreto, 193, 197
- Lotto, Lorenzo, 172, 186, 187-196, 204, 222, 224,
- 275, 330
- Louvre, 40, 41, 43, 50, 57, 66, 115-117, 143, 161,
- 165, 177, 178, 182, 196, 202, 211, 233, 235,
- 242, 266, 277, 297, 308, 320, 328
- Luciani. _See_ Sebastian del Piombo
- Ludwig, Professor, 94, 203, 330
-
- Madrid, 139, 150, 182, 264, 266, 302, 304
- Mansueti, Giovanni, 56, 79
- Mantegna, 39, 42, 49, 58, 59, 77, 84, 96, 159, 215,
- 223, 224, 300, 318, 330
- Marieschi, 319
- Martino da Udine. _See_ Pellegrino
- Maser, Villa, 231, 242
- Masolino, 41
- Mengs, Raphael, 302
- Michelangelo, 110, 121, 122, 137, 164, 174, 199,
- 200-202, 244, 249, 300
- Milan, Ambrosiana, 66, 116, 275, 276
- Brera. _See_ Brera
- Mocetto, Girolamo, 225
- Molmenti, Professor, 330, 331
- Mond Collection, 18, 20, 47, 49, 101
- Monnier, Philippe, 306, 331
- Montagna, Bartolommeo, 105, 114, 222-224, 270
- Morelli, 177, 203, 331
- Moretto, 221, 222
- Morto da Feltre, 130, 214
- Munich, 116, 183
- Murano, 29, 102, 116, 217, 226
- Museo Civico. _See_ Correr
-
- Naples, 50, 57, 66, 102, 183
- National Gallery. _See_ London
- Niccolo di Pietro, 16, 17, 20
- Niccolo Semitocolo, 16, 17, 19
-
- Osmaston, Mr. F. O., 331
-
- Padovanino, Il, 286, 196
- Padua, 19, 28, 34-37, 49, 59, 82, 86, 87, 116, 151,
- 155, 183, 223, 226, 227, 242, 272, 276
- Palaces--
- Milan.
- Archinto, 301, 308
- Clerici, 301
- Dugnani, 301, 304
- Rome.
- Colonna, 196
- Stra.
- Pisani, 302
- Venice.
- Ducal, 15, 87, 90, 102, 109, 114-117, 170, 183,
- 211, 235, 236, 242, 260, 265, 267, 269, 272,
- 277, 281, 295, 308, 316
- Giovanelli, 136
- Labia, 304, 308
- Rezzonico, 308
- Verona.
- Canossa, 302
- Wuerzburg, 301, 308
- Palma Giovine, 285, 287, 295
- Palma Vecchio, 141, 184-188, 196, 203, 204, 214,
- 219, 231, 244
- Paolo da Venezia, 14
- Paris. _See_ Louvre
- Parma, 115
- Pellegrino, 213, 214, 219, 226
- Pennacchi, 104, 214
- Perugino, 133, 134, 202
- Pesaro, 90, 94, 102
- Pesellino, 48
- Piacenza, 216, 226
- Piero di Cosimo, 135
- Pieta, 86, 87, 179, 199, 223, 224
- Pintoricchio, 74, 135
- Pisanello (Pisano), 21, 22, 24-28, 31, 33, 34, 37,
- 39-42, 62, 224, 330
- Pordenone, 169, 170, 202, 204, 214-221, 226
- Previtali, 104, 114, 115
-
- Quirizio da Murano, 37
-
- Raphael, 140, 161, 174, 200, 213, 221, 234
- Ravenna, 117, 132
- Rembrandt, 285
- Ricci, Battista, 288, 300
- Ricci, Marco, 315
- Ricci, Sebastiano, 148, 288, 292, 296, 315
- Richter, Dr. J. P., 331
- Ricketts, Mr. C., 330
- Ridolfi, 108, 229, 234, 247, 282, 287, 329
- Rimini, 87, 89, 102
- Robusti, Domenico, 246, 282
- Robusti, Jacopo. _See_ Tintoretto
- Robusti, Marietta, 246
- Romanino, 219-221
- Rome, 143, 183, 188, 196, 197, 202, 211, 227, 267,
- 277, 314, 319
- Rondinelli, 104, 114, 117
- Rosalba Carriera, 288, 292-294, 296
- Rubens, 160, 165, 170, 285
- Ruskin, 264, 331
-
- Sansovino, 92, 167, 174, 192
- Santa Croce, Girolamo da, 56
- Sarto, Andrea del, 137, 140
- Savoldo, 66, 222
- Sebastian del Piombo, 140, 198, 199-202, 228
- Siena, 4, 11, 12
- Signorelli, 121
- Simonson, Mr., 322, 326, 331
- Smith, Joseph, 315, 323
- Speranza, 223
- Spilimbergo, 216, 226
- Strong, Mr. S. A., 329, 330
-
- Taylor, Miss Cameron, 94
- Tiepolo, Domenico, 307
- Tiepolo, G. B., 10, 297-307, 309, 312, 314, 315,
- 317, 318, 331
- Tintoretto, 10, 15, 25, 173, 179, 181, 210, 231,
- 234, 243, 245-251, 253-256, 258-267, 269, 273,
- 276, 281, 282, 285, 300, 317, 330, 331
- Titian, 65, 106, 130, 135, 137, 143, 144-160,
- 162-178, 180, 181, 183, 184, 186, 187, 191-193,
- 201, 204, 205, 210, 215, 217, 220, 221, 224,
- 231, 236, 239, 243-245, 250, 256, 265, 273-275,
- 281, 290, 318, 321, 330
- Torbido, Francesco, 225
- Treviso, 108, 183, 186, 202, 211, 215, 226, 239
-
- Uccello, Paolo, 26, 42, 48
- Urbino, 163, 168, 174
- Uzanne, M. O., 331
-
- Valmarana, Villa, 303
- Varotari. _See_ Padovanino
- Vasari, 15, 89, 130, 148, 169, 170, 174, 178, 199,
- 209, 219, 225, 247, 329
- Vecellio. _See_ Titian
- Vecellio, Marco, 171
- Vecellio, Orazio, 164, 174
- Vecellio, Pomponio, 166
- Velasquez, 285
- Venice. _See_ Academy
- Venturi, Professor Antonio, 40
- Venturi, Professor Leonello, vi, 38, 329
- Verona, 22, 24, 25, 28, 183, 227, 229, 242, 302,
- 315, 328
- Veronese, Paolo, 221, 228, 230-242, 247, 253, 269,
- 281, 283, 310, 331
- Vicentino, 287
- Vicenza, 57, 102, 185, 227, 242-277, 296, 303, 307
- Vienna, 67, 80, 110, 116, 117, 131, 143, 149, 183,
- 196, 197, 211, 242, 268, 277, 320
- Visentini, 319
- Viterbo, 202
- Vivarini. _See_ Alvise
- Vivarini. _See_ Bartolommeo
-
- Wallace Collection, 183, 320, 328
- Walpole, Horace, 292, 294, 319
- Watteau, 297, 311, 312
- Wickhoff, Dr., 154
- Windsor, 47, 320
-
- Yriarte, M. Charles, 229, 331
-
- Zanetti, 129, 148, 246, 269, 282, 283, 301
- Zelotti, 230
- Zoppo, Marco, 44
- Zucchero, Federigo, 236
-
-
-
-***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VENETIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING***
-
-
-******* This file should be named 30098.txt or 30098.zip *******
-
-
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/0/9/30098
-
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
-will be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
-rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
-research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.
-
-
-
-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
-http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
-
-
-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works
-
-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-
-1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works. See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
-collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
-are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
-the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
-a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
-Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
-States.
-
-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
-copied or distributed:
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
-or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
-1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
-terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
-word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
-form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
-that
-
-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
- the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
- you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
- owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
- has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
- Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
- must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
- prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
- returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
- sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
- address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
- the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
- you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
- does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License. You must require such a user to return or
- destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
- and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
- Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
- money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
- electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
- of receipt of the work.
-
-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
- distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
-collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.
-
-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
-your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
-refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
-opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
-the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
-
-
-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
-people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
-and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
-
-
-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
-throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
-809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
-business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
-information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
-page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
-
-For additional contact information:
- Dr. Gregory B. Newby
- Chief Executive and Director
- gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
-particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
-To donate, please visit:
-http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
-
-
-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
-unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
-
- http://www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
-
|