A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Vol. 1

 

- Art Gallery -

 

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HANDBOOK TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY

The National Gallery is open to the Public on week-days throughout the year. On MONDAYS, TUESDAYS, WEDNESDAYS, and SATURDAYS admission is free, and the Gallery is open during the following hours:—

On THURSDAYS and FRIDAYS (Students' Days) the Gallery is open to the Public on payment of Sixpence each person, from 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. in winter, and from 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. in summer.

On SUNDAYS the Gallery is open, free, from 2 P.M. till dusk, or 6 P.M. (according to the season).

☞ Persons desirous of becoming Students should address the Secretary and Keeper, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, S.W.

The National Gallery of British Art ("Tate Gallery") is open under the same regulations, and during the same hours, as those given above, except that Students' Days are Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

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[Pg iii]

[Pg iv]

A picture which is worth buying is also worth seeing. Every noble picture is a manuscript book, of which only one copy exists, or ever can exist. A National Gallery is a great library, of which the books must be read upon their shelves (Ruskin: Arrows of the Chace, i. 71).

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CONTENTS

	PAGE
Preface by John Ruskin	vii
General Introduction, with some Account of the National Gallery	x
Guide to the Gallery and Plan of the Rooms	xxv
Introductions to the Schools of Painting:
The Early Florentine School	1
The Florentine School	8
The Sienese School	14
The Lombard School	16
The Ferrarese School	19
The Umbrian School	22
The Venetian School	25
The Paduan School	32
The Later Italian Schools	34
The Early Flemish and the German Schools	38
The Dutch School	43
The Later Flemish School	47
The Spanish School	48
The French School	51
Numerical Catalogue, with Biographical and Descriptive Notes	55
Pictures on Loan	749
Copies from Old Masters	752
The Arundel Society's Collection	757
Sculptures and Marbles	770
Appendix I. Index List of Painters (with the subjects of their pictures)	771
Appendix II. Index List of Pictures	791

• First Edition printed 1888.
• Second Edition printed 1889.
• Third Edition printed 1890.
• Fourth Edition printed 1893.
• Fifth Edition printed 1897.
• Sixth Edition printed 1901.
• Seventh Edition, Vol. I. printed 1909.
• Eighth Edition, Vol. I. printed 1912.
• Seventh Edition, Vol. II. printed 1912.
• Re-issue 1922.

[Pg vii]

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PREFACE BY JOHN RUSKIN

So far as I know, there has never yet been compiled, for the illustration of any collection of paintings whatever, a series of notes at once so copious, carefully chosen, and usefully arranged, as this which has been prepared, by the industry and good sense of Mr. Edward T. Cook, to be our companion through the magnificent rooms of our own National Gallery; without question now the most important collection of paintings in Europe for the purposes of the general student. Of course the Florentine School must always be studied in Florence, the Dutch in Holland, and the Roman in Rome; but to obtain a clear knowledge of their relations to each other, and compare with the best advantage the characters in which they severally excel, the thoughtful scholars of any foreign country ought now to become pilgrims to the Dome—(such as it is)—of Trafalgar Square.

[Pg viii]

We have indeed—be it to our humiliation remembered—small reason to congratulate ourselves on the enlargement of the collection now belonging to the public, by the sale of the former possessions of our nobles. But since the parks and castles which were once the pride, beauty, and political strength of England are doomed by the progress of democracy to be cut up into lots on building leases, and have their libraries and pictures sold at Sotheby's and Christie's, we may at least be thankful that the funds placed by the Government at the disposal of the Trustees for the National Gallery have permitted them to save so much from the wreck of English mansions and Italian monasteries, and enrich the recreations of our metropolis with graceful interludes by Perugino and Raphael.

It will be at once felt by the readers of the following catalogue that it tells them, about every picture and its painter, just the things they wished to know. They may rest satisfied also that it tells them these things on the best historical authorities, and that they have in its concise pages an account of the rise and decline of the arts of the Old Masters, and record of their personal characters and worldly state and fortunes, leaving nothing of authentic tradition, and essential interest, untold.

As a collection of critical remarks by esteemed judges, and of clearly formed opinions by earnest lovers of art, the little book possesses a metaphysical interest quite as great as its historical one. Of course[Pg ix] the first persons to be consulted on the merit of a picture are those for whom the artist painted it: with those in after generations who have sympathy with them; one does not ask a Roundhead or a Republican his opinion of the Vandyke at Wilton, nor a Presbyterian minister his impressions of the Sistine Chapel:—but from any one honestly taking pleasure in any sort of painting, it is always worth while to hear the grounds of his admiration, if he can himself analyse them. For those who take no pleasure in painting, or who are offended by its inevitable faults, any form of criticism is insolent. Opinion is only valuable when it

When I last lingered in the Gallery before my old favourites, I thought them more wonderful than ever before; but as I draw towards the close of life, I feel that the real world is more wonderful yet: that Painting has not yet fulfilled half her mission,—she has told us only of the heroism of men and the happiness of angels: she may perhaps record in future the beauty of a world whose mortal inhabitants are happy, and which angels may be glad to visit.

[Pg x]

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
WITH SOME
ACCOUNT OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Division into Volumes.—In arrangement and, to some degree, in contents the Handbook in its present form differs from the earlier editions. Important changes have been made during the last few years in the constitution and scope of the National Gallery itself. The Gallery now consists of two branches controlled by a single Board of Trustees: (1) the "National Gallery" in Trafalgar Square; and (2) the "Tate Gallery" or, as it is officially called, the "National Gallery of British Art" on the Thames Embankment at Millbank.[1] At the former Gallery are hung all the pictures belonging to Foreign Schools. Pictures of the British Schools are hung partly in Trafalgar Square and partly at Millbank, and from time to time pictures are moved from one Gallery to the other. It has therefore been decided to divide the Handbook into volumes according to subject rather than according to position. Volume I. deals with the Foreign Schools (National Gallery); Volume II., with the British Schools (National Gallery and Tate Gallery). By this division the convenience of the books for purposes of reference or use in the Galleries will not be disturbed by future changes in the[Pg xi] allocation of British pictures between Trafalgar Square and Millbank respectively.

How to use the Handbook.—The one fixed point in the arrangement of the National Gallery is the numbering of the pictures. The numbers affixed to the frames, and referred to in the Official Reports and Catalogues, are never changed. This is an excellent rule, the observance of which, in the case of some foreign galleries, would have saved no little inconvenience to students and visitors. In the present, as in the preceding editions of the Handbook, advantage has been taken of this fixed system of numbering; and in the pages devoted to the Biographical and Descriptive Catalogue the pictures are enumerated in their numerical order. The introductory remarks on the chief Schools of Painting represented in the Gallery are brought together at the beginning of the book. The visitor who desires to make an historical study of the Collection may, if he will, glance first at the general introduction given to the pictures in each School; and then, as he makes his survey of the rooms devoted to the several Schools, note the numbers on the frames, and refer to the Numerical Catalogue following the series of introductions. On the other hand, the visitor who does not care to use the Handbook in this way has only to skip the preliminary chapters, and to pass at once, as he finds himself before this picture or that, to the Numerical Catalogue. For the convenience, again, of visitors or students desiring to find the works of some particular painter, the full and detailed Index of Painters, first introduced in the Third Edition, has here been retained. References to all the pictures by each painter, and to the page where some account of his life and work is given, will be found in this Index. Finally, a concise Numerical Index is given, wherein the reader may find at once the particulars of acquisition, the provenance, and other circumstances regarding every picture (by a foreign artist) in the possession of the National Gallery, wherever deposited.

History of the National Gallery.—"For the purposes of the general student, the National Gallery is now," said Mr. Ruskin in 1888, "without question the most important collection of paintings in Europe." Forty years before he said of the same Gallery that it was "an European jest." The growth of the Gallery from jest to glory[2] may be traced in[Pg xii] the final index to this book, where the pictures are enumerated in the order of their acquisition. Many incidents connected with the acquisition of particular pictures will also be found chronicled in the Catalogue[3]; but it may here be interesting to summarise the history of the institution. The National Gallery of England dates from the year 1824, when the Angerstein Collection of thirty-eight pictures was purchased. They were exhibited for some years in Mr. Angerstein's house in Pall Mall; for it was not till 1832 that the building in which the collection is now deposited was begun. This building, which was designed expressly for the purpose by William Wilkins, R.A., was opened to the public in 1838.[4] At that time, however, the Gallery comprised only six rooms, the remaining space in the building being devoted to the Royal Academy of Arts—whose inscription may still be seen above a disused doorway to the right of the main entrance. In 1860 the first enlargement was made—consisting of one new room. In 1869 the Royal Academy removed to Burlington House, and five more rooms were gained for the National Gallery. In 1876 the so-called "New Wing" was added, erected from a design by E. M. Barry, R.A. In that year the whole collection was for the first time housed under a single roof. The English School had, since its increase in 1847 by the Vernon gift, been exhibited first at Marlborough House (up to 1859), and afterwards at South Kensington. In 1884 a further addition of five rooms was commenced under the superintendence of Sir John Taylor, of Her Majesty's Office of Works; these rooms (numbered I., II., III., V., VI. on the plan), with a new staircase and other improvements, were opened to the public in 1887; and the Gallery then consisted of twenty-two rooms, besides ample accommodation [Pg xiii]for the offices of the Director and the convenience of the students.[5] A further extension of the Gallery, on the site of St. George's Barracks, was completed in 1911; this consisted of six new rooms.[6] At the same time the older portions of the building were reconstructed, in order to make it fire-proof. The rearrangement of the Gallery is described below (p. xxv).

Growth of the Collection.—This growth in the Galleries has, however, barely sufficed to keep pace with the growth of the pictures. In 1838 the total number of national pictures was still only 150. In 1875 the number was 926. In 1911 the number of pictures, etc. (exclusive of the Turner water-colours) vested in the Trustees of the Gallery was nearly 2870. This result has been due to the combination of private generosity and State aid which is characteristic of our country. The Vernon gift of English pictures in 1847 added over 150 at a stroke. Ten years later Turner's bequest added (besides some 19,000 drawings in various stages of completion) 100 pictures. In 1876 the Wynn Ellis gift of foreign pictures added nearly another hundred. In 1910 the bequest of Mr. George Salting added 192 pictures (160 foreign and 32 British). Particulars of other gifts and bequests may be gathered from the Appendix. Parliamentary grants have of late years been supplemented by private subscriptions and bequests. In 1890 Messrs. N. M. Rothschild and Sons, Sir Edward Guinness, Bart. (now Lord Iveagh), and Mr. Charles Cotes, each contributed £10,000 towards the purchase of three important pictures (1314-5-6); whilst in 1904, Mr. Astor, Mr. Beit, Lord Burton, Lord Iveagh, Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and Lady Wantage subscribed £21,000 to supplement a Government grant for the purchase of Titian's "Portrait of Ariosto" (1944). In 1903 a "National Art-Collections Fund" was established for organising private benefactions to the Galleries and Museums of the United Kingdom; it was through this agency that the famous "Venus" by Velazquez (2057), in 1906, and the still more famous "Christina, Duchess of Milan," by Holbein (2475), in 1909, were added to the National Gallery. The same Fund contributed also to the [Pg xiv]purchase in 1911, of the Castle Howard Mabuse (2790). Mr. Francis Clarke bequeathed £23,104, and Mr. T. D. Lewis £10,000, the interest upon which sums was to be expended in pictures. Mr. R. C. Wheeler left a sum of £2655, the interest on which was to purchase English pictures. Mr. J. L. Walker left £10,000, not to form a fund, but to be spent on "a picture or pictures." In 1903 a large bequest was made to the Gallery by Colonel Temple West. The will was disputed; but by the settlement ultimately effected (1907, 1908) a sum of £99,909 was received, of which the interest is available for the purchase of pictures. In 1906 Mr. C. E. G. Mackerell made a bequest, and this will also was disputed. By the settlement (1908) a sum of £2859 was received, and a further sum will be forthcoming at the expiration of certain life-interests, of which sums, again, the interest will be available for the purchase of pictures. Appendix II. shows the pictures acquired from these several funds. This growth of the Gallery by private gift and public expenditure concurrently accords with the manner of its birth. One of the factors which decided Lord Liverpool in favour of the purchase of Mr. Angerstein's Collection was the generous offer of a private citizen—Sir George Beaumont.

Value of the Pictures.—Sir George's gift, as we shall see from a little story attaching to one of his pictures (61), was not of that which cost him nothing in the giving. The generosity of private donors, which that little story places in so pleasing and even pathetic a light, has been accompanied by public expenditure at once liberal and prudent. The total cost of the collection so far has been about £900,000[7]; at present prices there is little doubt that the pictures so acquired could be sold for several times that sum. It will be seen in the following pages that there have been some bad bargains; but these mostly belong to the period when responsibility was divided, in an undefined way, between the Trustees and the Keeper. The present organisation of the Gallery dates from 1855, when, as the result of several Commissions and Committees, a Treasury Minute was drawn up—appointing a Director to preside over the Gallery, and placing an annual grant of money at his disposal.[8] The [Pg xv]curious reader may trace the use of this discretion made by successive Directors in the table of prices given in the final index—a table which would afford material for an instructive history of recent fashions in art. The annual grant has from time to time been supplemented by special grants, of which the most notable were those for the Peel Collection, the Blenheim pictures, the Longford Castle pictures, two new Rembrandts (1674-5), Titian's "Ariosto" (1944), Holbein's "Duchess of Milan" (2475), and Mabuse's "Adoration of the Magi" (2790) respectively. The Peel Collection consisted of seventy-seven pictures. The vote was proposed in the House of Commons on March 20, 1871, and in supporting it the late Sir W. H. Gregory (one of the Trustees of the Gallery) alluded to "the additional interest connected with the collection, for it was the labour of love of one of our greatest English Statesmen, and it was gratifying to see that the taste of the amateur was on a par with the sagacity of the minister, for throughout this large collection there could hardly be named more than two or three pictures which were not of the very highest order of merit." The price paid for this collection, £70,000, was exceedingly moderate.[9] The "princely" price given for the two Blenheim pictures is more open to exception; but if the price was unprecedented, so also was the sale of so superb a Raphael in the present day unprecedented.

Features of the Collection.—The result of the expenditure with which successive Parliaments have thus supplemented private gifts has been to raise the National Gallery to a position second to that of no single collection in the world. The number of pictures now on view in Trafalgar Square, exclusive of the water-colours, is about 1600.[10] This number is very [Pg xvi]much smaller than that of the galleries at Dresden, Madrid, and Paris—the three largest in the world. On the other hand no foreign gallery has been so carefully acquired, or so wisely weeded, as ours. An Act was passed in 1856 authorising the sale of unsuitable works, whilst another passed in 1883 sanctioned the thinning of the Gallery in favour of Provincial collections. There are still many serious gaps. In the Italian School we have no work by Masaccio—the first of the naturalisers in landscape; only one doubtful example of Palma Vecchio, the greatest of the Bergamese painters; no first-rate portrait by Tintoret. The French School is little represented—an omission which is, however, splendidly supplied in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House, now the property of the nation. In the National Gallery itself there is no picture by "the incomparable Watteau," the "prince of Court painters." The specimens of the Spanish School are few in number, though Velazquez is now finely represented; whilst amongst the old masters of our own British School there are many gaps for some future Vernon or Tate to fill up. But on the other hand we can set against these deficiencies many painters who, and even schools which, can nowhere—in one place—be so well studied as in Trafalgar Square. The works of Crivelli—one of the quaintest and most charming of the earlier Venetians—which hang together in one room; the works of the Brescian School, including those of its splendid portrait painters—Moroni and Il Moretto; the series of Raphaels, showing each of his successive styles; and in the English School the unrivalled and incomparable collection of Turners,—are amongst the particular glories of the National Collection. Historically the collection is remarkably instructive. This is a point which successive Directors have, on the recommendation of Royal Commissions, kept steadily in view; and which has been very clearly shown since the successive re-arrangements of the Gallery after the extension in 1887.

Scope of the Handbook.—It is in order to help visitors to take full advantage of the opportunities thus afforded for historical study that I have furnished some general introductions to the various Schools of Painting represented in the National Gallery. With regard to the notes in the Numerical Catalogue, my object has been to interest the daily increasing numbers of the general public who visit the National Gallery.[Pg xvii] The full inventories and other details, which are necessary for the identification of pictures, and which are most admirably given in the (unabridged) Official Catalogue—would obviously be out of place in a book designed for popular use. Nor, secondly, would any elaborate technical criticism have been in keeping—even had it been in my power to offer it—with a guide intended for unprofessional readers. C. R. Leslie, the father of the present Academician, tells how he "spoke one day to Stothard of his touching picture of a sailor taking leave of his wife or sweetheart. 'I am glad you like it, sir,' said Stothard; 'it was painted with japanner's gold size.'" I have been mainly concerned with the sentiment of the pictures, and have for the most part left the "japanner's gold size" alone.

Mr. Ruskin's Notes.—It had often occurred to me, as a student of Mr. Ruskin's writings, that a collection of his scattered notes upon painters and pictures now in the National Gallery would be of great value. I applied to Mr. Ruskin in the matter, and he readily permitted me to make what use I liked of any, or all, of his writings. The generosity of this permission, which was supplemented by constant encouragement and counsel, makes me the more anxious to explain clearly the limits of his responsibility for the book. He did not attempt to revise, or correct, either my gleanings from his own books, or the notes added by myself from other sources. Beyond his general permission to me to reprint his past writings, Mr. Ruskin had, therefore, no responsibility for this compilation whatever. I should more particularly state that the pages upon the Turner Gallery in the Second Volume were not even glanced at by him. The criticisms from his books there collected represent, therefore, solely his attitude to Turner at the time they were severally written. But, subject to this deduction, the passages from Ruskin arranged throughout the following pages will, I hope, enable the Handbook to serve a second purpose. Any student who goes through the Gallery under Ruskin's guidance—even at second-hand—can hardly fail to obtain some insight into the system of art-teaching embodied in his works. The full exposition of that system must still be studied in the original text-books, but here the reader may find a series of examples and illustrations which will perhaps make the study more vivid and actual.

[Pg xviii]

Attribution of Pictures.—In the matter of attributions, the rule, in the successive editions of this Handbook, has been to follow the authority of the Official Labels and Catalogues. Criticism has been very busy of late years with the traditional attribution of pictures in our Gallery, and successive Directors introduce their several, and sometimes contradictory, opinions on such points. Thus more than One Old Master hitherto supposed to be represented in the Gallery has been banished, and others, whose fame had not previously been bruited abroad, have been credited with familiar masterpieces. Thus—to notice some of the changes made by Sir Edward Poynter (Catalogue of 1906)—among the Venetians, Bastiani and Catena have come into favour. To Bastiani was given the picture of "The Doge Giovanni Mocenigo" (750) which for forty years has been exhibited as a work by Carpaccio; that charming painter now disappears from the National Gallery. To Catena is attributed the "St. Jerome" (694), which for several decades had been cited as peculiarly characteristic of Bellini. To Catena also is given the "Warrior in Adoration" (234). In this case Catena's gain is Giorgione's loss. But elsewhere Giorgione has received compensation for disturbance. To him has been given the "Adoration of the Magi" (1160), which some critics attributed to Catena. The beautiful "Ecce Homo" (1310), which was sold as a Carlo Dolci and bought by Sir Frederick Burton as a Bellini, was ascribed by Sir Edward Poynter to Cima. One of the minor Venetians—Basaiti, who enjoyed a high reputation at the National Gallery—was deprived of the pretty "Madonna of the Meadow" (599), which went to swell the opulent record of Bellini. Among the Florentines, a newcomer is Zenobio Macchiavelli, to whom is attributed an altar-piece (586) formerly catalogued under the name of Fra Filippo Lippi. Cosimo Rosselli, hitherto credited with a large "St. Jerome in the Desert" (227), now disappears; it was labelled "Tuscan School," and was any one's picture. The attribution of pictures belonging to the group of the two Lippis and Botticelli is still very uncertain. A note on these critical diversities will be found under No. 293. Among alterations in other schools we may note the substitution of Zurbaran for Velazquez as the painter of "The Nativity," No. 232; the attribution to Patinir, the Fleming, of a landscape formerly labelled "Venetian School" (1298); and the discovery of Jacob van Oost as the painter of a charming "Portrait of a[Pg xix] Boy" (1137), which, but for an impossibility in the dates, might well continue to pass as Isaac van Ostade's.

Such were the principal changes made in the ascriptions of the pictures during Sir Edward Poynter's directorate. His successor, Sir Charles Holroyd, has recently made many others, as shown in the following list:

97 (P. Veronese), now described as "after Veronese."

215, 216 (School of T. Gaddi), now assigned to Lorenzo Monaco (see 1897).

227 (Florentine School), now assigned to Francesco Botticini (a Tuscan painter of the 15th century).

276 (School of Giotto), now assigned to Spinello Aretino; for whom, see 581.

296 (Florentine School), now assigned to Verrocchio; see below, p. 262.

568 (School of Giotto), now assigned to Angelo di Taddeo Gaddi, a pupil of Giotto's chief disciple, Taddeo Gaddi (for whom, see p. 211).

579 (School of Taddeo Gaddi), now assigned to Niccolo di Pietro Gerini, a painter of Florence who was inscribed in the guild in 1368 and died in 1415. Our picture is dated 1387.

579A (School of Taddeo Gaddi), now assigned to Gaddi's pupil, Giovanni da Milano.

581 (Spinello Aretino), now assigned to Orcagna; for whom, see 569.

585 (Umbrian School), now assigned to "School of Pollajuolo"; for whom, see 292.

591 (Benozzo Gozzoli), now described as "School of Benozzo."

592 (Filippino Lippi), now assigned to Botticelli; see below, p. 294 n.

599 (Giovanni Bellini), now re-assigned to Basaiti; see below, p. 299.

636 (Titian or Palma). After a period of ascription to Titian, this portrait is now re-assigned to Palma; see below, p. 315.

650 (Angelo Bronzino), now assigned to his pupil, Alessandro Allori (Florentine: 1535-1607).

654 (School of Roger van der Weyden), now assigned to School of Robert Campin; for whom, see 2608.

655 (Bernard van Orley), now ascribed to Ambrosius Benson; born in Lombardy, painted in Bruges, living in 1545.

658 (after Schongauer), now assigned to School of Campin. The picture ascribed to the "Master of Flémalle," as referred to in the text (p. 328), is now No. 2608 (also now assigned to Campin).

659 (Johann Rottenhammer), now assigned to Jan Brueghel, the younger (1601-1667), a scholar of Brueghel, the elder.

664 (Roger van der Weyden), now assigned to Dierick Bouts; for whom, see 2595.

[Pg xx]

670 (Angelo Bronzino), now described as "School of Bronzino."

696 (Flemish School), now assigned to Petrus Cristus; for whom, see 2593.

704 (Bronzino), now described as "School of Bronzino."

709 (Flemish School), now assigned to Memlinc; for whom, see 686.

713 (Jan Mostaert), now assigned to Jan Prevost (Flemish: 1462-1529), a painter of Bruges and a friend of Albert Dürer.

714 (Cornelis Engelbertsz), now assigned to Bernard van Orley; for whom, see 655.

715 (Joachim Patinir), now assigned to Quentin Metsys; for whom, see 295.

750 (Lazzaro Bastiani), now described as "School of Gentile Bellini"; for whom, see 1213.

774 (Flemish School), now assigned to Dierick Bouts; for whom, see 2595.

779, 780 (Borgognone), now described as "School of Borgognone."

781 (Florentine School), now attributed to Botticini.

782 (Botticelli), now described as "School of Botticelli."

808 (Giovanni Bellini), now assigned to Gentile Bellini; see below, p. 422 n.

916 (School of Botticelli), now assigned to Jacopo del Sellaio; for whom, see 2492.

943 (Flemish School), now assigned to D. Bouts.

1017 (Flemish School), now assigned to Josse de Momper; see below, p. 489.

1033 (Filippino Lippi), now assigned to Botticelli; see below, p. 494.

1048 (Italian), now assigned to Scipione Pulzone; see below, p. 505.

1078, 1079 (Flemish School), now "attributed to Gerard David"; for whom, see 1045.

1080 (School of the Rhine), now assigned to Flemish School.

1083 (Flemish School), now assigned to Albrecht Bouts (a son of D. Bouts), who died in 1549.

1085 (School of the Rhine), now assigned to Geertgen Tot Sint Jans (Dutch: 15th century). This painter was a pupil of Albert van Ouwater; he established himself at Haarlem in a convent belonging to the Knights of St. John (whence his name, Gerard of St. John's). His works were seen and admired by Dürer.

1086 (Flemish School), now assigned to the "School of Robert Campin"; for whom, see 2608.

1109A (Mengs). To this picture the number 1099 (noted in previous editions of this Handbook as having been missed in the official numbering) is now given.

1121 (Venetian School), now assigned to Catena; for whom, see 234.

1124 (Filippino Lippi), now described as "School of Botticelli."

1126 (Botticelli), now assigned to Botticini; see on this subject p. 536 n.

1160 (School of Giorgione), now assigned to Giorgione himself.

[Pg xxi]

1199 (Florentine School), now assigned to Pier Francesco Fiorentino; a Tuscan painter of the 15th century.

1376 (Velazquez), now "ascribed to Velazquez."

1412 (Filippino Lippi), now described as "School of Botticelli."

1419 (Flemish School), now assigned to Early French School. The picture formed part of a diptych; the companion picture was in the Dudley Collection (No. 29 in the sale catalogue of 1892, where an illustration of it was given). In this the choir of St. Denis is shown. There are two portraits by the same hand at Chantilly.

1433 (Flemish School), now assigned to Roger van der Weyden; for whom, see 664.

1434 (Velazquez), now "ascribed to Velazquez," and it is added that the picture has been attributed to Luca Giordano (Neapolitan: 1632-1705).

1440 (Giovanni Bellini), now assigned to Gentile Bellini; for whom, see 1213.

1468 (Spinello Aretino), now assigned to Jacopo di Cione, the younger brother of Andrea Cione (called Orcagna); he was still living in 1394.

1652 This picture has hitherto been assigned to the British School (and therefore included in vol. ii. of the Handbook), and called a portrait of Katharine Parr. It is now discovered to belong to the Dutch School and to be a "portrait of Madame van der Goes."

1699 (Jan Vermeer), now "attributed to Vermeer."

1842 (Tuscan School), now "attributed to Stefano di Giovanni," known as Sassetta (Sienese: 1392-1450).

1870 "Angels with Keys," by Sebastiano Conca (Neapolitan: 1679-1764). Lent by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

1903 (Jan Fyt), now assigned to Pieter Boel (Flemish: 1622-1674), of Antwerp, who became official painter to Louis XIV.

It will be observed that critical fashions are unstable, and that in several cases Sir Edward Poynter's changes have been reversed. The recent alterations were made just as this edition of the Handbook was going to press. The ascriptions in the body of my Catalogue remain, therefore, in conformity with the Official Catalogue of 1906 which embodied Sir Edward Poynter's views. The lists of painters and pictures at the end (Appendix I. and II.) have, on the other hand, been revised in accordance with Sir Charles Holroyd's alterations.

Additional Notes.—In the notes upon the pictures, a large number of additional remarks have been introduced since this Handbook first appeared. These, it is hoped, may serve here[Pg xxii] and there to deepen the visitor's impression, to suggest fresh points of view, to open up incidental sources of interest. Attention may be called, by way of example, under this head, to several notes upon the designs depicted on the dresses, draperies, and backgrounds of the Italian pictures. These designs, sometimes invented by the artists themselves and sometimes copied from actual stuffs, form a series of examples which illustrate the "art fabrics" of the best period of Italian decorative art, and which might well give hints for the decoration of textile fabrics to-day.[11] Another incidental source of interest in a collection of pictures such as ours, is the historical development of art as it may be traced in the several representations of the same subject by different painters, in successive periods, and in different schools. Such comparisons are instructive to those interested alike in the evolution of art and in the history of religious ideas. In the art of mediæval Christendom we find an unwritten theology, a popular figurative teaching of the sublime story of Christianity blended with the traditions of many generations. On the walls of the National Gallery we may see a series of typical scenes from the Annunciation to the Passion, from the childhood of Christ to His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, together with ideal forms of apostles and saints. These pictures, contemplated in sequence and compared with one another, afford, as a writer in the Dublin Review (October 1888) has pointed out, a large and interesting field for thought. Very interesting it is also to trace the different types which prevail in the different schools. Thus at Florence, the Madonna is a tender, shrinking, delicate maiden. At Venice, she is a calm, serene, and pure-spirited mother. The Florentine "handmaiden of the Lord" often wears a mystic, and almost always an intellectual air. The Venetian type, seen at its central perfection in Bellini, has a neck firm as a column; the child is nude and plays with a flower or fruit; grandeur of mien and a noble type of motherhood are the ideals the Venetian painters set before themselves. The Lombard Madonna is less spiritual and severe than the Florentine. A refined worldly beauty replaces here the poetic idealism of the Tuscan artists. With the Umbrian painters the model of the Madonna is usually a softly-rounded and very girlish maiden. A certain mystic pensiveness informs her [Pg xxiii]features. Her feet tread this earth, but her soul is absorbed in the contemplation of the infinite.[12] A study of the successive characteristics of Raphael's Madonnas, passing from the vaguely divine to the frankly human, would form material for a volume in itself.[13] In another department of the painter's art, the comparative method of study is no less suggestive. It is one of the most curious points of interest in any large collection of pictures to notice the different impressions that the same elements of natural scenery make upon different painters. As figure painting came to be perfected, some adequate suggestion of landscape background was required. Giotto and Orcagna first attempted to give resemblance to nature in this respect. Subsequent painters carried the attempt to greater success, but it was long before landscape for its own sake obtained attention. When it did, the preferences of individual painters, now freed from conventionalism, found abundant scope, as we may see by pausing in succession before the flowery meadows of the "primitives," the "fiery woodlands of Titian," the savage crags of Salvator Rosa, the "saffron skies of Claude."[14] These are some of the incidental points of interest upon which additional notes have been supplied in recent editions. Many others will be discovered by the patient reader of the following pages.

Notices of Painters.—Lastly, the biographical and critical notices of the painters have been revised and expanded since the first appearance of the book. Many have been re-written throughout, nearly all have been re-cast, and a good many references to pictures in other galleries and countries have been introduced. The important accession to the National Gallery of the Arundel Society's unique collection of copies from the old masters affords an opportunity even to the untraveled visitor to become acquainted, in some sort, with the most famous wall-paintings of Italy. Mr. Ruskin, by whose death the National Gallery lost one of its best and oldest friends, once expressed a hope to me that the notices of the painters [Pg xxiv]given in this Handbook would be found useful by some readers not only as a companion in Trafalgar Square, but also for other galleries, at home and abroad. Nobody can know better than the compiler how far Mr. Ruskin's kindness led him in the direction of over-indulgence.

I can only hope that the later editions have been made—largely owing to the suggestions of critics and private correspondents—a little more deserving of the kind reception which, now for a period of nearly twenty-five years, has been given by the public to my Handbook.

May 1912.

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[Pg xxv]

GUIDE TO THE GALLERY
AND
INTRODUCTIONS TO THE SCHOOLS OF PAINTING

The pictures in the National Gallery are hung methodically, so far as the wall-space and other circumstances will admit, in order to illustrate the different schools of painting, and to facilitate their historical study. Introductions to the several Foreign Schools of Painting, thus arranged, will be found in the following pages together with references to many of the chief painters in each school who are represented in the Gallery. Introductory remarks on the British School and British Painters will be found in Volume II.

At the present time (May 1912) the arrangement of the Gallery is in a transitional state, as some of the Rooms are still in process of reconstruction or rearrangement. When this work is finished, the arrangement of the whole Gallery will, it is expected, be as shown below:—

Archaic Greek Portraits: North Vestibule.

Italian Schools:—
Early Tuscan: North Vestibule.
Florentine and Sienese: Rooms I., II., V.
[Pg xxvi]Florentine (later): Room III.
Milanese: Room IV.
Umbrian: Room VI.
Venetian: Room VII.
Venetian (later): Room IX.
Paduan: Room VIII.
Venice, etc.: the Dome.
Brescian and Bergamese: Room XV.
Bolognese: Room XXV.
Late Italian: Room XXIII.

Schools of the Netherlands and Germany:—

Early Netherlands: Room XI.
Later Flemish (Rubens, etc.): Room X.
Dutch (landscape: Ruysdael, etc.): Room XII.
Dutch (Rembrandt): Room XIII.
Dutch: Room XIV.
German: Room XXIV.

Spanish School: Room XVI.

French School: Rooms XVII., XVIII.

British Schools:—

Hogarth, etc.: Room XXII.
Reynolds, Gainsborough, etc.: Room XXI.
Romney, Morland, etc.: Room XX.
Turner: Room XIX.

The rooms on the ground floor, hitherto occupied by the Turner Water-Colours (now for the most part removed to the Tate Gallery: see Vol. II.), will be arranged with pictures of minor importance, with the Arundel Society's collection and other copies, and with photographs and other aids to study.

It should, however, be understood that the scheme of arrangement set out above is provisional, and may be modified. It is also possible that the numbering of the rooms may be altered. Should this be the case, the visitor would have no difficulty in marking the changes on the Plan.

[Pg xxvii]

[Pg xxviii]
[Pg 1]

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THE EARLY FLORENTINE SCHOOL

"The early efforts of Cimabue and Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the stammering lips of infants"

(Ruskin: Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. sec. i. ch. ii. § 7).

On entering the Gallery from Trafalgar Square, and ascending the main staircase, the visitor reaches the North Vestibule. What, he may be inclined to ask, is there worth looking at in the quaint and gaunt pictures around him here? The answer is a very simple one. This vestibule is the nursery of Italian art. Here is the first stammering of infant painting. Accustomed as we are at the present day to so much technical skill even in the commonest works of art, we may be inclined to think that the art of painting—the art of giving the resemblances of things by means of colour laid on to wood or canvas—is an easy one, of which men have everywhere and at all times possessed the mastery. But this of course is not the case. The skill[Pg 2] of to-day is the acquired result of long centuries of gradual improvement; and the pictures in this vestibule bear the same relation to the pictures of our own time as the stone huts of our forefathers to the Gallery in which we stand. The poorness of the pictures here is the measure of the richness of others. To feel the full greatness of Raphael's Madonna (1171), one should first pause awhile before the earliest Italian picture here (564), the gaunt and forbidding Madonna by

But even in the earliest efforts of infancy, there is a certain amount of inherited gift. First of all, therefore, one should look at a specimen of such art as Italians had before them when they first began to paint for themselves. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the invasion of the Goths, the centre of civilisation shifted to the capital of the Eastern Church, Byzantium (Constantinople). The characteristics of Byzantine art may be seen in a Greek picture (594). The history of early Italian art is the history of the effort to escape from the swaddling clothes of this rigid Byzantine School. The effort was of two kinds: first the painters had to see nature truly, instead of contenting themselves with fixed symbols—art had to become "natural," instead of "conventional." Secondly, having learned to see truly, they had to learn how to give a true resemblance of what they saw; how to exhibit things in relief, in perspective, and in illumination. In relief: that is, they had to learn to show one thing as standing out from another; in perspective: that is, to show things as they really look, instead of as we infer they are; in illumination: that is, to show things in the colours they assume under such and such[Pg 3] lights. The first distinct advance was made by Cimabue and Giotto at Florence, but contemporaneous with them was the similar work of Duccio and his successors at Siena, whose pictures should be studied in this connection. Various stages in the advance will be pointed out under the pictures themselves; and the student of art will perhaps find the same kind of pleasure in tracing the painter's progress as grown-up people feel in watching the gradual development of children.

But there is another kind of interest also. Wordsworth says that children are the best philosophers; and in the case of art at any rate there is some truth in what he says, for "this is a general law, that supposing the intellect of the workman the same, the more imitatively complete his art, the less he will mean by it; and the ruder the symbol, the deeper is its intention" (Ruskin's Lectures on Art, § 19). The more complete his powers of imitation become, the more intellectual interest he takes in the expression, and the less therefore in the thing meant. What then is the meaning of these early pictures? To answer this question, we must go back to consider what it was that gave the original impulse to the revival of art in Italy. To this revival two circumstances contributed. First, no school of painting can exist until society is comparatively rich, until there is wealth enough to support a class of men with leisure to produce beautiful things. Such an increase of wealth took place at Florence in the thirteenth century: the gay and courteous life of the Florentines at that time was ready for the adornment of art. The particular direction which art took was due to the religious revival, headed by St. Francis and St. Dominic, which occurred at the same time. Churches were everywhere built, and on the church walls frescoes were wanted, alike to satisfy the growing sense of beauty and to assist in teaching Christian doctrine. These early pictures are thus[Pg 4] to be considered as a kind of painted preaching. The story of Cimabue's great picture (see No. 565) well illustrates the double origin of the revival of art. It was to its place above the altar in the great Dominican church of Sta. Maria Novella at Florence that the picture was carried in triumphal procession; whilst the fact that a whole city should thus have turned out to rejoice over the completion of a picture, proves "the widespread sensibility of the Florentines to things of beauty, and shows the sympathy which, emanating from the people, was destined to inspire and brace the artist for his work" (Symonds: Renaissance, iii. 137).[15] The history of Giotto is no less significant. It was for the walls of the church of St. Francis at Assisi that his greatest work was done. It was there that he at once pondered over the meaning of the Christian faith (with what result is shown by Ruskin in Fors Clavigera and elsewhere), and learned the secret of giving the resemblance of the objects of that faith in painting. Thus, then, we arrive at the second source of interest in these old pictures of Florence—rude and foolish as they sometimes seem. "Those were noble days for the painter, when the whole belief of Christendom, grasped by his own faith, and firmly rooted in the faith of the people round him, as yet unimpaired by alien emanations from the world of classic culture, had to be set forth for the first time in art. His work was then a Bible, a compendium of grave divinity and human history, a book embracing all things needful for the spiritual and civil life of man. He spoke to men who could not read, for whom there were no printed pages, but whose hearts received his teaching through the eye. Thus painting was not then what it is now, a decoration of existence, but a potent and efficient agent in the education of the race" (ibid. p. 143). The message which these painters had to [Pg 5]deliver was painted on the walls of churches or civic buildings; and it is only there—at Assisi, and Padua, and Florence, and Siena—that they can be properly read. But from such scraps and fragments as are here preserved, one may learn, as it were, the alphabet, and catch the necessary point of view.

But why, it may be asked, did painting come to its new birth first at Florence, rather than elsewhere in Italy? The first answer is that painting thus arose at Florence because it was there that a new style of building at this time arose. The painters were wanted, as we have seen, to decorate the churches, and in those days there was no sharp distinction between the arts. Not only were architects sculptors, but they were often painters and goldsmiths as well. Giotto and Orcagna are instances of this union of the arts. But why did the new style of building arise specially in Florence? The answer to this is twofold: first, the Florentines inherited the artistic gifts and faculties of the Etruscan (Tuscan) race. Even in late Florentine pictures, pure Etruscan design will often be found surviving (see 586). Secondly, in the middle of the thirteenth century new art impulse came from the North in the shape of a northern builder, who, after building Assisi, visited Florence and instructed Arnolfo in Gothic, as opposed to Greek architecture. Thus there met the two principles of art—the Norman (or Lombard), vigorous and savage; the Greek (or Byzantine), contemplative but sterile. The new spirit in Florence "adopts what is best in each, and gives to what it adopts a new energy of its own, ... collects and animates the Norman and Byzantine tradition, and forms out of the perfected worship and work of both, the honest Christian faith and vital craftsmanship of the world.... Central stood Etruscan Florence: agricultural in occupation, religious in thought, she directed the industry of the Northman into the[Pg 6] arts of peace; kindled the dreams of the Byzantine with the fire of charity. Child of her peace, and exponent of her passion, her Cimabue became the interpreter to mankind of the meaning of the Birth of Christ" (Ariadne Florentina, ch. ii.; Mornings in Florence, ii. 44, 45).

☞ In the left-hand corner of the Vestibule will be found a very remarkable series of archaic Greek portraits dating from the second or third century A.D. (Nos. 1260-1270).

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The architecture of the Entrance Hall and Vestibule is worth some attention, for here is the finest collection of marbles in London. Many distant parts of the world have contributed to it. The Alps, from a steep face of mountain 2000 feet high on the Simplon Pass, send the two massive square pillars of light green "cipollino" which form the approach to the Vestibule from the Square. Their carved capitals are of alabaster from Derbyshire, whilst the bases on which they stand are of Corrennie granite from near Aberdeen. The square blocks of bluish gray beneath the upper columns come from New Zealand. Ascending the stone steps, the visitor should notice the side walls, built up of squares of "giallo antico," which was brought from the quarry at Simittu, in the territory of Tunis. It had long been known that Rome was full of the beautiful "giallo antico," sometimes yellow, sometimes rosy in colour, but always of exquisite texture and even to work. It had come from the province of Africa; and the quarry was rediscovered by a Belgian engineer working on the railway then being made from Tunis to the Algerian frontier. He observed at Simittu a half-consumed mountain with[Pg 7] gaps clearly marked, from which the last monoliths had been cut, and the work of the Romans was presently resumed by a Belgian Company. No more beautiful specimen of the "giallo antico" similar to that used in Augustan Rome could be desired than slabs in the entrance to the National Gallery. The cornice above the "giallo antico" walls is of "pavonazzetto" from the Apennines, near Pisa, and the same marble forms the base of the red columns. These splendid columns come from quarries near Chenouah, just west of Algiers, which were first opened by the French some years ago. Red Etruscan is the unmeaning trade name of this jasper-like stone, which is also used for door frames in many of the new rooms with very sumptuous effect.

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[Pg 8]

THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL

"This is the way people look when they feel this or that—when they have this or that other mental character: are they devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? then—whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly, kingly—that the Florentine School lived to discern and show; that they have discerned and shown; and all their greatness is first fastened in their aim at this central truth—the open expression of the living human soul" (Ruskin: Two Paths, § 21).

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts;—the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last." The reason for this faithfulness in the record of art is twofold. The art of any nation can only be great "by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race;" and secondly, "art is always instinctive, and the honesty or pretence of it therefore open to the day" (St. Mark's Rest, Preface). It has been seen from the remarks already made how Floren[Pg 9]tine art in its infancy was thus in a certain sense a record of the times out of which it sprang. In the later pictures, we may trace some of the developments which characterised the inner history of Florence in succeeding stages. The first thing that will strike any one who takes a general look at the early Florentine pictures and then at the later, is the fact that easel pictures have now superseded fragments of fresco and altar-pieces. Here at once we see reflected two features of the time of the Renaissance. Pictures were no longer wanted merely for church decoration and Scripture teaching; there was a growing taste for beautiful things as household possessions. And then also the influence of the church itself was declining; the exclusive place hitherto occupied by religion as a motive for art was being superseded by the revival of classical learning. Benozzo Gozzoli paints the Rape of Helen, Botticelli paints Mars and Venus, Piero di Cosimo paints the Death of Procris, and Pollajuolo the story of Apollo and Daphne. The Renaissance was, however, "a new birth" in another way than this; it opened men's eyes not only to the learning of the ancient world, but to the beauties of the world in which they themselves lived. In previous times the burden of serious and thoughtful minds had been, "The world is very evil, the times are waxing late;" the burden of the new song is, "The world is very beautiful." Thus we see the painters no longer confined to a fixed cycle of subjects represented with the traditional surroundings, but ranging at will over everything that they found beautiful or interesting around them. And above all they took to representing the noblest embodiment of life—the human form. Some attempts at portraiture may be perceived in the saints of the earliest pictures; but here we find professed portraits on every wall. This indeed was one of the chief glories of the Florentine School—"the open expression of the living human soul." This widening and secularising of art did not pass in Florence, as we know, without a protest; and here, too, history is painted on the walls. Some of the protest was silent, as Angelico's, who painted on through[Pg 10] a later generation in the old spirit; some of it was vocal, in the fiery eloquence of Savonarola, whose influence may be seen in Botticelli's work (1034).

But the development went on, all protests notwithstanding; for as the life of every nation runs its appointed course, so does its art; and the second point of interest in studying a school of painting is to watch its successive periods of birth, growth, maturity, and decay. In no school is this development so completely marked as in the Florentine, which for this reason, as well as for its priority in time, and therefore influence on succeeding schools, takes precedence of all others. The first period—covering roughly the fourteenth century, called the Giottesque, from its principal master—is that in which the thing told is of more importance than the manner of telling it, and in which the religious sentiment dominated the plastic faculty. In the second period, covering roughly the fifteenth century, and called by the Italians the period of the quattro-centisti,[16] the artist, beginning as we have seen to look freely at the world around him, begins also to study deeply with a view to represent nature more exactly. One may see the new passion for the scientific study of the art in Paolo Uccello (583), who devoted himself to perspective; and in Pollajuolo (292), who first studied anatomy from the dead body. It is customary to group the Florentine artists of this scientific and realistic period under three heads, according to the main tendencies which they severally exhibit. The first group aimed especially at "action, movement, and the expression of intense passions." The artist who stands at the head of this group, Masaccio, is, unhappily, not represented in the National Gallery, but the descent from him is represented by Fra Filippo Lippi, Pesellino, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi. The second group aimed rather at "realistic probability, and correctness in hitting off the characteristics of individual things," and is represented by Cosimo Rosselli, Piero di Cosimo, Ghirlandajo, [Pg 11]Andrea del Sarto, Francia Bigio. Thirdly, some of the Florentine School were directly influenced by the work of contemporary sculptors. Chief amongst this group are Pollajuolo, Verocchio, himself a sculptor, and Lorenzo di Credi. We come now to the third stage in the Florentine, as in every other vital school of painting. This period witnesses the perfection of the technical processes of the art, and the attempt of the painter to "raise forms, imitated by the artists of the preceding period from nature, to ideal beauty, and to give to the representations of the sentiments and affections the utmost grace and energy." The great Florentine masters of this culminating period are Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. The former is especially typical of this stage of development. "When a nation's culture has reached its culminating point, we see everywhere," says Morelli,[17] "in daily life as well as in literature and art, that grace[18] comes to be valued more than character. So it was in Italy during the closing decades of the fifteenth century and the opening ones of the sixteenth. To no artist was it given to express this feeling so fully as to the great Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most richly gifted man that mother Nature ever made. He was the first who tried to express the smile of inward happiness, the sweetness of the soul." But this culminating period of art already contained within it the germs of decay. The very perfection of the technical processes of painting caused in all, except painters of the highest mental gifts, a certain deadness and coldness, such as Browning makes Andrea del Sarto (1487-1531) be conscious of in his own works; the "faultless painter" as compared with others less technically perfect but more full of soul (see under 690). Moreover the very fascination of the [Pg 12]great men, the pleasure in imitating their technical skill, led to decay. Grace soon passed into insipidity, and the dramatic energy of Michael Angelo into exaggerated violence. One mannerism led to another until the school of the "Eclectics" sought to unite the mannerisms of all, and Italian art, having run its course, became extinct.[19]

The growth and decay of painting described above is connected by Ruskin with a corresponding growth and decay in religion. He divides the course of mediæval art into two stages: the first stage (covering the first two periods above) "is that of the formation of conscience by the discovery of the true laws of social order and personal virtue, coupled with sincere effort to live by such laws as they are discovered. All the Arts advance steadily during this stage of national growth, and are lovely, even in their deficiencies, as the buds of flowers are lovely by their vital force, swift change, and continent beauty. The next stage is that in which the conscience is entirely formed, and the nation, finding it painful to live in obedience to the precepts it has discovered, looks about to discover, also, a compromise for obedience to them. In this condition of mind its first endeavour is nearly always to make its religion pompous, and please the gods by giving them gifts and entertainments, in which it may piously and pleasurably share itself; so that a magnificent display of the powers of art it has gained by sincerity, takes place for a few years, and is then followed by their extinction, rapid and complete exactly in the degree in which the nation resigns itself to hypocrisy. The works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Tintoret, belong to this period of compromise in the career of the greatest nation of the world; and are the most splendid efforts yet made by human creatures to maintain the dignity of states with beautiful colours, and defend the doctrines of theology with anatomical designs." It is easy [Pg 13]to see how the progress in realism led to a decline in religion. "The greater the (painter's) powers became, the more (his) mind was absorbed in their attainment, and complacent in their display. The early arts of laying on bright colours smoothly, of burnishing golden ornaments, or tracing, leaf by leaf, the outlines of flowers, were not so difficult as that they should materially occupy the thoughts of the artist, or furnish foundation for his conceit; he learned these rudiments of his work without pain, and employed them without pride, his spirit being left free to express, so far as it was capable of them, the reaches of higher thought. But when accurate shade, and subtle colour, and perfect anatomy, and complicated perspective, became necessary to the work, the artist's whole energy was employed in learning the laws of these, and his whole pleasure consisted in exhibiting them. His life was devoted, not to the objects of art, but to the cunning of it; and the sciences of composition and light and shade were pursued as if there were abstract good in them;—as if, like astronomy or mathematics, they were ends in themselves, irrespective of anything to be effected by them. And without perception, on the part of any one, of the abyss to which all were hastening, a fatal change of aim took place throughout the whole world of art. In early times art was employed for the display of religious facts; now, religious facts were employed for the display of art. The transition, though imperceptible, was consummate; it involved the entire destiny of painting. It was passing from the paths of life to the paths of death" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, pp. 8, 9, and Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. § 11. See also under No. 744).

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[Pg 14]

THE SIENESE SCHOOL

"Since we are teachers to unlearned men, who know not how to read, of the marvels done by the power and strength of holy religion, ... and since no undertaking, however small, can have a beginning or an end without these three things,—that is, without the power to do, without knowledge, and without true love of the work; and since in God every perfection is eminently united; now, to the end that in this our calling, however unworthy it may be, we may have a good beginning and a good ending in all our works and deeds, we will earnestly ask the aid of the Divine grace, and commence by a dedication to the honour of the Name, and in the Name of the most Holy Trinity" (Extract from the Statutes of the Painters' Guild of Siena, 1355).

The school of Siena, though in the main closely resembling that of Florence, has yet an independent origin and a distinct character. There is a "Madonna" at Siena, painted in 1281, which is decidedly superior to such work as Margaritone's (564). But the start which Siena obtained at first was soon lost; and at a time when Florentine art was finding new directions, that at Siena was running still in the old grooves. This was owing to the markedly religious character of its painting, shown in the tone of the statutes above quoted. Such religious fervour seems at first sight inconsistent with the character of a people who were famed for factious quarrels and[Pg 15] delicate living.[20] But "the contradiction is more apparent than real. The people of Siena were highly impressible and emotional, quick to obey the promptings of their passion, whether it took the form of hatred or of love, of spiritual fervour or of carnal violence. The religious feeling was a passion with them, on a par with all the other movements of their quick and mobile temperament."[21] Sienese art reflects this spirit; it is like the religion of their St. Catherine, rapt and ecstatic. The early Florentine pictures are not very dissimilar; but in Siena the same kind of art lasted much longer. In the work, for instance, of Matteo di Giovanni (see 1155), there is still the same expression of religious ecstasy, and the same prodigal use of gold in the background, as marked the works of the preceding century; yet he was contemporary with the Florentine Botticelli, who introduced many new motives into art. Matteo was the best Sienese painter of the fifteenth century, and with him the independent school of Siena comes to an end. Girolamo del Pacchia (246) betrays the influence of Florence; whilst Il Sodoma (1144), who settled at Siena and had many pupils, was not a native, and shows in his style no affinity with the true Sienese School. Peruzzi (218), on the other hand, was a native of Siena, but belongs in his artistic development to the Roman School.

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[Pg 16]

THE SCHOOLS OF LOMBARDY

Painters of "the loveliest district of North Italy, where hills, and streams, and air, meet in softest harmonies" (Ruskin: Queen of the Air, § 157).

The loose use of the term "school" has caused much confusion in the history and criticism of art. Sometimes the term is used with reference only to the place where such and such painters principally worked. Thus Raphael and Michael Angelo, together with their followers, are sometimes called the "Roman School." But Rome produced no great native painters; she was merely a centre to which painters were drawn from elsewhere. So too when the phrase "Milanese School" occurs, it generally means Leonardo da Vinci and his immediate pupils, because, though a Florentine, he taught at Milan. Sometimes, again, the term "school" is used as mere geographical expression. Thus under "Lombard School" are often included the painters of Parma, simply because Parma is contiguous to Lombardy. A third use of the term school, however, is that in which it means "a definite quality, native to the district, shared through many generations by all its[Pg 17] painters, and culminating in a few men of commanding genius." Such a definite quality is generally marked by "a special collection of traditions, and processes, a particular method, a peculiar style in design, and an equally peculiar taste in colouring—all contributing to the representation of a national ideal existing in the minds of the artists of the same country at the same time." This is the use of the term which is suggested by the main arrangement of the National Gallery, and which is at once the most instructive and the most interesting.

Following this principle in the case of the present chapter, we must first dispose of the "pseudo-Lombards"—the Cremonese, namely, and Correggio. The pictures belonging to artists of Cremona are, as will be seen below, practically Venetian. Correggio and his imitator Parmigiano are more difficult to deal with. The truth is that Correggio stands very much apart (see under 10); but if he must be labelled, it seems best to follow Morelli and class him, on the score of his early training, with the Ferrarese. Coming now to the genuine Lombard School, one sees by looking round the room that it is by no means identical with Leonardo da Vinci. He himself was a Florentine, who settled at Milan, and whose powerful individuality exercised a strong influence on succeeding painters there. But before his coming, there was a native Lombard School—with artists scattered about in the towns and villages around Milan, and with a distinct style of its own. Long before Leonardo came to settle at Milan, the Lombard Madonnas—with their long oval faces and somewhat simpering smile—have already what we now describe as a "Leonardesque character." Among technical points we may notice as characteristic of the Lombard School, in its earlier phases, a partiality for sombre tints and high finish in the rendering of detail. In spirit the School is characterised by great simplicity of feeling. It will be noticed that among the Milanese pictures there are few with any allegorical or mythological subject. Even after Leonardo came to Milan, bringing with him new motives and a wide curiosity, the native Lombard masters, such as Luini and[Pg 18] Gaudenzio Ferrari, adhered in the main to sacred subjects. The Lombard School, it should be observed, was late in arising. The building of Milan Cathedral and the Certosa of Pavia in the first part of the fifteenth century directed the art-impulse of the time rather to sculpture, and it was not till about 1450 that Vincenzo Foppa came from Brescia and established the principal school of painting at Milan. Other schools started with spiritual aims, which wore off, as it were, under the new pleasure of sharpening their means of execution; but the Lombards first took up the art when it had already been reduced to a science. And then most of the painters were natives, not of some large capital, but of small towns or country villages. Thus Luini was born on the Lago Maggiore, and the traditions of his life all murmur about the lake district. But he learned technique at Milan; and thus came to "stand alone," adds Ruskin, "in uniting consummate art power with untainted simplicity of religious imagination" (see references under 18).

With regard to the historical development of the school, it was founded, as we have seen, by Vincenzo Foppa, "the Mantegna of the Lombard School." Borgognone, his pupil, was its Perugino. Then came Leonardo from Florence, and the school divides into two sets—those who were immediately and directly his imitators, and those who, whilst feeling his influence, yet preserved the independent Lombard traditions. The visitor will have no difficulty in recognising the pictures of Beltraffio, Oggionno, and Martino Piazza as belonging to the former class. Solario, Luini, and Lanini are more independent. Lastly Sodoma, a pupil of Leonardo, went off to Siena and established a second Sienese School there, which is represented at the National Gallery by Peruzzi (218).

[Pg 19]

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FERRARESE AND BOLOGNESE SCHOOLS

"One may almost apply to the School of Ferrara the proud boast of its ducal House of Este—

The Schools of Ferrara and Bologna, which, as will be seen, are substantially one and the same, are interesting both for themselves and for their influence on others. Two of the greatest of all Italian painters—Correggio and Raphael—may be claimed as "guests," as it were, of "this lordly" school. Correggio's master was Francesco Bianchi of Ferrara, a scholar of Cosimo Tura, and may possibly have afterwards studied under Francia at Bologna;[22] whilst as for Raphael, his master, Timoteo Viti, was also a pupil of Francia. The important influence of this school is natural enough, for the Ferrarese appear to have had much innate genius for art, and there is a note of unmistakable originality in their work.

"The Art of the Emilia, the region that lies between the river Po and the Apennines, has been unduly neglected. Here there once dwelt a vigorous and gifted race, as original[Pg 20] in their way as the Umbrians, Tuscans or Venetians, who found means of self-expression in form and colour under the political security of the Court of Este, and whose art forms an organic whole with stages of development and decay, characteristically differing, like their dialect, from that of other parts of Italy.... The traveller visiting the now deserted city of Ferrara, who meditates on its records of the past, may still in fancy see erected again the triumphal arches which welcomed emperors, popes and princes in the 'quattro-cento'; the gilded barges ascending the river to the city; the platforms draped with the arras, on which were woven in gold and silk stories of cavaliers in tilt and tourney; the duke in his robes, stiff with brocade of gold and covered with gems, bearing a jewelled sceptre in his hand; the magnificently caparisoned steeds; the princesses who came in their chariots of triumph, to be brides of the house of Este.... To trace the various processes, alike of thought, feeling and technique, which have gone to the making of a masterpiece of Correggio, L'Ortolano or Dosso is a fascinating pursuit. Only through knowledge of the tentative efforts of their predecessors at the splendid jovial court of the Este, is it possible to get a total impression. Born, as elsewhere, in bondage to rigid types and forms of composition, Ferrarese genius began by being profoundly dramatic and realistic. The masters of 1450 to 1475, well grounded in geometry, perspective and anatomy, painted rather what they saw than what they felt. Their aim was to conventionalise Nature rather than to transfigure her, and truth was more to them than beauty. The next generation, 1475 to 1500, developed technique so as to express movement and emotion, tempered by the eternal charm of antique ideals, till upon this sure foundation there arose men of high imagination and sentiment, who grasped and solved the mysteries of tone and colour, as distinguished from a brilliant palette" (R. H. Benson and A. Venturi in Burlington Fine Arts Club's Catalogue, 1894). Of the first or Giottesque period of the school no pictures survive, and the founder of the school, so far as we can now study it, is Cosimo Tura, who occupies[Pg 21] the same place in the art of Ferrara as Piero della Francesca occupied in that of Umbria, or Mantegna in that of Padua. Look at his picture (772): one sees at once that here is something different from other pictures, one feels that one would certainly be able to recognise that "rugged, gnarled, and angular" but vigorous style again. Doubtless there was some Flemish influence upon the school (see the notes on Tura, No. 772); and doubtless also the Ferrarese were influenced by the neighbouring school of Squarcione at Padua. But the pictures of Tura are enough to show how large an original element of native genius there was. The later developments of this genius are well illustrated in this room, with the important exception that Dosso Dossi, the greatest colourist amongst the Ferrarese masters, is very incompletely represented. His best works are to be seen at Ferrara, Dresden, Florence, and the Borghese Palace. He has been called "the Titian of the Ferrarese School," just as Lorenzo Costa has been called its Perugino and Garofalo its Raphael. Such phrases are useful as helping the student to compare corresponding pictures in different schools, and thus to appreciate their characteristics.

The early Bolognese School does not really exist except as an offshoot of the Ferrarese. Marco Zoppo (590) was "no better," says Morelli, "than a caricature of his master, Squarcione, and besides, he spent the greater part of his life at Venice;" whilst Lippo Dalmasii (752) was very inferior to contemporary artists elsewhere. The so-called earlier Bolognese School was really founded by the Ferrarese Francesco Cossa and Lorenzo Costa, who moved to Bologna about 1480, and the latter of whom "set up shop" with Francia in that town (see under 629). Remarks on the later "Eclectic" School of Bologna, formed by the Carracci, may more conveniently be deferred (see p. 35)

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THE UMBRIAN SCHOOL

"More allied to the Tuscan than to the Venetian spirit, the Umbrian masters produced a style of genuine originality. The cities of the Central Apennines owed their specific quality of religious fervour to the influences emanating from Assisi, the headquarters of the cultus of St. Francis. This pietism, nowhere else so paramount, except for a short period in Siena, constitutes the individuality of Umbria" (J. A. Symonds: Renaissance in Italy, iii. 133).

The Umbrian School, unlike the Florentine, was distinctively provincial; painting was not centralised in any great capital, but flourished in small towns and retired valleys—in Perugia, Foligno, Borgo S. Sepolcro, S. Severino, Rimini (see 2118), etc. Hence the older traditions of Italian art held their ground, and the religious feeling of the Middle Ages survived long after it had elsewhere been superseded. This tendency was confirmed by the spirit of the district. The little townships of Umbria begirdle the Hill of Assisi, the hallowed abode of St. Francis, and were the peculiar seats of religious enthusiasm. Art followed the current of life,[Pg 23] just as it did in Florence or Venice or Padua; and Umbria—"the Galilee," as it has been called, "of Italy"—thus produced a distinct type in painting, marked by a quality of sentimental pietism. The influence of Siena, whose artists worked at Perugia, must have made in the same direction, and it is interesting to notice in this room one picture of St. Catherine of Siena (249), and two of her namesake of Alexandria (693, 168). It is interesting, further, to notice how the "purist" style of landscape, identified with this pietistic art (see under 288), is characteristic of the district itself. "Whoever visits the hill-town of Perugia will be struck," says Morelli, "with two things: the fine, lovely voices of the women, and the view that opens before the enraptured eye, over the whole valley, from the spot where the old castle stood of yore. On your left, perched on a projecting hill that leans against the bare sunburnt down, lies Assisi, the birthplace of S. Francis, where first his fiery soul was kindled to enthusiasm, where his sister Clara led a pious life, and finally found her grave. Lower down, the eye can still reach Spello and its neighbouring Foligno, while the range of hills, on whose ridge Montefalco looks out from the midst of its gray olives, closes the charming picture. This is the gracious nook of earth, the smiling landscape, in which Pietro Perugino loves to place his chaste, God-fraught Madonnas, and which in his pictures, like soft music, heightens the mood awakened in us by his martyrs pining after Paradise" (German Galleries, p. 252). "All is wrought," says another writer, "into a quietude and harmony that seem eternal. This is one of the mysterious charms in the Holy Families of Raffaelle and of the early painters before him: the faces of the Madonnas are beyond the discomposure of passion, and their very draperies betoken an Elysian atmosphere which wind never blew" (Letters of Edward FitzGerald, i. 45). Such were the local circumstances of the art which, beginning with the almost grotesque pietism of Niccolò da Foligno (1107), led up to the "purist ideal" of Perugino and to the first manner of Raphael.

The scattered character of Umbrian art above referred[Pg 24] to makes it impossible for us to trace its course historically. From that point of view each of the local schools would have to be treated separately. Of the local schools which were the earliest to develop—Gubbio, Fabriano, and S. Severine—the first two are not represented here at all, and the third has only one picture (249). The taste for art amongst the people of Perugia was much later in developing itself. Even up to 1440 they had to rely on Sienese artists; and later still they sent for Piero della Francesca, of Borgo S. Sepolcro, who had studied at Florence and had greatly advanced the science of perspective. Many of the Umbrian masters—Melozzo, Palmezzano, Fra Carnovale, Giovanni Santi, and even perhaps Perugino, were pupils of his. The earliest native artist of Perugia in the gallery is Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (1103), who, however, owed much to the Florentine Benozzo Gozzoli. This Fiorenzo was probably the master of Pinturicchio. The latter worked for some time under Perugino, who had studied under Piero della Francesca and afterwards himself went to study in Florence. Perugino in his turn was the master, after Timoteo Viti, of Raphael. The development of Raphael's art, leading in its later periods to directions far removed from the Umbrian ideal, is traced under the biographical notice of that master (1171). We have thus completed the circle of the principal Umbrian masters. They are allied, as it will have been seen, by teaching, to the Florentines, but they retained a distinctive character throughout. The one exception in this respect is Luca Signorelli, who, though he was apprenticed to Piero della Francesca, was born nearer to Florence, and whose affinities are far more with the Florentine than with the Umbrian School.

[Pg 25]

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THE VENETIAN AND ALLIED SCHOOLS[23]

"The Venetian School proposed to itself the representation of the effect of colour and shade on all things; chiefly on the human form. Here you have the most perfect representation possible of colour, and light, and shade, as they affect the external aspect of the human form, and its immediate accessories, architecture, furniture, and dress. This external aspect of noblest nature was the first aim of the Venetians, and all their greatness depended on their patience in achieving it" (Ruskin: Two Paths, §§ 20, 22).

The general characteristics of the Venetian School, as defined by Mr. Ruskin in the passage above quoted, may be traced both to historical circumstances and to physical surroundings. Thus the first broad fact to be noticed about [Pg 26]the Venetian School of painting is that it is later than the Florentine by some hundred years or more. From the point of view of art, Venice, from her intimate connection as a trading power with the East, was almost a Byzantine colony. St. Mark's is a Byzantine church, her earliest palaces are Byzantine palaces. And so, too, for painting she relied exclusively on a Byzantine supply. It was not till the latter end of the fourteenth century that the influence of Giotto's works in the neighbouring town of Padua began to rouse Venice to do and think for herself in art, instead of letting her Greek subjects do all for her.[24] But by the time Venetian painters had acquired any real mastery over their art, Venice was already in a state of great magnificence; her palaces, with their fronts of white marble, porphyry, and serpentine, were the admiration of every visitor. Painters paint what they see around them, and hence at the outset we find in the Venetian School the rendering of material magnificence and the brilliant colours that distinguish it throughout. Look, for instance, at the pictures by a comparatively early Venetian, like Crivelli (see 602); no other painter of a corresponding age showed such fondness for fruits and stuffs and canopies and jewels and brilliant architecture. And then, in the second place, there is the colour of Venice itself, caused by her position on the lagoons. The Venetians had no gardens; "but what are the purples and scarlets and blues of iris, anemone, or columbine, dispersed among deep meadow-grasses or trained in quiet cloister garden-beds, when compared with that melodrama of flame and gold and rose and orange and azure, which the skies and lagoons of Venice yield almost daily to the eye?" (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 255). But, thirdly, the sea had a further influence on Venetian painting—it caused at once their love of bodily beauty and the kind of such beauty that they loved. Compare, for instance, a typical Venetian "beauty," such as Paris [Pg 27]Bordone's (674), with one of Botticelli's (915): how great is the difference between them! Well, the sea "tends to induce in us great respect for the whole human body; for its limbs, as much as for its tongue or its wit.... To put the helm up at the right moment is the beginning of all cunning, and for that we need arm and eye;—not tongue. And with this respect for the body as such, comes also the sailor's preference of massive beauty in bodily form. The landsmen, among their roses and orange-blossoms, and chequered shadows of twisted vine, may well please themselves with pale faces, and finely drawn eyebrows and fantastic braiding of hair. But from the sweeping glory of the sea we learn to love another kind of beauty; broad-breasted; level-browed, like the horizon;—thighed and shouldered like the billows;—footed like their stealing foam;—bathed in clouds of golden hair like their sunsets." Then further, "this ocean-work is wholly adverse to any morbid conditions of sentiment. Reverie, above all things, is forbidden by Scylla and Charybdis. By the dogs and the depths, no dreaming! The first thing required of us is presence of mind. Neither love, nor poetry, nor piety, must ever so take up our thoughts as to make us slow or unready." Herein will be found the source of a notable distinction between the treatment of sacred subjects by Venetian painters and all others. The first Venetian artists began with asceticism, just as the Florentines did; "always, however, delighting in more massive and deep colour than other religious painters. They are especially fond of saints who have been cardinals, because of their red hats, and they sunburn all their hermits into splendid russet brown" (see 768). Then again, through all enthusiasm they retain a supreme common sense. Look back, for instance, from the religious pictures in this room, from Titian's "Holy Family" (635), or Cima's "Madonna" (634), to those of the Umbrians, which we have just left. The Umbrian religion is something apart from the world, the Venetian is of it. The religion of the Venetian painters is as real as that of Fra Angelico. But it was the faith not of humble men or of mystics, not of profound thinkers or ecstatic visionaries, so much as of[Pg 28] courtiers and statesmen, of senators and merchants, for whom religion was not a thing by itself but a part and parcel of ordinary life. "Throughout the rest of Italy, piety had become abstract, and opposed theoretically to worldly life; hence the Florentine and Umbrian painters generally separated their saints from living men. They delighted in imagining scenes of spiritual perfectness;—Paradises, and companies of the redeemed at the judgment;—glorified meetings of martyrs;—madonnas surrounded by circles of angels. If, which was rare, definite portraitures of living men were introduced, these real characters formed a kind of chorus or attendant company, taking no part in the action. At Venice all this was reversed, and so boldly as at first to shock, with its seeming irreverence, a spectator accustomed to the formalities and abstractions of the so-called sacred schools. The madonnas are no more seated apart on their thrones, the saints no more breathe celestial air. They are on our own plain ground—nay, here in our houses with us." Cima places the Madonna in his own country-side, whilst at Venice itself Tintoret paints Paradise as the decoration for the hall of the Greater Council of the State. The religion of the Venetian School was not less sincere than that of others, but it was less formal, less didactic; for Venice was constantly at feud with the popes, and here we come to the last circumstance which need be noticed as determining the characteristics of the school. "Among Italian cities Venice was unique. She alone was tranquil in her empire, unimpeded in her constitutional development, independent of Church interference, undisturbed by the cross purposes and intrigues of the despots, inhabited by merchants who were princes, and by a freeborn people who had never seen war at their gates. The serenity of undisturbed security, the luxury of wealth amassed abroad and liberally spent at home, gave a physiognomy of ease and proud self-confidence to all her edifices.... The conditions of Florence stimulated mental energy and turned the face of the soul inwards. Those of Venice inclined the individual to accept life as he found it" (Symonds, iii. 259). Hence the ideal of Venetian painting[Pg 29] was "stateliness and power; high intercourse with kingly and beautiful humanity, proud thoughts, or splendid pleasures; throned sensualities; and ennobled appetites."

A speciality of the Venetian School arising from the characteristics we have described is its portraiture. "If there be any one sign by which the Venetian countenance, as it is recorded for us, to the very life, by a school of portraiture which has never been equalled (chiefly because no portraiture ever had subjects so noble),—I say, if there be one thing more notable than another in the Venetian features, it is their deep pensiveness and solemnity. In other districts of Italy, the dignity of the heads which occur in the most celebrated compositions is clearly owing to the feeling of the painter. He has visibly realised or idealised his models, and appears always to be veiling the faults or failings of the human nature around him, so that the best of his work is that which has most perfectly taken the colour of his own mind; and the least impressive, if not the least valuable, that which appears to have been unaffected and unmodified portraiture. But at Venice, all is exactly the reverse of this. The tone of mind in the painter appears often in some degree frivolous or sensual; delighting in costume, in domestic and grotesque incident, and in studies of the naked form. But the moment he gives himself definitely to portraiture, all is noble and grave; the more literally true his work, the more majestic; and the same artist who will produce little beyond what is commonplace in painting a Madonna or an Apostle, will rise into unapproachable sublimity when his subject is a Member of the Forty, or a Master of the Mint" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. iii. § lxxv.).

In its historical development the Venetian School may be divided, like other schools, into three main periods. First we have the Giottesque or heroic period, or, as it should in the case of Venice be called, "the Vivarini epoch, bright, innocent, more or less elementary, entirely religious art, reaching from 1400-1480." Next comes the Bellini epoch, sometimes classic and mythic as well as religious, 1480-1520. In this period Venetian art is[Pg 30] "entirely characteristic of her calm and brave statesmanship, her modest and faithful religion." "Bright costumes, distinct and sunny landscapes, broad backgrounds of architecture, large skies, polished armour, gilded cornices, young faces of fisher-boys and country girls, grave faces of old men brown with sea-wind and sunlight, withered faces of women hearty in a hale old age, the strong manhood of Venetian senators, the dignity of patrician ladies, the gracefulness of children, the rosy whiteness and amber-coloured tresses of the daughters of the Adriatic and the lagoons—these are the source of inspiration to the Venetians of the second period.... Among the loveliest motives in the altar-pieces of this period are the boy-angels playing flutes and mandolines beneath the Madonna on the steps of her throne. They are more earthly than Fra Angelico's melodists, and yet they are not precisely of human lineage. It is not, perhaps, too much to say that they strike the keynote of Venetian devotion, at once real and devoid of pietistic rapture" (Symonds, iii. 266.) Thirdly comes the epoch of "supremely powerful art corrupted by taint of death," 1520-1600.

This final transition may perhaps best be seen by tracing the similar progress in the technical feature which distinguishes the Venetian painters. They are the school of colour. Their speciality consists in seeing that "shadow is not an absence of colour, but is, on the contrary, necessary to the full presence of colour; every colour in painting must be a shadow to some brighter colour, and a light to some darker one—all the while being a positive colour itself. And the great splendour of the Venetian School arises from their having seen and held from the beginning this great fact—that shadow is as much colour as light, often much more. In Titian's fullest red the lights are pale rose-colour, passing into white—the shadows warm deep crimson. In Veronese's most splendid orange the lights are pale, the shadows crocus colour.... Observe that this is no matter of taste, but fact. It is an absolute fact that shadows are as much colours as lights are; and whoever represents them by merely the subdued[Pg 31] or darkened tint of the light, represents them falsely." But in the two earlier periods above specified, the Venetians are further "separated from other schools by their contentment with tranquil cheerfulness of light; by their never wanting to be dazzled. None of their lights are flashing or blinding; they are soft, winning, precious; lights of pearl, not of lime: only, you know, on this condition they cannot have sunshine: their day is the day of Paradise; they need no candles, neither light of the sun, in their cities; and everything is seen clear, as through crystal, far or near. This holds to the end of the fifteenth century. Then they begin to see that this, beautiful as it may be, is still a make-believe light; that we do not live in the inside of a pearl; but in an atmosphere through which a burning sun shines thwartedly, and over which a sorrowful night must far prevail. And then the chiaroscurists succeed in persuading them of the fact that there is mystery in the day as in the night, and show them how constantly to see truly, is to see dimly. And also they teach them the brilliancy of light, and the degree in which it is raised from the darkness; and instead of their sweet and pearly peace, tempt them to look for the strength of flame and coruscation of lightning." Three pictures may be noted in which the whole process may be traced. First in Bellini's "St. Jerome"[25] (694) is the serene light of the Master of Peace. In another Bellini (726) is a first twilight effect—such as Titian afterwards developed into more solemn hues; whilst in No. 1130 is an example of the light far withdrawn and the coils of shade of Tintoret. (For Ruskin's general remarks on the Venetian School see Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii.; Guide to Venetian Academy; Oxford Lectures on Art, §§ 134, 173-177.)

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THE PADUAN SCHOOL

"Padovani gran dottori" (the Paduans are great scholars)

Padua, more than any other Italian city, was the home of the classical Renaissance in painting. It was at Padua, that is to say, that the principles which governed classical art were first and most distinctly applied to painting. The founder of this learned Paduan school[26] was Squarcione (1394-1474). He had travelled in Italy and Greece, and the school which he set up in Padua on his return—filled with models and casts from the antique—enjoyed in its day such a reputation that travelling princes and great lords used to honour it with their visits. It was the influence of ancient sculpture that gave the Paduan School its characteristics. Squarcione was pre-eminently a teacher of the learned science of linear perspective; and the study of antique sculpture led his pupils to define all their forms severely and sharply. "In truth," says Layard, "the peculiarity of this school consists in a style of conception and treatment more plastic than pictorial." This characteristic of the school is pointed out below under some of Mantegna's pictures, but is seen best of all in Gregorio Schiavone (see especially 630). A second mark of the classical learning of the school may be observed in the [Pg 33]choice of antique embellishments, of bas-reliefs and festoons of fruits in the accessories. For a third and crowning characteristic of the school—the repose and self-control of classical art—the reader is referred to the remarks under Mantegna's pictures. With Mantegna the school of Padua reached its consummation. Crivelli's pictures are hung with those of the Paduan school, for he too is believed to have been a pupil of Squarcione. But after Mantegna the learning of Padua must be traced not in native painters, but in its influence on other schools.

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THE LATER ITALIAN SCHOOLS

"The eclectic school endeavoured to unite opposite partialities and weaknesses. They trained themselves under masters of exaggeration, and tried to unite opposite exaggerations. That was impossible. They did not see that the only possible eclecticism had been already accomplished;—the eclecticism of temperance, which, by the restraint of force, gains higher force; and by the self-denial of delight, gains higher delight" (Ruskin: Two Paths, § 59).

The typical painters, with whom this chapter is concerned, are those of the "Eclectic School" of Bologna—the Carracci, Domenichino, Guido Reni; and Salvator Rosa, the Neapolitan painter of about the same period.

It may be noticed, in the first place, that the lower repute in which these Italian painters of the seventeenth century are now held is of comparatively recent date. Poussin, for instance, ranked Domenichino next to Raphael, and preferred the works of the Carracci to all others in Rome, except only Raphael's, and Sir Joshua Reynolds cited them as models of perfection. Why, then, is it that modern criticism stamps the later Italian Schools as schools of the decadence? To examine the pictures themselves and to compare them with earlier works is the best way of finding out; but a few general remarks may be found of assistance. The painting of the schools now under consideration was "not spontaneous art. It was art mechanically[Pg 35] revived during a period of critical hesitancy and declining enthusiasms." It was largely produced at Bologna by men not eminently gifted for the arts. When Ludovico Carracci, for instance, went to Venice, the veteran Tintoretto warned him that he had no vocation. Moreover "the painting which emerged there at the close of the sixteenth century embodied religion and culture, both of a base alloy.... Therefore, though the painters went on painting the old subjects, they painted all alike with frigid superficiality. Nothing new or vital, fanciful or imaginative, has been breathed into antique mythology. What has been added to religious expression is repellent, ... extravagantly ideal in ecstatic Magdalens and Maries, extravagantly realistic in martyrdoms and torments, extravagantly harsh in dogmatic mysteries, extravagantly soft in sentimental tenderness and tearful piety.... If we turn from the ideas of the late Italian painters to their execution, we shall find similar reasons for its failure to delight" (Symonds's Renaissance, vii. 232). For "all these old eclectic theories were based not upon an endeavour to unite the various characters of nature (which it is possible to do), but the various narrownesses of taste, which it is impossible to do.... All these specialities have their own charm in their own way; and there are times when the particular humour of each man is refreshing to us from its very distinctness; but the effort to add any other qualities to this refreshing one instantly takes away the distinctiveness" (Two Paths, § 58). It was not an attempt to unite the various characters of nature. On the contrary, "these painters, in selecting, omitted just those features which had given grace and character to their models. The substitution of generic types for portraiture, the avoidance of individuality, the contempt for what is simple and natural in details, deprived their work of attractiveness and suggestion. It is noticeable that they never painted flowers. While studying Titian's landscapes, they omitted the iris and the caper-blossom and the columbine, which star the grass beneath Ariadne's feet.... They began the false system of depicting ideal foliage and ideal precipices—that is to say, trees which are not trees, and cliffs which cannot be distinguished from cork or stucco.[Pg 36] In like manner, the cloths wherewith they clad their personages were not of brocade, or satin, or broadcloth, but of that empty lie called drapery ... one monstrous nondescript stuff, differently dyed in dull or glaring colours, but always shoddy. Characteristic costumes have disappeared.... After the same fashion furniture, utensils, houses, animals, birds, weapons, are idealised—stripped, that is to say, of what in these things is specific and vital"[27] (Symonds, ibid. p. 233).

With regard to the historical development of the declining art whose general characteristics we have been discussing, it is usual to group the painters under three heads—the Mannerists, the Eclectics, and the Naturalists. By the first of these are meant the painters in the several schools who succeeded the culminating masters and imitated their peculiarities. We have already noticed, under the Florentine School, how this "mannerism" set in, and all the other schools show a like process. Thus Giulio Romano shows the dramatic energy of Raphael and Michael Angelo passed into mannerism. Tiepolo is a "mannerised" Paolo Veronese, Baroccio a "mannerised" Correggio. Later on, however, and largely under the influence of the "counter-Reformation"—the renewed activity, that is, of the Roman church consequent on the Reformation,[28]—a reaction against the Mannerists set in. This reaction took two forms. The first was that of the Eclectic School founded by the Carraccis at Bologna in about the year 1580. This school—so called from its principle of "selecting" the qualities of different schools—includes, besides the Carraccis themselves, Guido Reni, Domenichino, [Pg 37]Sassoferrato, and Guercino. The last-mentioned, however, combined in some measure the aims both of the Eclectics and of the other school which was formed in protest against the Mannerists. This was the school of the so-called Naturalists, of whom Caravaggio (1569-1609) was the first representative, and whose influence may be traced in the Spanish Ribera (see page 220) and the Neapolitan Salvator Rosa. They called themselves "Naturalists," as being opposed to the "ideal" aims alike of the Mannerists and the Eclectics; but they made the fatal mistake—a mistake which seems to have a permanent hold on a certain order of minds, for it is at the root of much of the art-effort of our own day—that there is something more "real" and "natural" in the vulgarities of human life than in its nobleness, and in the ugliness of nature than in its beauty (see below under 172, and under Salvator Rosa passim).

The later Venetian pictures make a most interesting group. In the eighteenth century Venetian art experienced a partial revival, and the painters of this revival—Tiepolo, Longhi, Canaletto, and Guardi may here be well studied.

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[Pg 38]

THE EARLY FLEMISH AND THE GERMAN SCHOOLS

"Why is it, probably, that Pictures exist in the world, and to what end was the divine art of Painting bestowed, by the earnest gods, upon poor mankind? I could advise once, for a little! To make this poor authentic earth a little memorable for us. Flaying of St. Bartholomew, Rape of Europa, Rape of the Sabines, Piping and Amours of goat-footed Pan, Romulus suckled by the Wolf: all this and much else of fabulous, distant, unimportant, not to say impossible, ugly and unworthy shall pass. But I say, Herewithal is something not phantasmal; of indisputable certainty, home-grown" (Carlyle: Friedrich, bk. iv. ch. vi., slightly altered).

The Early Flemish and German schools are by no means so completely represented as the nearly contemporary schools of Italy; but there are enough pictures to bring out the characteristics of the northern art. Nothing can be more instructive, and convincing of the value of art as a means of national autobiography, than to compare the early pictures in these rooms en bloc with those in any of the Italian rooms (e.g. the Umbrian). No one can fail to be struck at once by the contrast between what Mr. Ruskin has called "the angular and bony sanctities of the North," and "the drooping graces and pensive pieties of the South." This is the first distinguishing character of the early northern art: there is little feeling, or care, for beauty as[Pg 39] such. Look round the rooms, and see whether there is a single face which will haunt you for its beauty. Look at the pictures which interest you most, choose out the brightest and the most exquisitely finished: and see if it is not an almost defiant absence of beautiful feature that characterises them. Coupled with their absence of feeling for the beautiful there is in the work of these artists a strange fondness for death—for agonies, crucifixions, depositions, exhumations. "It is not that the person needs excitement or has any such strong perceptions as would cause excitement, but he is dead to the horror, and a strange evil influence guides his feebleness of mind rather to fearful images than to beautiful ones,—as our disturbed dreams are sometimes filled with ghastlinesses which seem not to arise out of any conceivable association of our waking ideas, but to be a vapour out of the very chambers of the tomb, to which the mind, in its palsy, has approached" (Modern Painters, vol. iv. pt. v. ch. xix. § 16). Thus, in painting scenes from the Passion or stories from the book of martyrs, the Italians of the earlier time endured the painfulness, the northern artists rejoiced in it.

What, then, is it that gives these pictures their worth and has caused their painters to be included amongst the great masters of the world? Look at some of the best, and the more you look the more you will see that their goodness consists in an absolute fidelity to nature—in dress, in ornaments, and especially in portraiture. Here are unmistakably the men and women of the time, set down precisely in their habit as they lived. In this grim, unrelenting truthfulness these pictures correspond exactly to the ideal which Carlyle—himself a typical northerner—lays down, in the passage above quoted, for the art of painting.

Look at these pictures and at the Italian again, and another obvious difference is apparent. The Flemish pictures are on the whole much smaller. This is a fact full of significance. In the sunny South the artists spent their best energies in covering large spaces of wall with frescoes; in the damp climate of the North they were obliged to paint[Pg 40] chiefly upon panels. The conditions of their climate were no doubt what led to the discovery of the Van Eyck method (described under 186), the point of which was a way of drying pictures rapidly without the necessity of exposure to the sun. It was a method only applicable to work on a small scale, but it permitted such work to be brought to the highest finish. This precisely suited the painstaking, patient men of the Low Countries. Hence the minuteness and finish which characterise their work. Moreover, "every charm that can be bestowed upon so small a surface is requisite to intensify its attractive power; and hence Flemish painters developed a jewel-like quality of colouring which remained peculiar to themselves." ... Further, the Van Eyck method, requiring absolute forethought and forbidding any alterations, tended to a set of stock subjects treated more or less in the same way. "Thus the chief qualities of the Flemish School may be called Veracity of Imitation, Jewel-like richness of Colour, perfection of Finish, emphasis of Character, and Conservatism in design. These indeed are virtues enough to make a school of art great in the annals of time, even though they may never be able to win for it the clatter of popular applause. The paintings of Flanders were not, and were not intended to be, popular. Flemish artists did not, like the Italians, paint for the folk, but for the delight of a small cultured clique."[29]

Such are the general characteristics of the Early Flemish School. Passing now to its historical development and to its relations with the schools of Germany, we may distinguish three successive periods. (1) The birthplace of painting as a separate art in the North was on the Lower Rhine, at Maastricht and Cologne. Of this school of the Lower Rhine a characteristic specimen is No. 687. It is properly grouped with the Early Flemish School, because in the fourteenth century most of the Flemish artists were Germans from the valley of the Rhine. (2) Later on, however, the great development in the prosperity and wealth of the Low Countries—the land of the Woolsack and the Golden [Pg 41]Fleece, led to the growth of a native art. This was closely connected with the schools of illuminators patronised by the Courts of France and Burgundy, and many works of the Primitifs cannot be distinguished, with any complete certainty, as French or Flemish. Just as at Venice the people, busy with their trade, preferred for a long time to buy rather than produce their works of art, but afterwards settled down and made works for themselves, so in Flanders the German art came to be superseded by a native Flemish art. The Early Flemish School, covering roughly the period 1400-1500, was the result, the most important masters being Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Bouts, David, and Memlinc. (3.) It was now the turn of this school to influence that of Germany. The Flemish masters were great travellers, and the German masters were no doubt attracted to Flanders by the great technical skill there in vogue. Hence we now come to a second period in German painting—marked by Flemish influence. There is less of the mysticism and more realism; but with the realism there is an element of brutality and ugliness. Nos. 707 and 1049 are typical German pictures of this period.

Finally, it will be noticed, as the visitor goes round the rooms, that many of the pictures are either altogether "unknown" or are attributed to artists whose names are not given, and who are merely described as the "master" of such and such other pictures. This is an interesting and characteristic point. Of individual painters of the Early German School, and for the most part of those of the Early Flemish, very little is known. They seldom signed their names,[30] and the works of the fifteenth century were in the next two centuries treated with neglect. Hence both the attribution of these pictures, and the lives of the painters to whom they are attributed, are still very uncertain. A second reason for this uncertainty is to be found in the Guild [Pg 42]system, which was very strict amongst the northern artists. Painting, to the mediæval mind, was a craft like any other, and was subject to the same rules. The Guild educated the artist and bought his materials, and even when he emerged into mastership, stood in many ways between him and his patron. Hence pictures were often regarded as the work not of this or that individual, but of this or that Guild. Hence too the quiet industry and the uncompetitive patience of these Early Flemish painters. "It was not merely the result of chance that the brothers Van Eyck invented their peculiar method of painting by which they were enabled to produce pictures of almost unlimited durability and of unsurpassable finish, provided sufficient care were bestowed upon the work. The spirit of the day and the method of the day were reflections one of another.... Take any picture of this old Flemish School, and regard it carefully, you will find that only so do its beauties strike you at all.... The old Flemish artists did always the thing that was within their powers, striving indeed by daily industry to increase the strength of those powers, but never hoping either by luck or momentary insanity to attain anything unattainable by patient thought and long-continued labour. 'Patient continuance in well-doing' was the open secret of their success" (Conway, ch. ii.)

Of the later German School, specially distinguished in portraiture, the Gallery has now some fine examples, and here again there is similarity between the German and the early Flemish painters. "If," says Ruskin, "the reader were to make the circuit of this collection for the purpose of determining which picture united in its modes of execution the highest reach of achievement with the strongest assurance of durability, we believe that he would finally pause before a small picture or panel, representing two quaintly dressed figures in a dimly lighted room." Turn from the portraits by Jan van Eyck to the portraits by Cranach and Albert Dürer, and much of the same minute fidelity and careful workmanship will be found. For Holbein's portraits, the reader is referred to the notes (pp. 613-4).

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[Pg 43]

THE DUTCH SCHOOL

The Dutch and Flemish schools were formerly hung together at the National Gallery. They are now separated, and with the early Flemish school we have already dealt. We take up the story here at the point where it leaves off there, and proceed to discuss the Dutch school; passing afterwards to the later Flemish school. The confusion between Dutch and Flemish art is, it may first be remarked, historical. Just as Flanders derived its earliest artistic impulse from German painters, so did the Dutch derive theirs from the Flemings. In the two first periods of Flemish art, Dutch art runs precisely parallel with it. During the sixteenth century a new development began in both schools. This is the period of Italian influence, of the "Romanists" or "Italianisers," as they are called, represented typically by Bernard van Orley and Mabuse.

At the end of the sixteenth century, however, a national movement began in both schools—corresponding closely to political changes. In 1579 the "Union of Utrecht" was effected, whereby the Dutch "United Provinces"[Pg 44] (= roughly what is now Holland) were separated alike from the Spanish Netherlands and from the Empire, and Dutch independence thus began. Within the next fifty years nearly all the great Dutch painters were born—Berchem, Bol, Cuyp, Frans Hals, Van der Helst, De Keyser, Rembrandt, Ruysdael. In characteristics, as well as in chronology, Dutch art was the direct outcome of Dutch history. This art has come to be identified in common parlance, owing to its chief and distinguishing characteristic, with what is known as "genre painting,"—the painting, that is, which takes its subject from small incidents of everyday life. Three historical conditions combined to bring this kind of painting into vogue. First, the Reformation. The Dutch, when they asserted their independence, were no longer Catholics; but Protestantism despised the arts, and hence the arts became entirely dissociated from religion. There were no more churches to ornament, and hence no more religious pictures were painted[31] whilst religious rapture is superseded by what one of their own critics describes as "the boisterous outbursts which betoken approaching drunkenness" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 12).[32] Secondly, the Dutch were Republicans. There was no reigning family. There were no palaces to decorate, and hence no more historical or mythological pictures were in demand. This point of distinction may best be remembered by the supreme contempt which the great King Louis XIV. of France entertained for [Pg 45]the genre style. Eloignez de mot ces magots, he said, "take away the absurd things," when some one showed him some works by Teniers. But the "plain, simple citizens" of the United Provinces did not want their faces idealised—hence the prosaic excellence of Dutch portraiture,—nor had they any ambition to see on their walls anything but an imitation of their actual lives—of their dykes, their courtyards, their kitchens, and their sculleries. Thirdly, the Dutch were a very self-centred people. "With the Dutch," says Sir Joshua Reynolds (Discourse iv.), "a history piece is properly a portrait of themselves; whether they describe the inside or outside of their houses, we have their own people engaged in their own peculiar occupations; working or drinking, playing or fighting. The circumstances that enter into a picture of this kind, are so far from giving a general view of human life, that they exhibit all the minute particularities of a nation differing in several respects from the rest of mankind." "Those innumerable genre pieces—conversation, music, play—were in truth," says Mr. Pater, "the equivalent of novel-reading for that day; its own actual life, in its own proper circumstances, reflected in various degrees of idealisation, with no diminution of the sense of reality (that is to say), but with more and more purged and perfected delightfulness of interest. Themselves illustrating, as every student of their history knows, the good-fellowship of family life, it was the ideal of that life which these artists depicted; the ideal of home in a country where the preponderant interest of life, after all, could not well be out of doors. Of the earth earthy,[33] it[Pg 46] was an ideal very different from that which the sacred Italian painters had evoked from the life of Italy; yet, in its best types, was not without a kind of natural religiousness. And in the achievement of a type of beauty so national and vernacular, the votaries of purely Italian art might well feel that the Italianisers, like Berghem, Bol, and Jan Weenix, went so far afield in vain" (Imaginary Portraits, p. 99).

The same awakening of a national taste made itself felt in the native school of Dutch landscape—a landscape excellent in many ways, but cabin'd, cribbed, and confined, like their own dykes. "Of deities or virtues, angels, principalities, or powers, in the name of our ditches, no more. Let us have cattle, and market vegetables" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 11). But the Dutch School of landscape had the qualities of its defects. "The Dutch began to see what a picture their country was—its canals, and boompjis, and endless broadly-lighted meadows, and thousands of miles of quaint water-side; and their painters were the first true masters of landscape for its own sake" (Pater, ib. p. 98).

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[Pg 47]

THE LATER FLEMISH SCHOOL

The early history of the Flemish school has been already traced (pp. 38-41). The birth of its later period is almost exactly contemporaneous with that which has been described in the case of the Dutch school. In 1598 the Archduke Albert and his consort Isabel established what was almost an independent State in the Spanish Netherlands (= roughly Flanders, or the modern Belgium). The "Spanish Fury" was at an end, the Inquisition was relaxed. Albert and Isabel eagerly welcomed artists and men of letters, and the exuberant art of Rubens responded to the call. This is the third and great period in the Flemish school—the succession being carried on by Rubens's pupils, Van Dyck and Teniers. Rubens, the greatest master of the Flemish School, was born in 1577 in Germany, but brought up at Antwerp, then the depository of western commerce, and he coloured every subject that he touched with the same hues of gay magnificence. It is by his pictures, and those of Van Dyck, that this room is dominated, and it is unnecessary to anticipate here the accounts of those masters given below (pp. 111, p. 130). They were painters of the Courts. The works of Teniers complete the picture of Flemish life and manners by taking us among the common people in country fairs and village taverns.

[Pg 48]

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THE SPANISH SCHOOL

"For the learned and the lettered," says a Spanish author in the reign of Philip IV., "written knowledge may suffice; but for the ignorant, what master is like Painting? They may read their duty in a picture, although they cannot search for it in books."

"What we are all attempting," said Sir Joshua Reynolds, "to do with great labour, Velazquez does at once."

None of the great schools of painting is so scantily represented in the National Gallery as the Spanish, although the works in this room by its greatest master, Velazquez, are of exceptional excellence in quality and of exceptional interest as illustrating the progress of his art. The deficiency in Spanish pictures is not peculiar to London. "Spain," said Sir David Wilkie, "is the Timbuctoo of artists." The Spanish School of painters and their history are still only half explored, and can only be fully studied in Spain itself. "He who Seville (and Madrid) has not seen, has not seen the marvels great" of Spanish painting.[34]

There are, however, enough examples of the school here to make some few general remarks desirable. The first point to be noticed is this, that all the painters represented in the room (with two or three exceptions) are nearly contemporary. The period 1588-1682 covers all their lives.

[Pg 49]

They are four of the chief painters of Spain, and they all reach a high level of technical skill. This fact suggests at once the first characteristic point in the history of the Spanish School. It has no infancy.[35] It sprang full-grown into birth. The reason of this was its Italian origin. The art of painting, except as purely decorative, was forbidden to the Moors; and it was only in 1492, when the banner of Castile first hung on the towers of the Alhambra, that the age of painting, as of other greatness, began for Spain. But the very greatness of Spain led to Italian influence in art. The early Spanish painters nearly all found means of going to Italy (Theotocopuli,—1122—was born there in 1548), and the great Italian painters were constantly attracted to the Spanish court.

But though Spanish art sprang thus rapidly to perfection under foreign influence, it was yet stamped throughout with a thoroughly distinctive character. In the first place the proverbial gravity of the Spaniard is reflected also in his art. Look round this room, and see if the prevailing impression is not of something grave, dark, lurid. There is here nothing of the sweet fancifulness of the early Florentines, nothing of the gay voluptuousness of the later Venetians. The shadow of the Spaniard's dark cloak seems to be over every canvas. Then secondly, Spanish painting is intensely "naturalist." Velazquez exhibits this tendency at its best: there is an irresistible reality about his portraits which makes the men alive to all who look at them; Murillo exhibits it in its excess: his best religious pictures are spoiled by their too close adherence to ordinary and even vulgar types.

Both these characteristics are partly accounted for by a third. Painting in Spain was not so much the handmaid, as the bondslave, of the Church. As the Church was in Spain, so had art to be—monastic, severe, immutable. "To have changed an attitude or an attribute would have been a change of Deity." Pacheco, the master of Velazquez, was [Pg 50]charged by the Inquisition to see that no pictures were painted likely to disturb the true faith. Angels were on no account, he prescribed, to be drawn without wings. The feet of the Blessed Virgin were on no account to be exhibited, and she was to be dressed in blue and white, for that she was so dressed when she appeared to Beatrix de Silva, a Portuguese nun, who founded the order called after her. One sees at once how an art, working under such conditions as these, would be likely to lose free play of fancy. And then, lastly, one may note how the Spanish church tended also to make Spanish art intensely naturalistic. Pictures were expected to teach religious dogmas and to enforce mystical ideas. But, in the inevitable course of superstition, the symbol passed into a reality. This was more particularly the case with statues. Everything was done to get images accepted as realities. To this day they are not only painted but dressed: they have, like queens, their mistress of the robes. This idea of art—as something which was not to appeal to the imagination, but was to pass itself off as a reality—inevitably extended also to Spanish painting. How far it did so is best shown in a story gravely related by Pacheco. A painter on a high scaffold had just half finished the figure of the Blessed Virgin when he felt the whole woodwork on which he stood giving way. He called out in his horror, "Holy Virgin, hold me," and straightway the painted arm of the Virgin was thrust out from the wall, supporting the painter in mid-air! When a ladder was brought and the painter got his feet on it, the Virgin's arm relapsed and became again only a painting on the wall. One need not go farther than this story to see the origin of the realistic character of Spanish art, or to understand how Murillo, although often the most mystic of all painters in his conceptions of religious subjects, was also the most naturalistic in his treatment of them (see W. B. Scott: Murillo and the Spanish School of Painting).

☞ We now pass into Rooms XVI. and XVII., where pictures of the French School are hung.

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[Pg 51]

THE FRENCH SCHOOL

ROOMS XVI AND XVII

Of the pictures in this room nearly all the more important are the works of three masters—Claude and the two Poussins. It is of them, therefore, that a few general remarks will here be made. It should be noticed in the first place how very different this French School of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is from the French School of to-day. The latter school is distinguished for its technical skill, which makes Paris the chief centre of art teaching in the world, but, also, and still more markedly, for its "excessive realism and gross sensuality." "A few years ago," adds Professor Middleton, "a gold medal was won at the Paris Salon by a 'naturalist' picture—a real masterpiece of technical skill. It represented Job as an emaciated old man covered with ulcers, carefully studied in the Paris hospitals for skin diseases." There could not be a greater contrast than between such art as that and the "ideal" landscapes of Claude, the Bacchanalian scenes of Poussin, or the soft girl-faces of Greuze.

[Pg 52]

Confining ourselves now to Claude and the Poussins—with whom, however, the contemporary works of Salvator Rosa (in Room XIII.) should be studied, we note that in spite of considerable differences between them they agree in marking a great advance in the art of landscape painting. The old conventionalism has now altogether disappeared; there is an attempt to paint nature as she really is. There are effects of nature, too,—not shown in any earlier pictures, and here painted for the first time,—graceful effects of foliage, smooth surface of water, diffusion of yellow sunlight. In some of these effects Claude has never been surpassed; but when his pictures are more closely examined, they are often found to be untrue to the forms of nature. Trees are not branched, nor rocks formed, nor mountains grouped as Claude and Poussin represent. Their conception of landscape, and especially of its relation to human life, is governed by the "classical ideal," to which as far as possible they made their pictures approach. This "classical" landscape is "the representation of (1) perfectly trained and civilised human life; (2) associated with perfect natural scenery, and (3) with decorative spiritual powers. (1) There are no signs in it of humiliating labour or abasing misfortune. Classical persons must be trained in all the polite arts, and, because their health is to be perfect, chiefly in the open air. Hence the architecture around them must be of the most finished kind, the rough country and ground being subdued by frequent and happy humanity. (2) Such personages and buildings must be associated with natural scenery, uninjured by storms or inclemency of climate (such injury implying interruption of the open air life); and it must be scenery conducing to pleasure, not to material service; all cornfields, orchards, olive-yards, and such-like being under the management of slaves, and the superior beings having nothing to do with them; but passing their lives under avenues of scented and otherwise delightful trees—under picturesque rocks and by clear fountains. It is curious, as marking the classical spirit, that a sailing vessel is hardly admissible, but a galley with oars is admissible, because the rowers may be conceived as absolute slaves. (3) The[Pg 53] spiritual powers in classical scenery must be decorative; ornamental gods, not governing gods; otherwise they could not be subjected to the principles of taste, but would demand reverence. In order, therefore, as far as possible, without taking away their supernatural power, to destroy their dignity ... those only are introduced who are the lords of lascivious pleasures. For the appearance of any great god would at once destroy the whole theory of classical life; therefore Pan, Bacchus, and the Satyrs, with Venus and the Nymphs, are the principal spiritual powers of the classical landscape" (abridged from Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. v. §§ 1-8).

It may be interesting to point out how entirely this ideal accords with the prevailing taste and literature of their time. The painting of Claude and Salvator precisely corresponds to what is called "pastoral poetry, that is to say, poetry written in praise of the country, by men who lived in coffee-houses and on the Mall[36]— ... the class of poetry in which a farmer's girl is spoken of as a 'nymph,' and a farmer's boy as a 'swain,' and in which, throughout, a ridiculous and unnatural refinement is supposed to exist in rural life, merely because the poet himself has neither had the courage to endure its hardships, nor the wit to conceive its realities.... Examine the novels of Smollett, Fielding, and Sterne, the comedies of Molière, and the writings of Johnson and Addison, and I do not think you will find a single expression of true delight in sublime nature in any one of them. Perhaps Sterne's Sentimental Journey, in its total absence of sentiment on any subject but humanity ... is the most striking instance; ... and if you compare with this negation of feeling on one side, the interludes of Molière, in which shepherds and shepherdesses are introduced in court dress, you will have a very accurate conception of the general spirit of the [Pg 54]age.[37] It was in such a state of society that the landscape of Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator Rosa attained its reputation. It is the complete expression on canvas of the spirit of the time" (Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, pp. 163-167). The reputation thus gained survived unimpaired almost into the present century, until Wordsworth in poetry and Turner in painting led the return to nature, and the modern school of landscape arose.

It is, however, the art of Constable to which direct influence must be attributed in the foundation of the modern school of landscape—paysage intime—in France (see Vol. II., pp. 93-4). Of this school, wholly unrepresented until lately in our National Gallery, a few examples—characteristic, if not very important—may now be seen in Room XVII. (see Nos. 2058, 2135, etc.).

☞ We have now concluded our survey of the Foreign Schools. The western doors in Room XVII. lead down a side staircase into the entrance Hall, and thus form an exit from the Gallery. On the staircases leading to the Hall and thence down to the basement, some foreign pictures are now placed. The visitor who wishes to see the British School should return into Room XVI. and thence proceed into the East Vestibule, where a few portraits by British masters are hung. Descending the steps and ascending those opposite, the visitor will come into the West Vestibule, which leads to the rooms of the British School—XVIII., XIX., XX., and XXI. Finally, at the east end of the Gallery, we reach Room XXII., devoted to the Turner Collection. For remarks on the British School see Volume II. From the Entrance Hall, the visitor reaches the West Basement, and by corresponding stairs on the other side the East Basement. In the Basement Rooms are collections of copies from Old Masters and the Turner Water Colours. For notes on the former, see end of this volume; for the Turners, see Volume II.

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[Pg 55]

NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES

N. B.—The pictures here described are pictures belonging to Foreign Schools only. The numerals refer to the numbers on the frames.

Pictures in the National Gallery to which, because they are deposited on loan or for other reasons, no numbers are attached, are described at the end of the Numerical Catalogue.

References to books in the following pages are, except where otherwise stated, to the works of Ruskin. Wherever possible, the references to his books are by sections and paragraphs, instead of by pages, so as to make them applicable to all the different editions. The references to Vasari are to Bohn's translation, 5 vols., 1855.

1. THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.

This large picture is generally accounted the masterpiece of Sebastiano Luciani. He was called del Piombo (lead), from his holding the office of Keeper of the Leaden Seal (see No. 20). Sebastiano was originally a painter and musician at Venice, where he studied successively under John Bellini and Giorgione. But in 1512 he was[Pg 56] invited to Rome by the famous banker Agostino Chigi. Here he fell under the influence of Michael Angelo, who employed Sebastiano to execute several of his designs, and saw in him a means, says Vasari, of outdoing Raphael. The opportunity occurred when the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici commissioned Raphael to paint the "Transfiguration" (now in the Vatican), and at the same time Sebastiano to paint this picture, on the same scale, of the Raising of Lazarus. The pictures when finished were exhibited side by side, and there were some who preferred Sebastiano's. "The picture was painted," says Vasari, "with the utmost care, under the direction, and in some parts with the design, of Michael Angelo." There are in the British Museum two original drawings by Michael Angelo which are evidently preparatory studies for the figure of Lazarus; but Sebastiano cannot have painted under his friend's direction, for Michael Angelo was at Florence at the time, and Sebastiano writes to him, "There has been some delay with my work. I have endeavoured to keep it back as long as possible, that Raphael might not see it before it is finished.... But now I do not hesitate any more. I believe I shall not, with my work, bring discredit upon you." Another masterpiece of Sebastiano has recently been added to the Gallery (1450), which also contains two of his portrait pieces (20 and 24), a branch of art in which he obtained great success; Vasari particularly notices his skill in painting the head and hands.

This famous picture is especially remarkable for its dramatic unity. It is crowded with figures, but all combine to concentrate attention on the central subject. The time chosen by the painter is after the completion of the miracle: "He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin." Jesus in the middle of the picture is uttering the words, "Loose him, and let him go;" with his right hand Jesus points to heaven, as if he said, "I have raised thee by the power of him who sent me." The three men, who have already removed the lid of the sepulchre, are fulfilling Christ's command. The grave-clothes, by which the face of Lazarus is thrown into deep shade, express the idea of the night of the grave which but just before enveloped him; and the eye looking eagerly from beneath the shade upon Christ shows the new life in its most intellectual organ. To the left, behind Christ, is St. John, answering objections raised against the credibility of the miracle. Farther off, behind this group, is one of the Pharisees, whose unbelief is combated by the man who points in evidence to the raised Lazarus. Behind Lazarus is his sister Martha, sickening now at what she most desired; behind her[Pg 57] are other women—holding their noses.[38] At the foot of Jesus is the other sister, Mary, full of faith and gratitude—

2. CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS.

Claude Gellée was the son of humble parents, and to the end he was an unlettered man. He was born in the village of Champagne, in the Vosges, Duchy of Lorraine, and thence acquired the name of Le Lorrain. Lineal descendants of Claude's brother still live in the [Pg 58]village, and the house in which he was born is now preserved as a museum of relics of the painter. He was brought up, it is said, as a pastry-cook, but he entered the household of Agostino Tassi, a Perugian landscape painter, at Rome, in the capacity of general factotum, cooking his master's meals and grinding his colours. From him Claude received his first instruction in art. Subsequently he travelled to the Tyrol and to Venice—the influence of which place may be seen in the "gentle ripples of waveless seas" in his Seaports. After working for some time at Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, he returned in October 1627 to Rome, and there settled down for the remainder of his life. The house which he inhabited may still be seen at the angle of the streets Sistina and Gregoriana. Of his life at Rome many interesting particulars are given by his friend Sandrart, a German painter, who was for some years his companion. "In order," says Sandrart, "that he might be able to study closely the innermost secrets of nature, he used to linger in the open air from before daybreak even to nightfall, so that he might learn to depict with a scrupulous adherence to nature's model the changing phases of dawn, the rising and setting sun, as well as the hours of twilight.... In this most difficult and toilsome mode of study he spent many years; making excursions into the country every day, and returning even after a long journey without finding it irksome. Sometimes I have chanced to meet him amongst the steepest cliffs at Tivoli, handling the brush before those well-known waterfalls, and painting the actual scene, not by the aid of imagination or invention, but according to the very objects which nature placed[Pg 59] before him."[39] (One of these sketches is now in the British Museum.) On one expedition to Tivoli, Claude was accompanied, we know, by Poussin, but for the most part he lived a secluded life; "he did not," says Sandrart, "in everyday life much affect the civilities of polite society." Such seclusion must partly have been necessary to enable Claude to cope with the commissions that crowded in upon him. For the Pope Urban VIII. he painted the four pictures now in the Louvre, and the three succeeding popes were all among his patrons. So was Cardinal Mazarin and the Duke of Bouillon, the Papal Commander-in-Chief, for whom amongst other pictures he painted two (12 and 14) in this Gallery. England was a great buyer of his works: nineteen were ordered from here in 1644 alone; and commissions came also from Denmark and the Low Countries. One sees the pressure of a busy man in the number of "stock" subjects which he repeated. He suffered much too from forgers, and it was partly to check the sale of fictitious Claudes that he prepared his "Liber Veritatis"—a collection of drawings of all his pictures, now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. Two hundred and seventy more of his drawings may be seen in the British Museum. For his figures, however, he was glad of outside help, and many painters put these in for him. The soft, pensive, and almost feminine charm which characterises his landscapes well agree with what we know of his life. He was passionately fond of music. To a little girl, "living with me and brought up in my house in charity," he bequeathed much of his treasures. He had received also a poor, lame lad into his house, whom he instructed in painting and music, and who rewarded him by demanding arrears of salary for "assistance." Towards his poor relations he was uniformly generous, and when Sandrart left him it was a nephew from the Vosges whom he called to keep house for him.

With regard to the characteristics of Claude's art, his general position in the history of landscape painting has been defined in the chapter on the French School, and some further points of detail are noticed under his several works. Here, however, it may be convenient to give Ruskin's summary of the matter. (1) Claude had a fine feeling for beauty of form, and is seldom ungraceful in his foliage. His tenderness of conception is especially shown in delicate aerial effects, such as no one had ever rendered before, and in some respects, no one has ever done in oil-colour since. But their character appears to rise rather from a delicacy of bodily constitution in Claude than from any mental sensibility; such as they are, they give a kind of feminine charm to his work, which partly accounts for its wide influence. To whatever their character may be traced, it renders him incapable of enjoying or painting [Pg 60]anything energetic or terrible. Thus a perfectly genuine and untouched sky of Claude is beyond praise in all qualities of air. But he was incapable of rendering great effects of space and infinity. (2) As with his skies, so too with his seas. They are the finest pieces of water painting in ancient art. But they are selections of the particular moment when the sea is most insipid and characterless. (3) He had sincerity of purpose; but in common with the other landscape painters of his day, neither earnestness, humility, nor love, such as would ever cause him to forget himself. Hence there is in his work no simple or honest record of any single truth, and his pictures, when examined with reference to essential truth, are one mass of error from beginning to end. So far as he felt the truth, he tried to be true; but he never felt it enough to sacrifice supposed propriety, or habitual method, to it. Very few of his sketches and none of his pictures show evidence of interest in other natural phenomena than the quiet afternoon sunshine which would fall methodically into a composition.[40] One would suppose he had never seen scarlet in a morning cloud, nor a storm burst on the Apennines. (4) He shows a peculiar incapacity of understanding the main point of a matter, and of men of name is the best instance of a want of imagination, nearly total, borne out by painful but untaught study of nature, and much feeling for abstract beauty of form, with none whatever for harmony of expression. (5) Yet in spite of all his deficiencies Claude effected a revolution in art. This revolution consisted in setting the sun in heaven. We will give him the credit of this with no drawbacks.[41] Till Claude's time no one had seriously thought of painting the sun but conventionally; that is so say, as a red or yellow star (often), with a face in it, under which type it was constantly represented in illumination; else it was kept out of the picture, or introduced in fragmentary distances, breaking through clouds with almost definite rays. Claude first set it in the pictorial heaven (collected from Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. §§ 3, 5, 14, sec. iii. ch. i. § 9, ch. iii. §§ 13-15, 17; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 18; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. §§ 22, 27, and Appendix i.; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. v. §§ 10, 11). This summary should show that it is a mistake to represent Ruskin as blind to the merits of Claude. He has done full justice to Claude's amenity and pensive grace; to the beauty of his skies and the skill and charm of his aerial effects. At the time when Ruskin began to write Modern Painters, Claude was still accounted the prince of all landscape [Pg 61]painters. The estimate of Claude against which Ruskin protested may be found in Goethe. "Claude Lorraine," he said, "knew the real world thoroughly, even to its smallest detail, and he made use of it to express the world contained in his own beautiful soul. He stands to nature in a double relation,—he is both her slave and her master: her slave, by the material means which he is obliged to employ to make himself understood; her master, because he subordinates these material means to a well reasoned inspiration, to which he makes them serve as instruments." And elsewhere, Goethe expresses his admiration for the depth and grasp of Claude's powers. Ruskin, in vindicating the greater sweep and depth of Turner's genius, fastened with all the emphasis of an advocate upon the weak points in Claude's artistic and intellectual armoury. By so doing he cleared the ground for a truer appreciation of Claude. As a corrective or supplement to Ruskin's adverse criticisms, the reader may be referred to Constable's enthusiastic appreciations. "I do not wonder," wrote Constable to his wife, "at you being jealous of Claude. If anything could come between our love, it is him.... The Claudes, the Claudes are all, all, I can think of here" (Leslie's Life of Constable, 1845, p. 121). Constable was writing from Sir George Beaumont's house, where several of the Claudes, now in the National Gallery, were then hanging. Constable, however, was alive to some of Claude's defects. "Claude's exhilaration and light," he wrote to Leslie, "departed from him when he was between fifty and sixty, and he then became a professor of the 'higher walks of art,' and fell in a great degree into the manner of the painters around him; so difficult is it to be natural, so easy to be superior in our own opinion. When we have the pleasure of being together at the National Gallery I think I shall not find it difficult to illustrate these remarks, as Carr has sent a large picture of the latter description" (ibid., p. 221). The picture in question is No. 6, painted in 1658.

For the story of Cephalus, who is here receiving from Procris the presents of Diana, the hound Lelaps, and the fatal dart with which she was killed, see under 698. As for the landscape, Mr. Ruskin cites this picture as an instance of the "childishness and incompetence" of Claude's foregrounds.

"I will not," he writes, "say anything of the agreeable composition of the three banks, rising one behind another from the water, except only that it amounts to a demonstration that all three were painted in the artist's study, without any reference to nature whatever. In fact, there is quite enough intrinsic evidence in each of them to prove this, seeing that what appears to be meant for vegetation upon them amounts to nothing more than a green stain on their surfaces, the more evidently false because the leaves of the trees twenty yards farther off are all perfectly visible and distinct; and that the sharp lines with[Pg 62] which each cuts against that beyond it are not only such as crumbling earth could never show or assume, but are maintained through their whole progress ungraduated, unchanging, and unaffected by any of the circumstances of varying shade to which every one of nature's lines is inevitably subjected. In fact the whole arrangement is the impotent struggle of a tyro to express by successive edges that approach of earth which he finds himself incapable of expressing by the drawing of the surface. Claude wished to make you understand that the edge of his pond came nearer and nearer; he had probably often tried to do this with an unbroken bank, or a bank only varied by the delicate and harmonious anatomy of nature: and he had found that owing to his total ignorance of the laws of perspective such efforts on his part invariably ended in his reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and making it look perpendicular. Much comfort and solace of mind in such unpleasant circumstances may be derived from instantly dividing the obnoxious bank into a number of successive promontories, and developing their edges with completeness and intensity" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iv. ch. iv. §§ 17, 18).

3. A CONCERT.

The young man in the red velvet cap plays on the violoncello; the other on the oboe, of which only the reed is visible. The other three are vocalists. The master is keeping time, and is intent on the boy pupil. The young girl, with her hand on her husband's shoulder, is waiting to chime in, and looks far away the while to where the music takes her. "In Titian's portraits you always see the soul,—faces 'which pale passion loves.' Look at the Music-piece by Titian—it is 'all ear,'—the expression is evanescent as the sounds—the features are seen in a sort of dim chiaroscuro, as if the confused impressions of another sense intervened—and you might easily suppose some of the performers to have been engaged the night before in

[Pg 63]

Perhaps it is indeed a travelling party of musicians practising for a serenade. Certainly one thinks of this picture as one reads of a supper party at Titian's house. "Before the tables were set out, we spent the time in looking at the lifelike figures in the excellent paintings of which the house was full, and in discussing the real beauty and charm of the garden, which was a pleasure and a wonder to every one. It is situated in the extreme part of Venice upon the sea, and from it may be seen the pretty little island of Murano, and other beautiful places. This part of the sea, as soon as the sun went down, swarmed with gondolas adorned with beautiful women, and resounded with varied harmonies—the music of voices and instruments till midnight" (Priscianese, describing a visit to Titian in 1540: cited in Heath's Titian, "Great Artists" series, p. 53).

4. A HOLY FAMILY.

Tiziano Vecellio—"il divino Tiziano," as his countrymen called him—is one of the greatest names in the history of painting: "There is a strange undercurrent of everlasting murmur about his name, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they" (Two Paths, § 57). Titian's works "are not art," said one of his contemporaries, "but miracles; they make upon me the impression of something divine, and as heaven is the soul's paradise, so God has transfused into Titian's colours the paradise of our bodies." It is not easy, however, to point out the special characteristics of Titian, for it is his glory to offer nothing over-prominent and to keep "in all things the middle path of perfection." Titian's mind was "wholly realist, universal, and manly. He saw that sensual passion in man was not only a fact, but a Divine fact; the human creature, though the highest of the animals, was, nevertheless, a perfect animal, and his happiness, health, and nobleness depended on the due power of every animal passion, as well as the cultivation of every spiritual tendency" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 30). As a youth Titian worked under the influence of Giorgione, of whom (says Vasari), "they who were excellent confessed that he was born to put the breath of life into painted figures and to imitate the elasticity and colour of flesh." The so-called "Sacred and Profane Love" of Titian marks the culmination of his "Giorgionesque" style, in which sensuous delight and spiritual yearning are mixed in subtle harmony. The "Bacchus and Ariadne" of our own Gallery belongs to a somewhat later date, and is a combination of poetry and painting almost unique in the[Pg 64] world of art. "One object," says Sir Frederick Burton,[42] "Titian kept steadily before him from the beginning—the rendering of the lustre of the skin in its warmth, its pearliness, and its light, such as it is found in the European races, and nowhere perhaps in such perfection as in the blended northern and southern blood of Venetia. He presents to us humanity in its noblest and most beautiful forms, and so profoundly had he studied it that the ideal personages introduced in his pictures have an intense individuality. Naturally, therefore, he stands supreme amongst the great portrait-painters. In the department of landscape he was, if not the first to perceive, at least the first to render, nature in her sublimer aspects. When dealing with classical themes he thoroughly translated the spirit, without idly imitating the forms, of antiquity." And as the range of his intellectual sympathy was wide, so was that of his executive skill. He is, indeed, especially supreme as a colourist; but for the rest, the very greatness of the master lies in there being no one quality predominant in him. Raphael's power is properly called "Raphaelesque," but "Titian's power is simply the power of doing right. Whatever came before Titian, he did wholly as it ought to be done" (Two Paths, §§ 57, 58, 69).

This universality of Titian's art is reflected in his life—a life prolonged far beyond the ordinary human spell, and full to the end of "superhuman toil." He was sent from his country home at Cadore to Venice to begin his studies when quite a boy: he was only nine, it is said, when he entered Gentile Bellini's studio. He lived to be ninety-nine, and his life was one long education. He was nearly threescore years and ten when he visited Rome and saw Michael Angelo, but he "had greatly improved," he said in later years, "after he had been at Rome." He painted until his dying hour, and is said to have exclaimed at the last that he was "only then beginning to understand what painting was." This continual striving after perfection, this consciousness of falling short, is in striking contrast to the honour and glory paid to him by others. He was painter in ordinary to the Venetian State (a post in which he succeeded Giovanni Bellini). He was an honoured guest at the court of Alphonso I., Duke of Ferrara, for whom he painted the "Bacchus and Ariadne" (35). To the Emperor Charles V. he "stood as Apelles to Alexander the Great, the only man worthy to paint his royal master," and he was made Count Palatine and Knight of the Golden Spur, with precedence for his children as nobles of the Empire. The emperor's son, Philip II. (of Spain), was an equally generous patron; the Pope Paul III. tried hard to induce Titian to settle in Rome; and Henry III. of France, [Pg 65]who visited him at his own house, wished the picture on which the painter was then at work to be placed over his tomb. In his house at Venice Titian lived in great style, attracting kings and nobles and men of letters to him. There is all the keenness of a city of merchants in Titian's business relations, and many of the extant documents about him are petitions for further favours and for arrears of pensions. But if he gathered like a beggar, he spent like a prince. There is a story of two cardinals coming to dine at his house. He flung his purse to the steward, and bade him make ready, for "all the world was coming to dine with him." Certain too it is that if he knocked too much at the doors of princes, it was for the sake of his children rather than of himself. At the loss of his wife (when he was fifty-seven) he was "utterly disconsolate," says the letter of a friend. His sister Orsa afterwards kept house for him—"sister, daughter, mother, companion, and steward of his household," so Aretino described her; and it was his daughter Lavinia whom he oftenest loved to paint. She was "the person dearest to him in all the world," and many years after she had died (1560) in childbirth, he described her to Philip II. as "absolute mistress of his soul." A less pleasant light is thrown upon the great painter by his friendship and close association with the infamous Aretino. This curious product of the Renaissance came to Venice in 1527, and with Titian and Jacopo del Sansovino formed "the so-called Triumvirate, which was a kind of Council of Three, having as its raison d'être the mutual furtherance of material interests, and the pursuit of art, love, and pleasure." To Titian's association with Aretino some critics have ascribed the stronger vein of sensuality which is discernible in some of his later works. To the extreme limit, however, of his long life his hand never lost its cunning, nor was the force of imagination abated. He was carried off by the plague, and received even in that time of panic the honour of solemn obsequies in the church of the Frari—"the man as highly favoured," says Vasari, "by fortune as any of his kind had ever been before him." His house at Venice is still shown. It looks across the lagoons to the distant mountains of his early home.

One of the pictures which mark the advance made by Titian in the art of landscape. Look at the background of some earlier Holy Family—at the "purist" landscape, for instance, of Perugino (288),—and the change will be seen at once—a change from the conventional or ideal to the real and the actual. Titian was one of the first to "relieve the foreground of his landscapes from the grotesque, quaint, and crowded formalism of the early painters, and give a close approximation to the forms of nature in all things; retaining, however, this much of the old system, that the distances were for the most part painted in deep ultramarine blue, the foregrounds in[Pg 66] rich green and brown" (Lectures on Architecture and Painting, p. 158). In particular he was the first[43] to "apprehend the subduing pathos that comes with eventide" (see Gilbert's Cadore or Titian's Country, p. 33). Titian, says Ruskin (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ii. § 1, ch. vii. § 15), "hardly ever paints sunshine, but a certain opalescent twilight which has as much of human emotion as of imitative truth in it:

5. A SEAPORT AT SUNSET.

An instance of false tone (cf. under Cuyp, No. 53). "Many even of the best pictures of Claude must be looked close into to be felt, and lose light every foot that we retire. The smallest of the three Seaports in the National Gallery is valuable and right in tone when we are close to it, but ten yards off it is all brick-dust, offensively and evidently false in its whole hue." Contrast "the perfect and unchanging influence of Turner's picture at any distance. We approach only to follow the sunshine into every cranny of the leafage, and retire only to feel it diffused over the scene, the whole picture glowing like a sun or star at whatever distance we stand, and lighting the air between us and it" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 20).

6. DAVID AT THE CAVE OF ADULLAM.[44]

David, in front of the cave, "longed and said, 'Oh that one would give me to drink of the water of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!' And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines (seen in the valley), and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and [Pg 67]brought it to David" (2 Samuel xxiii. 15, 16). With regard to the landscape, the picture is a good instance at once of Claude's strength and weakness. Thus "the central group of trees is a very noble piece of painting" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iv. ch. ii. § 8). On the other hand the rocks, both in the left corner and in the right, are highly absurd. "The Claudesque landscape is not, as so commonly supposed, an idealised abstract of the nature about Rome. It is an ultimate condition of the Florentine conventional landscape, more or less softened by reference to nature" (ibid., vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 27). So, too, "the brown foreground and rocks are as false as colour can be: first, because there never was such a brown sunlight, for even the sand and cinders (volcanic tufa) about Naples, granting that he had studied from these ugliest of all formations, are, where they are fresh fractured, golden and lustrous in full light, compared to these ideals of crags, and become, like all other rocks, quiet and gray when weathered; and secondly, because no rock that ever nature stained is without its countless breaking tints of varied vegetation" (ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 16).

7, 37. GROUPS OF HEADS.

Copies by Annibale Carracci from Correggio's compositions in the church of S. Giovanni at Parma (Layard's edition of Kugler's Italian School of Painting, ii. 631). These pictures have had an eventful history, and been connected with the fortunes of many sovereigns. They came to the National Gallery from Mr. Angerstein, who bought them from the Orleans collection. They had formerly been in the possession of Queen Christina, having been carried off to Sweden as part of the plunder of Prague when that city was captured by the Swedes in 1648. The pictures collected there by the Emperor Rudolph II. were removed to Stockholm.

8. A DREAM OF HUMAN LIFE.

The naked figure, typical of the human race, and reclining against a slippery globe,—with the world, we may say, before him,—is awakening, at the sound of a trumpet from above[Pg 68] from the dream of life to the lasting realities of eternity. It may be the sound of the "last trump" or the call to a "new life" that comes before. Behind his seat are several masks, illustrating the insincerity or duplicity of a world in which "all is vanity"; and around him are visions of the tempting and transitory hopes, fears, and vices of humanity. On the right sits a helmed warrior, moody and discomfited; his arms hang listlessly and his face is unseen—hidden perhaps from the cruelty of War. Above him are battling figures—emblematic of Strife and Contention. A little detached from this group is a son dragging down his parent by the beard—"bringing his grey hair with sorrow to the grave." On the other side sits Jealousy, gnawing a heart; and above are the sordid hands of Avarice clutching a bag of gold. On the left hand Lust and Sorrow are conspicuous; Intemperance raises a huge bottle to his lips; and Gluttony turns a spit (see Landseer's Catalogue of the National Gallery, 1834, p. 41). Thus all around the figure of Human Life there wait—

9. "LORD, WHITHER GOEST THOU?"

Annibale, younger brother of Agostino and cousin of Lodovico Carracci, was one of the three masters of the Eclectic School at Bologna, the characteristics of which have been discussed in the chapter on the Later Italian Schools. Annibale, the most distinguished of the family as a painter, was the son of a tailor and was intended for his father's business. He went off, however, to his cousin Lodovico, with whom he devoted himself to art. In 1580 he visited Parma, where he spent three years in studying the works of Correggio. The copies noticed above (7 and 37) were perhaps made at this time.[Pg 69] Annibale afterwards studied in Venice. In 1589 the school of the Carracci was started at Bologna. They called it the Incamminati, or, as we might say, "The Right Road." In 1600 Annibale was invited to Rome by the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese to decorate his palace. Here, we are told, "he was received and treated as a gentleman, and was granted the usual table allowance of a courtier." He was assisted in the Farnese frescoes by Lanfranco, by Domenichino (then a young man), and by his brother Agostino, of whom, however, he was very jealous (see under 147). He died in 1609, and was buried near Raphael in the Pantheon. The frescoes of the Carracci in the Farnese palace were preferred by Poussin to all the works in Rome after those of Raphael, and they undoubtedly possess many technical merits. The subject-pictures by Annibale in our Gallery will fail greatly to please; they are academical and unindividual, and are deficient in true enthusiasm. Annibale was one of the first to practise landscape-painting as a separate department of art. In this field the influence of the Netherlands and of Venice may be seen united in Carracci's pictures, which in their turn laid the foundation for Poussin and Claude. In our Gallery Annibale is seen at his best in the two poetic subjects painted for a harpsichord (93 and 94); these are both graceful and spirited.

The Apostle Peter, according to a Roman tradition, being terrified at the danger which threatened him in Rome, betook himself to flight. On the Via Appia our Saviour appeared to him bearing his cross. To Peter's question: Domine quo vadis? ("Lord, whither goest Thou?") Christ replied, "To Rome, to suffer again crucifixion." Upon which the apostle retraced his steps, and received the crown of martyrdom. So much for the subject. As for its treatment, the note of almost comic exaggeration in St. Peter's attitude will not fail to strike the spectator; and "there is this objection to be made to the landscape, that, though the day is breaking over the distant hills and pediment on the right hand, there must be another sun somewhere out of the picture on the left hand, since the cast shadows from St. Peter and the Saviour fall directly to the right" (Landseer's Catalogue, p. 193).

10. THE EDUCATION OF CUPID.

Antonio Allegri—called Il Correggio from his birthplace, a small town near Modena—is one of the most distinctive of the old masters. What is it that constitutes what Carlyle (following Sterne) calls the[Pg 70] "Correggiosity of Correggio"? It is at once a way peculiar to him amongst artists, of looking at the world, and an excellence, peculiar to him also, in his methods of painting. Correggio "looked at the world in a single mood of sensuous joy," as a place in which everything is full of happy life and soft pleasure. The characteristics of his style are "sidelong grace," and an all-pervading sweetness. The method, peculiar to him, by which he realised this way of looking at things on canvas, is the subtle gradation of colours,—a point, it is interesting to note, in which of all modern masters Leighton most nearly resembles him (Art of England, p. 98). "Correggio is," says Ruskin, "the captain of the painter's art as such. Other men have nobler or more numerous gifts, but as a painter, master of the art of laying colour so as to be lovely, Correggio is alone" (Oxford Lectures on Art, § 177). The circumstances of Correggio's life go far to explain the individuality of his style. He was the son of a modest, peaceful burgher, and Correggio and Parma, where he spent his life, were towns removed from the greater intellectual excitements and political revolutions of his time. Ignorant of society, unpatronised by Popes or great Princes, his mind was touched by no deep passion other than love for his art, and "like a poet hidden in the light of thought," he worked out for himself the ideals of grace and movement which live in his pictures (see Symonds, Renaissance, iii. 248). Of the details of his life little is known. His earliest works, as Morelli first demonstrated, reveal the influence of the Ferrarese masters, nor was he untouched by the creations of Mantegna at Mantua, where he studied for two or three years. In 1514, in his twentieth year, he was entrusted with an important commission by the Minorite Friars of Correggio. The Court of Correggio was then a centre of refinement and culture, under the rule of Giberto and his wife Veronica, who was one of the most accomplished women of the day, and greatly admired "our Antonio," as she called the painter. In 1518 Correggio left his native city for Parma, which was to become for ever associated with his name. "There is little reason," says his latest biographer, "to lament that he never visited Rome or any other great city. Parma, rising in smiling tranquillity upon her fertile plains, girdled by castles and villages, and looking out upon the vaporous line of hills from which the streams which give her water descend into the champaign, offered our painter not only the serenity that suited his temperament, but a vaster field of activity than had ever been allotted to any artist. There were altar-pieces to be painted, rooms to be decorated; and the joyous fancies of his genius were to be allowed ample scope in the decoration of two stately cupolas" (Ricci). He was first employed by the Abbess of the Convent of S. Paolo to paint her principal chamber. It is characteristic of the time that the subjects selected were from pagan mythology. Afterwards Correggio was commissioned to cover with frescoes the cupolas of the Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista, and of the cathedral. In these compositions, Correggio "carries the foreshortening of the figures to a point which, while it displays the daring of the artist, too often transcends the limits[Pg 71] of grace." Seen from below, little of the figures is sometimes distinguishable except legs and arms in vehement commotion. When one of the frescoes in the cathedral was first uncovered, a canon is said to have remarked that it looked to him like a "fricassee of frogs." But many of the angels' heads in Correggio's frescoes are exquisitely beautiful. It is only in Parma that Correggio's power can be fully appreciated. His charm is to be found rather in his oil-paintings, and in these the National Gallery possesses some acknowledged masterpieces. In 1530 Correggio lost his wife, and returned to his native town. "Although by nature good and well-disposed, he nevertheless," says Vasari, "grieved more than was reasonable under the burden of those passions which are common to all men. He was very melancholic in the exercise of his art, and felt its fatigues greatly." His life was but little longer than that of Raphael, for he died in his forty-first year. The stories of his poverty given in many biographies appear to be ill-founded. He was in constant employment; he was treated as a person of consideration, and received good remuneration; and the Governor of Parma wrote to the Duke of Mantua on the painter's death, "I hear he has made comfortable provision for his heirs." His fame was great, and has been enduring; but his influence upon later art was not fortunate. "His successors, attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, threw themselves blindly into the imitation of Correggio's faults.... Cupolas through the length and breadth of Italy began to be covered with clouds and simpering cherubs in the convulsions of artificial ecstasy. The attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the attitudinising of Anselmi's saints and angels, and a general sacrifice of what is solid and enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of all painters who had submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how easy it was to go astray with the great master. Meanwhile, no one could approach him in that which was truly his own—the delineation of a transient moment in the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a smile on Nature's face, when light and colour tremble in harmony with the movement of joyous living creatures" (Symonds: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, ii. 158).

One of the most celebrated works in the Gallery—"the two pictures which I would last part with out of it," Ruskin once said, "would be Titian's Bacchus and Correggio's Venus." It is a great picture first because it is true to nature. "Look at the foot of Venus. Correggio made it as like a foot as he could, and you won't easily find anything liker.... Great civilised art is always the representation, to the utmost of its power, of whatever it has got to show—made to look as like the thing as possible" (Queen of the Air, § 163). Notice, too, the roundness of effect produced in the limbs by the gradation of full colours, the reflected lights, and the trans[Pg 72]parent shadows. The "chiaroscuro" is so clever that you can look through the shadows into the substance.

As for the subject of the picture, Mercury, the messenger of the gods (dressed therefore in his winged cap and sandals), is endeavouring to teach Cupid (Love) his letters, of which, according to the Greek story, Mercury was the inventor. Venus, the Goddess of Beauty and the Mother of Love, looks out to the spectator with a winning smile of self-complacent loveliness and points us to the child. She has taken charge meanwhile of Cupid's bow (from which he shoots his arrows into lovers' hearts), and is herself represented (as sometimes in classical gems) with wings, for Beauty has wings to fly away as well as Time and Love. The picture is sometimes called the Education of Cupid, but Love learns through the heart and not through the head, and "if you look at this most perfect picture wisely, you will see that it really ought to be called 'Mercury trying, and failing, to teach Cupid to read,' for indeed from the beginning and to the end of time, Love reads without letters, and counts without arithmetic" (Fors Clavigera, viii. 238).

This famous picture has had a strange, eventful history. It was painted in 1521 or 1522, and a century later it was still in the Ducal Gallery at Mantua. In 1625 Charles I. of England despatched his music master, Nicholas Laniere, to Italy to buy pictures for him. Laniere communicated with a picture-dealer named Nys, who purchased several works from the Mantuan gallery. When the transaction became known, the citizens took it so ill that the Duke would have paid double the money to be rid of the bargain. But Nys would not relent, and the picture was included in the artistic freight which the ship Margaret took to London in 1628. On its arrival, our picture was hung in the king's private apartments in Whitehall. When he was beheaded, and his collection sold, the Correggio was bought for £40 by the Duke of Alva, and taken to Spain. It afterwards passed through several collections, and ultimately into that of Murat, King of Naples. Upon his fall from power his wife took it with her when she escaped to Vienna. During the congress of sovereigns in 1822 her chamberlain communicated with the ministers of all the Powers, with a view to the sale of this and another Correggio (15). Russia was negotiating for the purchase of them when Lord Londonderry, hearing by mere accident of the[Pg 73] affair, went to the chamberlain, paid the larger price against which Russia was holding out, and despatched his courier post haste to Vienna to convey the treasures to England. An attempt was made to stop him, but they reached this country almost before the Russians had heard of the purchase.[45] The picture has not come unscathed out of these changes and chances. "Repairs," says Sir Edward Poynter, "are visible in many places. Injudicious cleaning has done even more injury; and it has undoubtedly been deprived of much of that final delicate surface-painting which, in the hands of a great master, does so much to unite a picture into one harmonious whole. It remains, nevertheless, one of the most distinguished works in the collection" (The National Gallery, i. 4).

11. ST. JEROME.

Guido was a native of Bologna, the son of a musician, and first studied under Dionysius Calvaert, a Flemish artist established in that city. Guido afterwards removed to the school of the Carracci, and became one of their most celebrated pupils. For twenty years he worked in Rome, where he obtained great distinction. He left Rome abruptly, owing to a dispute with one of the Cardinals, and settled in Bologna, where he lived in splendour and established a school. "As a child he was very beautiful, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion. He was specially characterised by devotion to the Madonna. On every Christmas-eve, for seven successive years, ghostly knockings were heard upon his chamber door; and every night, when he awoke from sleep, the darkness above his bed was illuminated by a mysterious globe of light. In after life, besides being piously addicted to Madonna-worship, he had a great dread of women in general and witches in particular. He was always careful, it is said, to leave his studio door open while drawing from a woman" (Symonds's Renaissance, vii. 215). To the temperament thus indicated we may trace the half-effeminate, half-spiritual character of some [Pg 74]of his works—the "few pale rays of fading sanctity," which Ruskin sees in him (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iv. § 4). In later life his effeminate eccentricity amounted to insanity, and he gave himself wholly up to the gaming table. To extricate himself from money troubles he sold his time, says his biographer, at a stipulated sum per hour, to certain dealers, one of whom tasked him so rigidly as to stand by him, watch in hand, while he worked. How different from the honourable terms on which the earlier masters worked! How easy to understand the number of bad Guidos in the world! His biographer, Malvasia, relates that Guido's works were sometimes begun and finished in three hours. His earlier works were in the robust and forcible style of Caravaggio (see No. 172). Afterwards he aimed rather at ideal grace. Both styles are represented in the National Gallery; the "Magdalen" (177), the "Youthful Christ embracing St. John" (191), and the "Ecce Homo" (271), have all been much admired for their sentiment or sentimentality. The head of St. John is a work of undoubted grace. But Guido's best work is the Aurora of the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome.

For the story of St. Jerome, see under 227.

12. ISAAC AND REBECCA, OR "THE MILL."[46]

This and the Claude on the other side of the door (14) are of peculiar interest as being the two which Turner selected for "the noble passage of arms to which he challenged his rival from the grave." He left two of his own pictures (479 and 498) to the nation on the express condition that they should always hang side by side—as they are hanging to-day—with these two by Claude.[47] To discuss fully the comparative merits [Pg 75]of the pictures would be beyond the scope of this handbook; the whole of the first volume of Modern Painters was written to establish the superiority of Turner. We can only select a few leading points.

"The greatest picture is that which conveys the greatest number of the greatest ideas." Take first what Ruskin calls "ideas of relation," by which he means "the perception of intellectual relations, including everything productive of expression, sentiment, character." Now from this point of view this picture is a particularly clear instance of Claude's "inability to see the main point in a matter" or to present any harmonious conception:—

"The foreground is a piece of very lovely and perfect forest scenery, with a dance of peasants by a brook side; quite enough subject to form, in the hands of a master, an impressive and complete picture. On the other side of the brook, however, we have a piece of pastoral life; a man with some bulls and goats tumbling headforemost into the water, owing to some sudden paralytic affection of all their legs. Even this group is one too many; the shepherd had no business to drive his flock so near the dancers, and the dancers will certainly frighten the cattle. But when we look farther into the picture, our feelings receive a sudden and violent shock, by the unexpected appearance, amidst things pastoral and musical, of the military; a number of Roman soldiers riding in on hobby-horses, with a leader on foot, apparently encouraging them to make an immediate and decisive charge on the musicians. Beyond the soldiers is a circular temple, in exceedingly bad repair; and close beside it, built against its very walls, a neat watermill in full work. By the mills flows a large river with a weir all across it. The weir has not been made for the mill (for that[Pg 76] receives its water from the hills by a trough carried over the temple), but it is particularly ugly and monotonous in its line of fall, and the water below forms a dead-looking pond, on which some people are fishing in punts. The banks of this river resemble in contour the later geological formations around London, constituted chiefly of broken pots and oyster-shells. At an inconvenient distance from the waterside stands a city, composed of twenty-five round towers and a pyramid. Beyond the city is a handsome bridge; beyond the bridge, part of the Campagna, with fragments of aqueducts; beyond the Campagna the chain of the Alps; on the left, the cascades of Tivoli. This is, I believe, a fair example of what is commonly called an 'ideal' landscape; i.e. a group of the artist's studies from Nature, individually spoiled, selected with such opposition of character as may ensure their neutralising each other's effect, and united with sufficient unnaturalness and violence of association to ensure their producing a general sensation of the impossible. Let us analyse the separate subjects a little in this ideal work of Claude's. Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light.... A dull purple poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests, like dying fire on defiled altars. The blue ridge of the Alban Mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, passing from a nation's grave. Let us, with Claude, make a few 'ideal' alterations in this landscape. First, we will reduce the multitudinous precipices of the Apennines to four sugar loaves. Secondly, we will remove the Alban Mount, and put a large dust-heap in its stead. Next we will knock down the greater part of the aqueducts, and leave only an arch or two, that their infinity of length may no longer be painful from its monotony. For the purple mist and declining sun, we will substitute a bright blue sky, with round white clouds. Finally, we will get rid of the unpleasant ruins in the foreground; we will plant some handsome trees therein, we will send for some fiddlers, and get up a dance, and a picnic party. It will be found, throughout the picture, that the same species of improvement is made on the materials which Claude had ready to his hand. The descending slopes of the city of Rome, towards the pyramid of Caius Cestius, supply not only lines of the most exquisite variety and beauty, but matter for contemplation and reflection in every fragment of their buildings. This passage has been idealised by Claude into a set of similar round towers, respecting which no idea can be formed but that they are uninhabitable, and to which no interest can be attached beyond the difficulty of conjecturing what they could have been built for. The ruins of the temple are rendered unimpressive by the juxtaposition of the watermill, and inexplicable by the introduction of the Roman soldiers. The glide[Pg 77] of the muddy streams of the melancholy Tiber and Anio through the Campagna is impressive in itself, but altogether ceases to be so when we disturb their stillness of motion by a weir, adorn their neglected flow with a handsome bridge, and cover their solitary surface with punts, nets, and fishermen" (Modern Painters, vol i., preface to second edition, pp. xxxvi.-xxxix.)

Take next the "ideas of truth" in the picture—the perception, that is to say, of faithfulness in a statement of facts by the thing produced. And first (1) for truth of colour. "Can it be seriously supposed that those murky browns and melancholy greens are representative of the tints of leaves under full noonday sun? I know that you cannot help looking upon all these pictures as pieces of dark relief against a light wholly proceeding from the distances; but they are nothing of the kind, they are noon and morning effects with full lateral light. Be so kind as to match the colour of a leaf in the sun (the darkest you like) as nearly as you can, and bring your matched colour and set it beside one of these groups of trees, and take a blade of common grass, and set it beside any part of the fullest light of their foregrounds, and then talk about the truth of colour of the old masters!" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 5). (2) Next for truth of chiaroscuro. Claude neglects that distinctness of shadow which is the chief means of expressing vividness of light. Thus "the trunks of the trees between the water-wheel and the white figure of the middle distance, are dark and visible; but their shadows are scarcely discernible on the ground, and are quite vague and lost in the building. In nature, every bit of the shadow, both on the ground and building, would have been defined and conspicuous; while the trunks themselves would have been faint, confused, and indistinguishable, in their illumined parts,[48] from the grass or distance" (ibid., ch. iii. § 4). (3) Thirdly, for truth of space. In nature everything is indistinct, but nothing vacant. But look at the city on the right bank of the river:—

"I have seen many cities in my life, and drawn not a few; and I have seen many fortifications, fancy ones included, which frequently [Pg 78]supply us with very new ideas indeed, especially in matters of proportion; but I do not remember ever having met with either a city or a fortress entirely composed of round towers of various heights and sizes, all facsimiles of each other, and absolutely agreeing in the number of battlements. I have, indeed, some faint recollection of having delineated such a one in the first page of a spelling book when I was four years old; but, somehow or other, the dignity and perfection of the ideal were not appreciated, and the volume was not considered to be increased in value by the frontispiece. Without, however, venturing to doubt the entire sublimity of the same ideal as it occurs in Claude, let us consider how nature, if she had been fortunate enough to originate so perfect a conception, would have managed it in its details. Claude has permitted us to see every battlement, and the first impulse we feel upon looking at the picture is to count how many there are. Nature would have given us a peculiar confused roughness of the upper lines, a multitude of intersections and spots, which we should have known from experience was indicative of battlements, but which we might as well have thought of creating as of counting. Claude has given you the walls below in one dead void of uniform gray. There is nothing to be seen or felt, or guessed at in it; it is gray paint or gray shade, whichever you may choose to call it, but it is nothing more. Nature would have let you see, nay, would have compelled you to see, thousands of spots or lines, not one to be absolutely understood or accounted for, but yet all characteristic and different from each other; breaking lights on shattered stones, vague shadows from waving vegetation, irregular stains of time and weather, mouldering hollows, sparkling casements: all would have been there; none indeed seen as such, none comprehensible or like themselves, but all visible; little shadows and sparkles, and scratches, making that whole space of colour a transparent, palpitating, various infinity"[49] (ibid., ch. v. § 7).

(4) Lastly, the picture entirely ignores truth of mountains. And this in two ways. First, there is a total want of magnitude and aerial distance:—

"In the distance is something white, which I believe must be intended for a snowy mountain, because I do not see that it can well be intended for anything else. Now no mountain of elevation sufficient to be sheeted with perpetual snow can by any possibility sink so low on the horizon as this something of Claude's, unless it be at a distance of from fifty to seventy miles. At such distances ... the mountains rise from the horizon like transparent films, only distinguishable from mist by their excessively keen edges and their brilliant flashes of sudden light; they are as unsubstantial as the air itself, and impress their enormous size by means of this aerial-ness, [Pg 79]in a far greater degree at these vast distances, than even when towering above the spectator's head.[50] Now, I ask of the candid observer if there be the smallest vestige of an effort to attain, if there be the most miserable, the most contemptible, shadow of attainment of such an effect by Claude? Does that white thing on the horizon look seventy miles off? Is it faint or fading, or to be looked for by the eye before it can be found out? Does it look high? Does it look large? Does it look impressive? You cannot but feel that there is not a vestige of any kind or species of truth in that horizon; and that however artistical it may be, as giving brilliancy to the distance (though as far as I have any feeling in the matter it only gives coldness), it is, in the very branch of art on which Claude's reputation chiefly rests, aerial perspective, hurling defiance to nature in her very teeth. But there are worse failures in this unlucky distance.... No mountain was ever raised to the level of perpetual snow without an infinite multiplicity of form. Its foundation is built of a hundred minor mountains, and from these, great buttresses run in converging ridges to the central peak.... Consequently, in distant effect, when chains of such peaks are visible at once, the multiplicity of form is absolutely oceanic; and though it is possible in near scenes to find vast and simple masses composed of lines which run unbroken for a thousand feet or more, it is physically impossible when these masses are thrown seventy miles back to have simple outlines, for then these large features become mere jags and hillocks, and are heaped and huddled together in endless confusion.... Hence these mountains of Claude having no indication of the steep vertical summits which are characteristic of the central ridges, having soft edges instead of decisive ones, simple forms instead of varied and broken ones, and being painted with a crude raw white, having no transparency, nor filminess, nor air in it, instead of rising in the opalescent mystery which invariably characterises the distant snows, have the forms and the colours of heaps of chalk in a limekiln, not of Alps" (ibid., sec. iv. ch. ii. §§ 8, 9).

13. THE HOLY FAMILY.

Bartolomé Estéban Murillo, the most widely popular of the Spanish painters, was himself sprung from the "people." He was born of humble parents in Seville, and his earliest attempts at art were pictures for fairs. He is also believed to have supplied some of the [Pg 80]Madonnas which were shipped off by loads for the convents in Mexico[51] and Peru. A turning-point in his artistic career came, however, when a certain Pedro de Moya came into the studio of Murillo's uncle, Castillo. De Moya had been studying under Van Dyck in London. Van Dyck's style was a revelation to Murillo, who determined forthwith to start off on the grand tour. First, however, he went to Madrid, where Velazquez helped him greatly. His studies there were so successful, and his popularity became so great, that the foreign journey was abandoned. He married a lady of fortune, his house became a centre of taste and fashion, commissions poured in upon him, and in 1660 he formed the Academy of Seville. His life was as pious as it was busy. He was often seen praying for long hours in his parish church, and in his last illness (which was brought on by his falling, in a fit of absence of mind, from a scaffold) he was carried every day to pray before Pedro Campaña's "Descent from the Cross." "I wait here," he said to the sacristan who asked one day if he were ready to go, "till the pious servants of our Lord have taken him down."

Murillo was thus one of the last sincerely religious painters—a class which, "after a few pale rays of fading sanctity from Guido, and brown gleams of gipsy Madonnahood from Murillo, came utterly to an end" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iv. § 4). But it was "gipsy Madonnahood": there is an entire want of elevation in his religious types, and the peasants whom he painted as beggars or flower-girls he painted also as angels or Virgins. This mingling of the common with the religious alike in subject and treatment was no doubt a principal reason of his great popularity in his own country.[52] His vulgarity of treatment in his favourite beggar subjects is best seen in the Dulwich Gallery; of his religious style, the pictures here are characteristic examples. There is a certain "sweetness" and sentimentality about them which often makes them immensely popular. The French in particular are subject to a furore for Murillo, his "Immaculate Conception," now in the Louvre, having been bought in 1852 for £23,440—the largest sum ever given up to that time for a single picture.[53][Pg 81] With children, too, Murillo is nearly always a great favourite. A maturer taste, however, finds the sentiment of Murillo overcharged, and the sweetness of expression an insufficient substitute for elevation of character. "His drawing," says Ruskin, "is free and not ungraceful, but most imperfect and slurred to give a melting quality of colour. That colour is agreeable because it has no force or severity; but it is morbid, sunless, and untrue. His expression is sweet, but shallow; his models amiable, but vulgar and mindless; his chiaroscuro commonplace, opaque, and conventional; and yet all this is so agreeably combined, and animated by a species of wax-work life, that it is sure to catch everybody who has not either very high feeling or strong love of truth, and to keep them from obtaining either" (Letter to Dean Liddell, given in the Memoir by H. L. Thompson, p, 224.)[54] "Murillo," says a more appreciative critic, "who assimilated least of foreign elements, had become the most international of all Spanish painters; for he possessed the art of winning the favour of all, the gift of a language intelligible to all times and peoples, to all classes and even to aliens of his faith" (Justi: Velazquez and his Times, p. 236). One charm his pictures have which no criticism is likely to take away: they are all stamped with the artist's individuality; there is never any mistaking a Murillo.

This picture—known as the Pedroso Murillo, from the Pedroso family, in whose possession it remained until 1810—is one of the painter's last works, painted when he was about sixty. The look of childlike innocence in the head of the young Christ is very attractive, although the attitude is undeniably "stagey." The heads of the Virgin and St. Joseph also are good instances of Murillo's plan of "supplying the place of intrinsic elevation by a dramatic exhibition of sentiment" (W. B. Scott). The picture is characteristic of what is known as Murillo's third, or vaporoso, manner. His first manner is called frio, or cold; his second warm, or calido, [Pg 82]and the third, from its melting softness, vaporoso. The first style is generally spoken of as lasting up to 1648, the second up to 1656, but he did not so much paint in these different manners at different times as adapt them to the different subjects severally in hand.

14. SEAPORT: THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.

This seaport—inscribed in the right corner La Reine de Saba va trouver Salamon,—is one of Claude's masterpieces. Like its companion, the picture was painted in 1648 for the Duke of Bouillon. "The spectator," says Sir Edward Poynter, "may almost imagine that he feels the freshness of the early morning, and the breeze which sends the crisp waves rolling in from the open sea, while the limpid purity of the sunlit atmosphere and the sparkle of the sun on the water, not only invite sympathy with the more exquisite aspects of nature, which is, perhaps, the highest achievement of this art, but are expressed with a simplicity and perfection of execution which surpass all the works of other painters in which similar effects have been attempted" (The National Gallery, i. 192). The picture which Turner selected to vie with this is not one of his best, but Ruskin makes a point out of Claude's poverty of invention in the details. The queen is starting for a distant expedition, and was going in great state (she went "with a very great company, and camels that bare spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones"); yet the prominent incident in the picture is the carrying of one schoolgirl's trunk. She is going by sea, and is setting out in the early morning (for the sun is represented only a little above the horizon);[55] yet has no wraps, nor even a head-dress. For the rest, Ruskin notices the tameness of Claude's waves and a certain conventionality in his treatment of ships and seaports generally. "A man accustomed to the broad, wild sea-shore, with its bright breakers, and free winds, and sounding rocks, [Pg 83]and eternal sensation of tameless power, can scarcely but be angered when Claude bids him stand still on some paltry chipped and chiselled quay, with porters and wheel-barrows running against him, to watch a weak, rippling, bound and barriered water, that has not strength enough in one of its waves to upset the flower-pots on the wall, or even to fling one jet of spray over the confining stone"[56] (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 5). Claude's ships, too, and his conception of seaports generally, show a strange want of true imagination:

"His ships, having hulls of a shape something between a cocoanut and a high-heeled shoe, balanced on their keels on the top of the water, with some scaffolding and cross-sticks above, and a flag at the top of every stick, form perhaps the purest exhibition of human inanity and fatuity which the arts have yet produced. The harbours also, in which these model navies ride, are worthy of all observation for the intensity of the false taste which, endeavouring to unite in them the characters of pleasure-ground and port, destroys the veracity of both. There are many inlets of the Italian seas where sweet gardens and regular terraces descend to the water's edge; but these are not the spots where merchant vessels anchor, or where bales are disembarked. On the other hand, there are many busy quays and noisy arsenals upon the shores of Italy; but queens' palaces are not built upon the quays, nor are the docks in any wise adorned with conservatories or ruins. It was reserved for the genius of Claude to combine the luxurious with the lucrative, and rise to a commercial ideal, in which cables are fastened to temple pillars, and lighthouses adorned with rows of bean-pots" (Harbours of England, pp. 17, 18). Notice, lastly, the "atrocious error in ordinary perspective" in the quay on the left of which the figure is sitting with his hand at his eyes[57] (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. sec. i. ch. v. § 5, pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. ii. § 1).

15. ECCE HOMO!

"Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man!"—Ecce Homo! (John xix. 5). Over the domain of tragedy Correggio—with his pretty grace and sentimentality—[Pg 84]had little sway. In this respect he has been called "the Rossini of painting. The melodies of the Stabat Mater are the exact analogues in music of Correggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives" (Symonds: Renaissance, iii. 248). Thus here it is rather a not-unpleasant feeling of grief than any profound sense of sorrow or resignation that the painter expresses; but within these limits the picture is a very effective one. "The features of Christ express pain without being in the least disfigured by it. How striking is the holding out of the fettered hands, as if to say, 'Behold, these are bound for you!' The Virgin Mary, who, in order to see her son, has held by the balustrade which separates him from her, sinks with grief into the arms of Mary Magdalene. Her lips still seem to tremble, but the corners of the mouth are already fixed, it is involuntarily open; the arched eyelids are on the point of covering the closing eyes; the hands with which she has held fast let go the balustrade" (Waagen: Treasures of Art in Great Britain, i. 327). To the right is a Roman soldier, robust and rugged, yet with a touch of pity in his look; whilst to the left, standing just within the judgment hall, is Pilate, the Roman proconsul, with a mild look of self-satisfaction on his face—as of the man who "washed his hands" of the affair and left the populace to do with Christ as they would.

This picture (which is supposed to have been painted in 1521) was formerly in the possession of the Counts Prati of Parma, and subsequently in the Colonna Palace at Rome. It was purchased of the Colonna family by Sir Simon Clarke, who, finding it impossible to take it out of Italy, sold it to Murat, then King of Naples. It was purchased, as already related, with No. 10 by Lord Londonderry in 1834.

16. ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.

Jacopo Robusti, called Tintoretto (the little dyer), from the trade of his father, is the last great master of the Venetian School and "the most imaginative of all painters." His artistic ambition was expressed in the line which he wrote on the wall of his studio: "The design of Michelangelo and the colouring of Titian." He engrafted (says Symonds) on the calm and natural Venetian manner "something of the Michelangelesque sublimity, and sought to sway by dramatic movement the romantic motives of the school." He conquers Michelangelo (says[Pg 85] Ruskin) in his own field; "out-flies him in motion, outnumbers him in multitude, outwits him in fancy and out-flames him in rage." The imagination of Tintoret dwelt among the tragic and dramatic scenes in sacred history. While he conceived of these in the largest and most audacious spirit, his "imagination penetrative" extended to the minutest details, and his great works abound in those minor episodes which lend so much reality to a poet's conceptions. In his classical pictures, Tintoret combined with the sumptuous colour of Titian something of the mythopœic faculty which enabled him to inspire the tales of ancient Greece with an intense vitality of beauty. In other of his pictures, effects of light and shade are the vehicle of his imagination. It was Tintoret (says Symonds) "who brought to its perfection the poetry of chiaroscuro, expressing moods of passion and emotion by brusque lights, luminous half-shadows, by semi-opaque darkness, no less unmistakably than Beethoven by symphonic modulations" (Renaissance, iii. 270). The intense vitality which characterises Tintoret's subject-pictures is conspicuous also in his portraits. They "render the man at his best, full of health and determination, and make us look back with amazement to a state where the human plant was in such vigour" (Berenson's Venetian Painters, p. 59). The picture now before us (16) may give some idea of Tintoret's power of imagination; and the decorative piece lately added to the Gallery (1313) is exemplary of another side of his genius. The Galleries at Hampton Court should also be visited by all admirers of Tintoretto. But it is only in Venice that this great master can properly be studied, and only in the works of Ruskin that any full appreciation of his powers is to be found.[58] One or two points, however, may profitably be mentioned which visitors who come across pictures by Tintoret in foreign galleries should bear in mind. First, he is the most unequal in execution of all painters. The Venetians used to say he had three pencils—one of gold, one of silver, and a third of iron. Annibale [Pg 86]Carracci said of him that "if he was sometimes equal to Titian, he was often inferior to Tintoretto." Secondly, "when no one would pay for his colours (and sometimes nobody would even give him space of wall to paint on), he used cheap blue for ultramarine;" and he worked so rapidly, "and on such large spaces of canvas, that, between damp and dry, his colours must go, for the most part." Tintoret, from the rapidity of his execution, received the nickname of il Furioso; and Sebastiano del Piombo used to say that Tintoret could paint as much in two days as would occupy him for two years. Thirdly, Tintoret "is entirely unconcerned respecting the satisfaction of the public. He neither cares to display his strength to them, nor convey his ideas to them; when he finishes his work, it is, because he is in the humour to do so; and the sketch which a meaner painter would have left incomplete to show how cleverly it was begun, Tintoret simply leaves because he has done as much of it as he likes" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, passim).

The well-founded pride which is thus stamped on Tintoret's art is conspicuous in his life. From the first he stood alone. His father had sent him as a boy to Titian's studio; but after ten days the master dismissed him. From this time forward the two men remained upon distant terms,—Tintoretto being indeed an ardent admirer of Titian, but never a friend, and Titian and his set turning the cold shoulder upon Tintoret. The slight passed by Titian upon the young Tintoret threw him back upon his own resources, and henceforth he pursued his own ideals, self-taught. He bought casts from the antique and from the works of Michelangelo; he devoted the day to painting, and in the night he made drawings from his casts. His persevering labour won for him in time a high position among the painters of Venice, and before he was forty he had become the acknowledged rival of Titian himself. For some years, however, he worked in poverty, often accepting commissions without pay, and when he became famous he often worked "for nothing." For years he painted in the Scuola di San Rocco—"a shrine reared by Tintoret to his own genius"—at the rate of 100 ducats a year. For his "Paradise" in the Ducal Palace, "the greatest picture in the world," he was asked to name his own price, but he left it to the State, and abated something from what they tendered. While the commission was still pending, Tintoret used to tell the senators that he prayed to God for it, so that paradise itself might perchance be his recompense after death. His exquisite "Three Graces" in the Ducal Palace was painted for fifty ducats. He lived aloof from the world, seldom leaving Venice. His house, on the Fondamenta de' Mori, is still standing, and there are stories told of the way in which his wife, the daughter of a Venetian nobleman, tried to guard against his unworldliness. When he left the house she would wrap up money for him in a handkerchief, and expected an account of it on his return. Tintoretto, it is said, had always to confess that he had spent it upon alms. He loved all the arts, and played the lute and various instruments, some of them of his own invention. He designed[Pg 87] theatrical costumes, and was well versed in mechanics. He abounded in witty sayings, but no smile, we are told, ever hovered on his lips. He died at the age of seventy-six, leaving as the record of a long life, devoted with rare single-mindedness to his art, the remark that the art of painting was one which became ever increasingly difficult.

A picture of particular interest in the National Gallery, being a representation by one of the greatest of artists of the patron saint of England. The fight of St. George with the dragon is familiar to every one, being on the reverse of our gold sovereigns, and in the "Jubilee" coinage on that of our silver crowns. "As a piece of mere die-cutting, that St. George is one of the best bits of work we have on our money," but a reference to its absurdities in design will serve admirably to bring out some of the imaginative merits of this picture. On our coins St. George's horse looks abstractedly in the air, instead of where it would have looked, at the beast between its legs. Here Tintoret has admirably brought out the chivalry of the horse. Knight and charger are alike intent upon their foe, and note that St. George wears no spurs: the noble animal nature is attuned to his rider. But, though un-spurred, St. George is every inch a knight. His whole strength is given in the spear-thrust which is to kill the dragon: compare this with St. George on our coins, "with nothing but his helmet on (being the last piece of armour he is likely to want), putting his naked feet, at least his feet showing their toes through the buskins, well forward, that the dragon may with the greatest convenience get a bite at them; and about to deliver a mortal blow at him with a sword which cannot reach him by a couple of yards." To understand the other touches of true imagination in Tintoret's picture, it is necessary to recall the meaning of the legend of St. George and the Dragon (identical with that of Perseus and Andromeda).[59] The dragon represents the evil of sinful, fleshly passion, the element in our nature which is of the earth, earthy. Notice with what savage tenacity, therefore, the beast is made to clutch at the earth. From his mouth he is spitting fire—the red fire of consuming passion. St. George is the champion [Pg 88]of purity; he rides therefore on a white horse, white being the typical colour of a blameless life. He wears no helmet—for that might obscure his sight, and the difficulty in this warfare is not so much to kill your dragon as to see him. In front of him is the dead body of another man:

Behind him is a long castle wall, the towers and battlements perhaps of some great city. In many pictures of this subject (see e.g. 75) there are crowds of spectators on the walls, who will cheer the knight in his struggle and applaud him in his victory. But here the walls are deserted, and but for the princess in the foreground, there are no spectators of the struggle: it is one which has to be fought alone and in secret places. The princess had been given, in the story, as a sacrifice to the dragon, and St. George, who comes to rescue her, is thus the type of noble chivalry. "She turns away for flight; and if her hands are raised to heaven, and her knees fall to earth, it is more that she stumbles in a woman's weakness, than that she abides in faith or sweet surrender. Tintoret sees the scene as in the first place a matter of fact, and paints accordingly, following his judgment of girl nature." But in another sense the princess of the allegory represents the soul of man, which has to be freed from subjection to the dragon of the flesh. And so perhaps Tintoret makes her fly, "from a certain ascetic feeling, a sense growing with the growing license of Venice, that the soul must rather escape from this monster by flight than hope to see it subdued and made serviceable" (St. Mark's Rest, Second Supplement, pp. 14, 21, 33; Fors Clavigera, 1873, xxv. and xxvi.)

17. THE HOLY FAMILY.

St. Elizabeth with her son, the infant John the Baptist, visiting the Madonna and infant Christ. It is "a Holy [Pg 89]Family," but except for the symbolical cross of the Baptist and the faint circlet of golden light surrounding the Madonna's head, there is no hint of divinity about this pretty domestic scene.

18. CHRIST AND THE PHARISEES.[61]

Bernardino, "dear little Bernard," the son of Giovanni Lutero, called Luini from his birthplace Luino, on the Lago Maggiore, is perhaps, says Ruskin, "the best central type of the highly-trained Italian painter," being "alone in uniting consummate art-power with untainted simplicity of religious imagination." "The two elements, poised in perfect balance, are so calmed and restrained, each by the other, that most of us lose the sense of both." Next to nothing is known of his life beyond journeys to various places in the lake district—Lugano, Legnano, and Saronno, to paint frescoes. "We have no anecdotes of him, only hundreds of noble works. Child of the Alps, and of their divinest lake, he is taught, without doubt or dismay, a lofty religious creed, and a sufficient law of life, and of its mechanical arts. Whether lessoned by Leonardo himself, or merely one of many, disciplined in the system of the Milanese School, he learns unerringly to draw, unerringly and enduringly to paint" ... "a mighty colourist, while Leonardo was only a fine draughtsman in black, staining the chiaroscuro drawing like a coloured print." Luini's "tasks are set him without question day by day, by men who are justly satisfied with his work, and who accept it without any harmful praise or senseless blame. Place, scale, and subject are determined for him on the cloister wall or the church dome; as he is required, and for sufficient daily bread, and little more, he paints what he has been taught to design wisely and has passion to realise gloriously: every touch he lays is eternal, every thought he conceives is beautiful and pure" (Queen of the Air, § 157; Catalogue of the Educational Series, p. 43; Oxford Lectures on Art, §§ 73, 92). This picture, formerly ascribed to Leonardo, belongs to Luini's second period, when he was under the [Pg 90]influence of that master. To his third and independent manner belong the frescoes at Milan, Saronno, and Lugano, and the three pictures in Como Cathedral (Morelli's Italian Masters in German Galleries, 1883, pp. 435-438). Luini's female figures (says Sir Frederick Burton) "are full of sweetness and gracious dignity; and should we incline to cavil at the monotony of his type, its loveliness disarms us. But a merit even higher than his sense of beauty is the pathos which he infused into subjects that required it. These he imagined from within outwards, following his inspiration without egotism or mannerism. He appears to most advantage in fresco; for few have understood so well as he the management of the limited palette of the fresco painter, and that skilful juxtaposition of tints by which the value of each is exalted. The decorated party-wall and adjacent chapels in S. Maurizio at Milan must once have been as conspicuous for their harmonious colouring as the former still is for the radiant beauty of the Virgin Saints in its lower compartment." Copies of several of Luini's frescoes are included in the Arundel Society's Collection.

Christ is arguing with the Pharisees, but he wears the tender expression of the man who "did not strive nor cry, neither was his voice heard in the streets." The disputant on the extreme right, with the close-shaven face and firm-set features, has his hand on a volume of the Scriptures, and is taking his stand (as it were) on the letter of the law. The one on the extreme left, on the other hand, is almost persuaded. In contrast to him is the older man with the white beard, who seems to be marvelling at the presumption of youth. The remaining head is the type of the fanatic; "by our law he ought to die." This picture, besides its splendid colouring, is a good instance of that law of order or symmetry which is characteristic of all perfect art. The central figure faces us; there are two figures on one side, balanced by two on the other; the face in the left corner looks right, that in the right corner looks left, whilst to break any too obtrusive symmetry the head of Christ itself inclines somewhat to the left also. This famous picture, of which there are several old copies, was formerly in the Aldobrandini apartments in the Borghese Palace at Rome.

19. NARCISSUS AND ECHO.

Narcissus, a beautiful youth, was beloved by the nymph Echo, but he spurned her love, and when she pined away she[Pg 91] was changed into a stone which still retained the power of voice. But Narcissus, seeing his own image reflected in a fountain, became enamoured of it, and when he could never reach his phantom love he killed himself for grief, and the nymphs who came to burn his body found only the "short-lived flower" that bears his name. Here, half-hidden in the trees, we see the

This was one of Sir George Beaumont's Claudes which Constable so much admired when he was staying at Coleorton. "I am now going," wrote Constable to his wife, "to breakfast before the Narcissus of Claude. How enchanting and lovely it is; far, very far surpassing any other landscape I ever beheld" (Leslie's Life of Constable, 1845, p. 120). Ruskin, on the other hand, finds fault with some of the details, as showing Claude's ignorance of tree structure. "Take the stem of the chief tree in Claude's Narcissus. It is a very faithful portrait of a large boa-constrictor with a handsome tail; the kind of trunk which young ladies at fashionable boarding schools represent with nosegays at the top of them by way of forest scenery." Again, "Observe the bough underneath the first bend of the great stem, ... it sends off four branches like the ribs of a leaf. The two lowest of these are both quite as thick as the parent stem, and the stem itself is much thicker after it has sent off the first one than it was before. The top boughs of the central tree, in the 'Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca' (12), ramify in the same scientific way" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. §§ 7, 9).

20. IPPOLITO DE' MEDICI AND THE ARTIST.

In 1531 Sebastiano received from the Pope the office of Frate del Piombo, Monk of the Leaden Signet, which was affixed to the pontifical diplomas. An entertaining account of Sebastiano's appointment is given in Benvenuto Cellini's Memoirs (see Symonds's translation, i. 150). The painter is here dressed in the black robe of his office; on the table are[Pg 92] two parchment-deeds, with Sebastiano's hand on the seal of one of them, and the picture thus represents, perhaps, the ratification of the appointment by his friend and patron, the Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici. The artist's portrait of himself agrees very well with what Vasari says of his character. He was a painter more of necessity than of choice, and when once he received his valuable sinecure he forsook his palette for the lute, and people found it very hard to get any work out of him. He much preferred talking about pictures, says Vasari, to executing them. He was "of a very full habit," and young painters who resorted to him "rarely made any great profit, since from his example they could learn little beside the art of good living." But he was a thoroughly good fellow, and a kindly withal. A better or more agreeable companion never lived; and when he died he commanded that his remains should be carried to the tomb without any ceremony of priests and friars, and that the amount which would have been thus expended should be distributed to the poor, for the love of God: and so was it done. But in one branch of art, adds Vasari, Sebastiano was always ready to work, namely, in painting portraits, such as this, from the life. "In this art he did certainly surpass all others in delicacy and excellence—so much so that when Cardinal Ippolito fell in love with the lady Giulia Gonzaga, he sent Sebastiano with four swift horses to her home for the purpose of taking her portrait, and in about a month the artist completed the likeness, when, what with the celestial beauties of that lady, and what with the able hand of so accomplished a master, the picture proved to be a most divine one." No. 24 was formerly thought to be the portrait in question.

21. PORTRAIT OF A FLORENTINE LADY.

An excellent portrait-painter, who painted many of the distinguished persons of his time. Of his other works, the best known is the "Judith with the head of Holophernes," in the Pitti. The Judith "so beautifully and magnificently attired is a portrait of his mistress; while her mother appears in the character of Abra, and the head of Holophernes is that of the painter, who permitted his beard to grow for this purpose." He was very fastidious in his execution. "From this method, and from vicious habits that often seduced him from his labours, his pictures are rare, and he himself is little known" (Lanzi's[Pg 93] History of Painting, i. 217). Cristofano was the son of Alessandro Allori, a painter of Michelangelo's school.

Notice the richly embroidered head-dress, resembling in form the Venetian rolled coif or turban which often occurs in pictures of Titian.

22. ANGELS WEEPING OVER THE DEAD CHRIST.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri was called Guercino, the Squintling, from an accident which distorted his right eye in babyhood. He attained to much fame and wealth in his day; but was self-taught, and the son of humble parents, his father being a wood-carrier, and agreeing to pay for his son's education by a load of grain and a vat of grapes delivered yearly. As a young man, he settled in Rome, where he became acquainted with Caravaggio. He returned to his native town, Cento, in 1623, and there founded an academy which was much frequented by young painters. In 1642 he removed to Bologna, where he died in affluent circumstances in 1666. In art history Guercino is interesting as showing the blending of the Eclectic style of the Carracci with the Naturalistic style of Caravaggio. In the work of his latest, or Bolognese, period, "when he appears to have endeavoured to approximate to the style of Guido, he forsook the vigorous handling and treatment of his earlier pictures and fell into an insipid manner" (Burton). Guercino (says Symonds) "lived the life of an anchorite, absorbed in studies, reserved, sober, pious, truthful, sincere in his commerce with the world, unaffectedly virtuous, devoted to his art and God." In the motives of his picture one sees reflected the Catholic revival of his day,—"the Christianity of the age was not naïve, simple, sincere, and popular, but hysterical, dogmatic, hypocritical, and sacerdotal. It was not Christianity indeed, but Catholicism galvanised by terror into reactionary movement" (Renaissance, vii. 232).

A comparison even of this little picture—in its somewhat morbid sentiment—with such an one as Crivelli's (602)—with its deeper because simpler feeling—well illustrates the nature of the change. This is, however, one of Guercino's best works. It was formerly in the Borghese Gallery, and Rumohr, in his account of that collection (1784), notices it as one of the productions of the painter's best time. "The figure of Christ is admirable in drawing and foreshortening, and painted with a broad decisive touch in really astonishing relief; while the weeping angels, if not of an elevated type, are marked by a real naïveté and sincerity of pathos. The[Pg 94] wonderful chiaroscuro is here not only rich, and well concentrated, too, beyond the painter's wont, but impressive, and duly accounted for by the supernatural luminosity of the body of Christ" (Portfolio, August 1891).

23. "THE VIRGIN OF THE BASKET."

A celebrated work of the master, and one of the principal treasures of the National Gallery—"a little gem of extraordinary tenderness," Mengs calls it; and Frizzoni, "an incomparable marvel of light, vivacity, and smiling sweetness." Alike in sentiment and in technique, it is very characteristic. A comparison of it with Raphael's great Madonna or any of those of the earlier masters (e.g. Bellini) will show in a moment wherein the peculiarity of Correggio consists. The mother has none of the rapt look of the woman who "laid these things in her heart," and the child has no prophetic sense of future suffering. There is nothing to mark the picture as representing the Holy Family except the introduction of Joseph, the carpenter, in the background. It is a picture painted solely in the "religion of humanity," and full only of artless grace and melodious tenderness. The child is full of play and fun; the mother (with the household basket which gives the picture its name—"La Vierge au panier") is dressing him, and has just succeeded in putting his right arm through the sleeve of his little coat, and is endeavouring by gentle stratagem to do the same with the left; but something has caught his fancy, and she shares in his delight, smiling with all a young mother's fondness at the waywardness of her curly-haired boy. "As a painting," says Sir Edward Poynter, "it is one of those masterpieces of perfect technicality, of brilliant purity of lighting and colouring, and of completeness of modelling in the flesh tints, combined with the utmost apparent ease of execution, which may well be the despair of painters for all time. As a design it is no less remarkable; for though of studied harmony in the arrangement of the forms it is so natural that all appearance of effort is lost, and we cannot conceive of the scene as being rendered in a more artless manner" (The National Gallery, i. 4).

The date of this picture is uncertain. Some, liking to find[Pg 95] in it a piece of the painter's own home-life, have dated it 1521-22, that is just after the birth of Correggio's first child. Others put it earlier in the artist's career, 1518. It is perhaps the picture which Vasari describes as in the possession of the Cavaliere Baiardi of Parma—"a marvellous and beautiful work by Correggio, in which Our Lady puts a little shirt on the Infant Christ." It was afterwards in the royal collection at Madrid, from which it passed by the gift of Charles IV. to Don Emanuele Goday, at whose instance it was subjected to a most rigorous cleaning. During the French invasion of Spain it fell into various hands, and in 1825 was bought for the National Gallery from Mr. C. J. Nieuwenhuys for £3800—a sum, it has been calculated, that would "cover the little panel with sovereigns just twenty-seven times over."

24. AN ITALIAN LADY AS ST. AGATHA.

The nimbus around the head indicates the saint; the palm branch and the pincers indicate St. Agatha, who was "bound and beaten with rods, and her tender bosom was cruelly torn with iron pincers; and as her blood flowed forth, she said, 'O thou tyrant! shamest thou not to treat me so—- thou who hast been nourished and fed from the breast of a mother?' And this was her only plaint." See also under 20.

25. ST. JOHN IN THE WILDERNESS.

"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel" (Luke i. 80). In his left hand is the standard of the Lamb, the symbol of his mission, for which he is preparing himself in the desert solitude, while with his right he catches water in a cup from a stream in the rocks, symbolical of the water by which that mission, the baptism unto repentance, was to be accomplished.

26. THE CONSECRATION OF ST. NICHOLAS.

Paolo Caliari (called Veronese from his birthplace) stands, says Ruskin, in the forefront of the great colourists. "Titian, Veronese,[Pg 96] and Tintoret were the only painters who ever sought entirely to master, and who did entirely master, the truths of light and shade as associated with colour, in the noblest of all physical created things, the human form." With Veronese, "the whole picture is like the rose—glowing with colour in the shadows, and rising into paler and more delicate hues, or masses of whiteness, in the lights." Contrasting the aims of Veronese with those of the great chiaroscurists, Ruskin says: "Veronese chooses to represent the great relations of visible things to each other, to the heaven above, and to the earth beneath them. He holds it more important to show how a figure stands relieved from delicate air, or marble wall; how as a red, or purple, or white figure, it separates itself, in clear discernibility, from things not red, nor purple, nor white; how infinite daylight shines round it; how innumerable veils of faint shadow invest it; how its blackness and darkness are, in the excess of their nature, just as limited and local as its intensity of light; all this, I say, he feels to be more important than showing merely the exact measure of the spark of sunshine that gleams on a dagger-hilt, or glows on a jewel. All this, moreover, he feels to be harmonious,—capable of being joined in one great system of spacious truth. And with inevitable watchfulness, inestimable subtlety, he unites all this in tenderest balance, noting in each hair's-breadth of colour, not merely what its rightness or wrongness is in itself, but what its relation is to every other on his canvas." In the tone of his colouring Paolo retained, as Sir F. Burton points out, much of the tradition of the Veronese school. "The silvery tone which differentiates his best works from the golden lustre of Titian was not gained in Venice, and under the lightsome skies of the lagoons he was not tempted to alter it." In the tone of his mind Veronese was thoroughly Venetian. It is a certain "gay grasp of the outside aspects of the world" that distinguishes him. "By habitual preference, exquisitely graceful and playful; religious, without severity, and winningly noble; delighting in slight, sweet everyday incident, but hiding deep meanings underneath it; rarely painting a gloomy subject, and never a base one" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 16; vol. iv. pt. v. ch. iii. § 18, ch. xx. § 16; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 27; Cambridge Inaugural Lecture in O.O.R., vol. i. § 314). Thus Venetian in character, it is the Venice of his time—with all its material magnificence and pride of life of a nation of merchant princes—that Veronese everywhere paints. "Veronese," says Symonds, "elevated pageantry to the height of serious art. His domain is noonday sunlight ablaze on sumptuous dresses and Palladian architecture. Armour, shot silks and satins, brocaded canopies, banners, plate, fruit, sceptres, crowns—all things, in fact, that burn and glitter in the sun—form the habitual furniture of his pictures." It is characteristic of the spirit of his time that the pictures by Veronese of banquets and other scenes of gaiety were mostly painted for monasteries. The frank introduction of the costumes of the painter's own time, clothing the fine race to which he belonged, gives to his pictures of this kind an historical interest. Often he intro[Pg 97]duces portraits into his groups. In expression his figures are often deficient. "He will make the Magdalene wash the feet of Christ with a countenance as absolutely unmoved as that of any ordinary servant bringing an ewer to her master." Animal force in men, superb voluptuousness in women, were his favourite types. "His noblest creatures are men of about twenty-five, manly, brawny, crisp-haired, full of nerve and blood. In all this Veronese resembles Rubens. But he does not, like Rubens, strike us as gross, sensual, fleshly; he remains proud and powerful, and frigidly urbane. The same love of display led him to delight in allegory—not allegory of the deep and mystic kind, but of the pompous and processional, in which Venice appears enthroned among the deities, or the genii of the arts are personified as handsome women and blooming boys." He painted with marvellous facility and revelled, as we have seen, in exuberance. In this he resembled Rubens, but he combined, as Rubens did not, moderation with profusion. Amid so much that is distracting, Veronese never loses command over his subject or his brush, "restraining, for truth's sake, his exhaustless energy; reining back, for truth's sake, his fiery strength; veiling, before truth, the vanity of brightness; penetrating, for truth, the discouragement of gloom; ruling his restless invention with a rod of iron; pardoning no error, no thoughtlessness, no forgetfulness; and subduing all his powers, impulses, and imaginations, to the arbitrament of a merciless justice, and the obedience of an incorruptible verity."

Of the life of Paolo Veronese few incidents are related. He was the son of a stone carver, and having shown a propensity to painting was apprenticed to his uncle, a mediocre artist. In his native city the works of Cavazzola and other Veronese masters were before his eyes. After executing some commissions in Mantua and Verona, he went in 1555 to Venice, which was henceforward to be his home and the scene of his triumphs. He soon began to rank with Tintoretto, who was nearly twenty years his senior, and with Titian, then in his eightieth year. He entered into a competition for painting the ceiling of the library of St. Mark, and executed the commission with so much power that his very rivals voted him the golden chain which had been tendered as an honorary distinction. He visited Verona in 1565, where he then married the daughter of his old master; and in 1560-61 he went to Rome in the suite of Grimani, the Venetian ambassador. With these exceptions he remained in Venice, full of work and honour. Upon his death his two sons and his younger brother, Benedetto, continued the work of his studio, signing the works which they produced in common as "heirs of Paolo Caliari Veronese."

This picture, which was formerly in the church of San Niccolo de' Frari at Venice, represents the consecration of Nicholas (for whom see 1171) as Bishop of Myra, in Syria (hence the turbans of the attendants). Two dignitaries of the Church are presenting him to the patriarch, who holds aloft[Pg 98] the symbolical cross of the Redeemer, and with his right hand gives his blessing. The bishop-elect abases himself meanwhile that he may be exalted, while the angel descending with the mitre and crozier signifies that his "call" is from above. Clearly it is the pageantry of a Church function that fascinates the painter. "His art is seen at its best," says Sir Edward Poynter, "in the grouping and light and shade in this picture. The boy kneeling on the right is a masterpiece of silvery colour, and, with his red stockings, gives vivacity to the whole composition." We may also observe in this picture the employment of a "glaze." "The kneeling figure of the Saint is robed in green, with sleeves of golden orange. This latter colour is carried through as under-painting over the whole draped portions of the figure, the green being then floated over and so manipulated that the golden tint shows through in parts and gives the high lights on the folds" (Baldwin Brown's Fine Arts, 1891, p. 310).

27. THE POPE JULIUS II.

This is one of nine replicas, or contemporary copies, of the portrait in the Uffizi at Florence. Julius died in 1513; the portrait belongs, therefore, to the earlier part of Raphael's Roman period.

The portrait of a Pope of the church militant. "Raphael has caught the momentary repose of a restless and passionate spirit, and has shown all the grace and beauty which are to be found in the sense of power repressed and power at rest. Seated in an arm-chair, with head bent downward, the Pope is in deep thought. His furrowed brow and his deep-sunk eyes tell of energy and decision. The down-drawn corners of his mouth betoken constant dealings with the world" (Creighton's History of the Papacy). For it was in the temporal, not in the spiritual world that Julius lived and moved and had his being, and became, by his combination of military and diplomatic abilities, the most prominent political figure of his day. But, like other great princes of the time, Julius was a liberal and enlightened patron of the arts: it was he who laid the foundation-stone of St. Peter's, and who called Michael Angelo and Raphael to his court. On the green hanging which forms the background, the cross-keys of the pontifical office are indicated, and from the two corners of the back of[Pg 99] the chair rise two shafts, surmounted by gilt ornaments in the form of acorns—in reference to the armorial bearings of the Pope's family (della Rovere). "No amount of elaboration in the background could disturb the attention of any one looking at the portrait of Julius the Second, by Raphael, also in the Tribune, which I cannot help thinking is the finished portrait in the world. A portrait is the most truly historical picture, and this is the most monumental and historical of portraits. The longer one looks at it the more it demands attention. A superficial picture is like a superficial character—it may do for an acquaintance, but not for a friend. One never gets to the end of things to interest and admire in many old portrait-pictures" (G. F. Watts, R.A., in the Magazine of Art, January 1889).

28. SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS.

Lodovico is famous in art history as the founder of the Eclectic school of Bologna. Disgusted with the weakness of the Mannerists (of whom Baroccio was the best; see next picture), he determined to start a rival school, and enlisted the services of his two cousins, Agostino and Annibale, for that purpose. Their object, as expressed in a sonnet by Agostino, was to be to "acquire the design of Rome, Venetian action, and Venetian management of shade, the dignified colour of Lombardy (Leonardo), the terrible manner of Michael Angelo, Titian's truth and nature, the sovereign purity of Correggio's style, and the just symmetry of Raphael." Lodovico, who was the son of a Bolognese butcher,[62] was a man of very wide culture and of great industry. In natural talent he was deficient. When first sent to an art school at Bologna, he was called by his companions "the ox," and when he visited Venice the veteran Tintoretto warned him that he had no vocation. But resolving to win by industry what nature seemed to have denied him, he studied diligently at Florence, Parma, Mantua, and Venice. He superintended the school, at first conjointly with his cousins, afterwards alone, from 1589 to his death.

A less objectionable rendering than most, of the story of Susannah in the Apocrypha—a story for all time, setting forth as it does the way in which minions of the law too often prey upon the innocent, and the righteous condemnation that the people, when there are just judges in the land, mete out to the [Pg 100]offenders. Two judges, "ancients of the people," approached Susannah and threatened to report her as guilty unless she consented to do their bidding. She refused, and was reported accordingly. Judgment had well-nigh gone against her, when Daniel arose to convict the elders of false-witness, and they were straightway put to death. It is the moment of Susannah's temptation that the artist here depicts. "It is," says Hazlitt (p. 5), "as if the young Jewish beauty had been just surprised in that unguarded spot—crouching down in one corner of the picture, the face turned back with a mingled expression of terror, shame, and unconquerable sweetness, and the whole figure, with the arms crossed, shrinking into itself with bewitching grace and modesty." But Hazlitt never took notes, and Susannah's arms are not crossed—nor is her expression quite so naïve as he describes.

29. "OUR LADY OF THE CAT."

Federigo Barocci, or Baroccio, is the best of the "Mannerists." "He feebly continued the style of Correggio," says Symonds, "with a certain hectic originality, infusing sentimental pietism into that great master's pagan sensuousness" (Renaissance, viii. 211). His colouring is peculiar: he used too much vermilion and ultramarine, and too few yellows. He was a native of Urbino, and the son of a sculptor. In 1548 he went to Rome and remained there some years, devoting his time to the study of Raphael. He then returned to Urbino, again visiting Rome in 1560, when he was employed in the Vatican. While there he was nearly poisoned, by some rival it is supposed, and for the rest of his long life he suffered from disease of the stomach, which rendered him unable to do much work. He died at Urbino at the age of eighty-four.

An admirable example of the decline of Italian art. The old religious spirit has entirely vanished, and the Holy Family is represented as worrying a bird with a cat! John the Baptist holds the little goldfinch; while the Madonna expressly directs the attention of the infant Christ to the fun. "See, the cat is trying to get at it," she seems to say. Behind the bird, the painter, in unconscious irony, has placed the Cross. The visitor who wishes to see how far Italian art has travelled in a hundred years should compare this picture with such an one as Bellini's (280), or with one of Raphael's, of whom Baroccio was a fellow-countryman. The connecting[Pg 101] link should then be seen in Correggio (23). With Bellini or Perugino, the motive is wholly religious. With Raphael it is intermingled with artistic display. Correggio brings heaven wholly down to earth, but yet paints his domestic scene with lovely grace. Baroccio brings, one may almost say, heaven down to hell,[63] and uses all his skill to show the infant Saviour's pleasure in teasing a bird. But the artist only embodied the spirit of his time. Baroccio was one of the most celebrated painters of his day, and his biographer (Bellori) writes of him that "his pencil may be said to have been dedicated to religion: so devout, so tender, and so calculated to awaken feelings of piety, are the sentiments expressed in his pictures."

30. SEAPORT: ST. URSULA.

The best Claude in the Gallery, for it is a perfect example of his chief merit—the painting of quiet skies. Constable, in one of his lectures, refers to it as "probably the finest picture of middle-tint in the world. The sun is rising through a thin mist, which, like the effect of a gauze blind in a room, diffuses the light equally. There are no large dark masses, there is no evasion in any part of this admirable work, every object is fairly painted in a firm style of execution, yet in no other picture have I seen the evanescent character of light so well expressed" (Leslie's Life of Constable, p. 338). "The effect of the breeze upon the water and upon the trees," says Ottley, "and the freshness of the morning atmosphere, in this picture, are expressed with a closeness of imitation bordering on illusion" (Descriptive Catalogue of the National Gallery, 1826, p. 42).

As for the subject: St. Ursula, a beautiful and gifted Sicilian princess, was sought in marriage by a prince of Britain; but having already dedicated herself to Christ, she made a condition that before her marriage, she, with eleven thousand attendant virgins, should be permitted for the space of three years to visit the shrines of the Saints. This being permitted, the maidens started on a miraculous voyage. Guided by angels they proceeded as far as Rome, where pagans having plotted their death, on their further journey to Cologne they [Pg 102]were martyred by the barbarians besieging that city. Here in the picture they are represented as embarking.

31. THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC.

Among the artists who were most closely associated with Nicolas Poussin (see 39) were his wife's brothers, Giovanni and Gaspard Dughet. The former was loved by Poussin as a son; the latter was also his pupil and adopted his name, though in France he is familiarly known as "Le Guaspre." Gaspard was Poussin's junior by nineteen years, and the older man, recognising his abilities, encouraged him to landscape painting. By the time he was twenty, Gaspard had established himself as an independent painter in Rome, and his works were eagerly sought by lovers of art. The Palazzo Doria and the Palazzo Colonna are especially rich in his works; the picture now before us, by some considered Gaspard's masterpiece, was formerly in the latter palace. Gaspard resided chiefly at Rome, but he also rented houses at Frascati and at Tivoli. In the noble scenery of those places and elsewhere in the country around Rome, he found the subjects for many of his best pictures. He worked so rapidly, we are told, that he would often "finish a picture in a day." He had a genuine love for nature, and also a passion for the chase. "A little ass, that he cared for himself, his only servant, bore his entire apparatus, provisions, and a tent, under which, protected from the sun and wind, he made his landscapes." There is (says Ruskin) more serious feeling in his landscapes, more "perception of the moral truth of nature," and "grander reachings after sympathy" than in those either of Nicolas or of Claude. It is impossible to look at many of his pictures in this Gallery without sharing the sense of grandeur and infinity in nature which inspired them, and hence it is that from Gaspard's own time till now they have enjoyed "a permanent power of address to the human heart." But more than this has been claimed for Gaspard. Critics thought they found in his works faithful adherence to the truths of nature in sky and trees. Ottley, for instance, in his Catalogue of the National Gallery (1826), speaks of Gaspard's "unrivalled correctness of imitation." Against these claims Ruskin took up his fiery parable. Gaspard's pictures are "full," he says, "of the most degraded mannerism;" first and foremost, in his search of a false sublimity, he painted every object in his picture, vegetation and all, of one dull gray and brown; and too many of his landscapes are now one dry, volcanic darkness. And secondly, he had a total want of imagination in seizing the true forms of natural objects, so that some passages of his landscapes are, as we shall see, perfect epitomes of the falseness to nature in the painters of that age[64] [Pg 103](collected from Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. §§ 3, 14; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. § 12, sec ii. ch. ii. § 18; vol. iv. pt. v. ch. xvi. § 24).

These remarks cannot be better illustrated than in the present picture. Abraham and Isaac—the former with a lighted torch, the latter with the wood—are ascending the hill on the right to the sacrifice; while Abraham's two servants await his return below. The whole spirit of the picture is "solemn and unbroken," in perfect harmony with the subject. But it is kept from being a really grand picture by the "hopeless want of imagination" in the forms of the clouds, the colour of the sky, and the treatment of the distant landscape. These painters, says Ruskin, looked at clouds, "with utter carelessness and bluntness of feeling; saw that there were a great many rounded passages in them; found it much easier to sweep circles than to design beauties, and sat down in their studies, contented with perpetual repetitions of the same spherical conceptions, having about the same relation to the clouds of nature, that a child's carving of a turnip has to the head of the Apollo.... Take the ropy, tough-looking wreath in the 'Sacrifice of Isaac,' and find one part of it, if you can, which is not the repetition of every other part of it, all together being as round and vapid as the brush could draw them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. iii. § 8). Equally deficient is the colour of the sky:—

"It is here high noon, as is shown by the shadow of the figures; and what sort of colour is the sky at the top of the picture? Is it pale and gray with heat, full of sunshine, and unfathomable in depth? On the contrary, it is of a pitch of darkness which, except on Mont Blanc or Chimborazo, is as purely impossible as colour can be. He might as well have painted it coal-black: and it is laid on with a dead coat of flat paint, having no one quality or resemblance of sky about it. It cannot have altered, because the land horizon is as delicate and tender in tone as possible, and is evidently unchanged; and to complete the absurdity of the whole thing, this colour holds its own, without gradation or alteration, to within three or four degrees of the horizon, where it suddenly becomes bold and unmixed yellow. Now the horizon at noon may be yellow when the whole sky is covered with dark clouds, and only one open streak of light left in the distance from[Pg 104] which the whole light proceeds; but with a clear, open sky, and opposite the sun, at noon, such a yellow horizon as this is physically impossible.... We have in this sky (and it is a fine picture, one of the best of Gaspar's that I know) a notable example of the truth of the old masters—two impossible colours impossibly united!... Nor is this a solitary instance; it is Gaspar Poussin's favourite and characteristic effect" (ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 10).

Lastly, the same want of truth is shown in the wide expanse stretching away to the distance:—

"It is luminous, retiring, delicate and perfect in tone, and is quite complete enough to deceive and delight the careless eye to which all distances are alike; nay, it is perfect and masterly, and absolutely right, if we consider it as a sketch,—as a first plan of a distance, afterwards to be carried out in detail. But we must remember that all these alternate spaces of gray and gold are not the landscape itself, but the treatment of it; not its substance, but its light and shade. They are just what nature would cast over it, and write upon it with every cloud, but which she would cast in play, and without carefulness, as matters of the very smallest possible importance. All her work and her attention would be given to bring out from underneath this, and through this, the forms and the material character which this can only be valuable to illustrate, not to conceal. Every one of those broad spaces she would linger over in protracted delight, teaching you fresh lessons in every hair's-breadth of it, until the mind lost itself in following her; now fringing the dark edge of the shadow with a tufted line of level forest; now losing it for an instant in a breath of mist; then breaking it with the white gleaming angle of a narrow brook; then dwelling upon it again in a gentle, mounded, melting undulation, over the other side of which she would carry you down into a dusty space of soft crowded light, with the hedges and the paths and the sprinkled cottages and scattered trees mixed up and mingled together in one beautiful, delicate, impenetrable mystery, sparkling and melting, and passing away into the sky, without one line of distinctness, or one instant of vacancy"[65] (ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 8).

32. THE RAPE OF GANYMEDE.

Ganymede—so the Greek story ran—was a beautiful Trojan boy beloved of Jupiter, and was carried off by an eagle to Olympus to be the cup-bearer of the gods. Which things, say some, are an allegory—for "those whom the gods love [Pg 105]die young," and are snatched off, it may be, in sudden death, as by an eagle's swoop.

This picture was painted, like Tintoret's "Milky Way" (1313) and the four Veroneses (1318, 1324-6), for a compartment of a ceiling. It corresponds with a picture described by Ridolfi as painted by a scholar of Titian, though some connect it rather with Tintoret (see J. B. S. Holborn's Tintoretto, 1903, pp. 34, 35). It was formerly in the Colonna Palace: the background is a restoration by Carlo Maratti (see 174).

33. THE VISION OF ST. JEROME.

A picture of great interest both for itself and for the circumstances under which it was painted. Parmigiano was painting it at Rome in 1527 when the city was sacked by the army of the Emperor Charles V. under Constable Bourbon. So intent, says Vasari, was our artist on his work that "when his own dwelling was filled with certain of these men, who were Germans, he remained undisturbed by their clamours, and did not move from his place; arriving in the room therefore, and finding him thus employed, they stood confounded at the beauty of the paintings they beheld, and, like good and sensible men as they must have been, they permitted him to continue his occupation."[66] Parmigiano had other narrow escapes in his career, which ultimately came to a bad end, owing, Vasari says, to his forsaking painting for alchemy, "since he believed that he should make himself rich much more rapidly by the congelation of mercury than by his art."

Francesco Maria Mazzola was called Parmigiano from Parma, his birthplace. After Correggio settled there, Parmigiano devoted himself to the study and imitation of that master. In 1523 he went to Rome, to study the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo. In 1531 he returned to Parma, and undertook an important commission to paint in one of its churches. He was paid in advance, and when after five years he had not begun the work he was imprisoned for breach of [Pg 106]contract. He was released on a promise that he would proceed with the frescoes, but he fled the city, and shortly afterwards died, in his thirty-seventh year. The chequered life of the artist finds a parallel in the varying fortunes of his reputation as an artist. He was an imitator both of Correggio and of Michael Angelo—here, for instance, the head of the infant Christ recalls the former master, the figures of St. Jerome and St. John recall the latter; and in his own day was held to have imitated them successfully, whilst Vasari adds that "the spirit of Raphael was said to have passed into Parmigiano." Of one of his works Reynolds, two hundred years later, expressed himself "at a loss which to admire most, the correctness of drawing or grandeur of conception." But the fashion in art has changed since Reynolds's day, and modern critics have found Parmigiano's work "incongruous," "insipid," and "affected." This difference of opinion is well exemplified in the case of this picture. Vasari calls it "singularly beautiful," and its subsequent popularity is attested by the number of copies of it extant (visitors on Students' Days will still often see copyists at work on it). But other critics have attributed its fame "more to its defects than its beauties" (Passavant), and have found it "mannered and theatrical" (Mrs. Jameson), and "a pernicious adaptation of an incongruous style" (Dr. Richter).

Leaving the visitor to form his own judgment, we may remind him that the subject is a supposed dream of St. Jerome when doing penance in the desert. He is asleep on the ground—doing penance, it might seem from his distorted position, even in his sleep, with a skull before him and a crucifix beside him. He is in the same desert where John the Baptist once preached, and thinking, we may suppose, of him, St. Jerome sees him in vision—with his camel skin about him—pointing upwards to the sky. There is the Virgin Mary seated as queen of heaven on a crescent moon, with a palm branch in her hand—the symbol now, not of martyrdom, but of victory over sin and death. And on her knee is the Divine Child, who rests his right hand on a little book on the Madonna's lap. It is a volume, we may suppose, of the Scriptures which St. Jerome had translated, and the vision thus foreshadows the time when it should be said unto him, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; ... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

34. VENUS AND ADONIS.

Venus is endeavouring to detain Adonis from the chase; but the sun is up (see his chariot in the sky) and the young hunts[Pg 107]man is eager to be off with his hounds and his spear. The enamoured goddess caresses him, but it will be in vain. For Cupid, the god of love, is not there: he is asleep and at a distance, with his bow and quiver hanging on a tree; and all the blandishments of beauty, unaided by love, are as naught.

This picture (formerly in the Colonna Palace at Rome) is probably a studio-repetition of an original which is now at Madrid, and which was painted by Titian for Philip II. of Spain, then King-Consort of England. It was forwarded to him in London in 1554. The picture is thus forty years later than the "Bacchus and Ariadne," and critics find in it not unjustly a lack of the finer poetry which characterises the earlier classical works of the master. "That the aim of the artist was not a very high one, or this poesia very near to his heart, is demonstrated by the curiously material fashion in which he recommends it to his royal patron. He says that 'if in the Danaë (now at Naples) the forms were to be seen front-wise, here was occasion to look at them from a contrary direction—a pleasant variety for the ornament of a camerino.' Our worldly-wise painter evidently knew that material allurements as well as supreme art were necessary to captivate Philip" (Claude Philips: The Later Work of Titian, p. 80).

35. BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.

A picture which is at once a school of poetry and a school of art—"in its combination of all the qualities which go to make a great work of art possibly the finest picture in the world" (Poynter). It is a translation on canvas of the scene described in Catullus, where Bacchus, the wine-god, returning with his revel rout from a sacrifice, finds Ariadne on the seashore, after she had been deserted by Theseus, her lover. Bacchus no sooner sees her than he is enamoured and determines to make her his bride—

[Pg 108]

Nothing can be finer than the painter's representation of Bacchus and his rout: there is a "divine inebriety" in the god which is the very "incarnation of the spirit of revelry." "With this telling of the story," says Charles Lamb (Essay on Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Productions of Modern Art), "an artist, and no ordinary one, might remain richly proud.... But Titian has recalled past time, and made it contributory with the present to one simultaneous effect. With the desert all ringing with the mad cymbals of his followers, made lucid with the presence and new offers of a god,—as if unconscious of Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some unconcerning pageant, her soul undistracted from Theseus, Ariadne is still pacing the solitary shore, in as much heart-silence, and in almost the same local solitude, with which she awoke at daybreak to catch the forlorn last glances of the sail that bore away the Athenian." But though as yet half unconscious, Ariadne is already under her fated star: for above is the constellation of Ariadne's crown—the crown with which Bacchus presented his bride. And observe in connection with the astronomical side of the allegory the figure in Bacchus's train with the serpent round him: this is the serpent-bearer (Milton's "Orphiucus huge") translated to the skies with Bacchus and Ariadne. Notice too another piece of poetry: the marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne took place in the spring, Ariadne herself being the personification of its return, and Bacchus of its gladness; hence the flowers in the foreground which deck his path.

The picture is as full of the painter's art as of the poet's. Note first the exquisite painting of the vine leaves,[67] and of [Pg 109]the flowers in the foreground, as an instance of the "constant habit of the great masters to render every detail of their foreground with the most laborious botanical fidelity": "The foreground is occupied with the common blue iris, the aquilegia, and the wild rose (more correctly the Capparis spinosa); every stamen of which latter is given, while the blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have been studied with the most exquisite accuracy." But this detail is sought not for its own sake, but only so far as is necessary to mark the typical qualities of beauty in the object. Thus "while every stamen of the rose is given because this was necessary to mark the flower, and while the curves and large characters of the leaves are rendered with exquisite fidelity, there is no vestige of particular texture, of moss, bloom, moisture, or any other accident, no dewdrops, nor flies, nor trickeries of any kind; nothing beyond the simple forms and hues of the flowers, even those hues themselves being simplified and broadly rendered. The varieties of aquilegia have in reality a grayish and uncertain tone of colour, and never attain the purity of blue with which Titian has gifted his flower. But the master does not aim at the particular colour of individual blossoms; he seizes the type of all, and gives it with the utmost purity and simplicity of which colour is capable." A second point to be noticed is the way in which one kind of truth has often to be sacrificed in order to gain another. Thus here Titian sacrifices truth of aerial effect to richness of tone—tone in the sense, that is, of that quality of colour which makes us feel that the whole picture is in one climate, under one kind of light, and in one kind of atmosphere. "It is difficult to imagine anything more magnificently impossible than the blue of the distant landscape; impossible, not from its vividness, but because it is not faint and aerial enough to account for its purity of colour; it is too dark and blue at the same time; and there is indeed so total a want of atmosphere in it, that, but for the difference of form, it would be impossible to tell the mountains intended to be ten miles off, from the robe of[Pg 110] Ariadne close to the spectator. Yet make this blue faint, aerial, and distant; make it in the slightest degree to resemble the tint of nature's colour; and all the tone of the picture, all the intensity and splendour, will vanish on the instant" (Modern Painters, vols. i., xxvii., xxx. (Preface to the Second Edition), pt. i. sec. ii. ch. i. § 5, pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 15; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. ix. § 18; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 31; Arrows of the Chace, i. 58). We may notice lastly what Sir Joshua Reynolds points out (Discourse viii.), that the harmony of the picture—that wonderful bringing together of two times of which Lamb speaks above, is assisted by the distribution of colours. "To Ariadne is given (say the critics) a red scarf, to relieve the figure from the sea, which is behind her. It is not for that reason alone, but for another of much greater consequence; for the sake of the general harmony and effect of the picture. The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group; which group is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, one half cold and the other warm, it was necessary to carry some of the mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a part of the cold into the great group; accordingly, Titian gave Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchantes a little blue drapery."

This famous picture was a commission from the Duke Alfonso I. of Ferrara. There were great delays in its delivery, the Duke and his agents resorting alternately to threats and cajolery in order to extract the promised canvas from the painter. Among other excuses Titian said he had no canvas for it. The Duke supplied the canvas, and sent at the same time a frame. But the picture did not come. Ultimately Titian took it with him to Ferrara in 1522, and finished it there. He seems to have been engaged on it, off and on, for some three years. The picture subsequently passed into the Aldobrandini collection at Rome, from which it was purchased for an English collector in 1806. Twenty years later it was acquired by the National Gallery.

[Pg 111]

36. A LAND STORM.

The one gleam of light breaking through the clouds falls on the watch tower of a castle, perched on a rock—"a stately image of stability," where all things else are bent beneath the power of the storm. The spirit of the picture is, however, better than its execution. Take, for instance, the clouds. They are mere "massive concretions of ink and indigo, wrung and twisted very hard, apparently in a vain effort to get some moisture out of them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. iv. § 6). In the tree forms, again, Ruskin sees a concentration of errors. "Gaspard Poussin, by his bad drawing, does not make his stem strong, but his tree weak; he does not make his gust violent, but his boughs of Indian-rubber" (for details of this criticism see ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. §§ 12, 13).

37. See under 7.

38. THE ABDUCTION OF THE SABINE WOMEN.

Peter Paul Rubens, born on the festival of Saints Peter and Paul (hence his Christian name), is the chief glory of the Flemish School, and one of the great masters of the world. It is impossible to walk round any gallery where there are good specimens of his work and not to be impressed at once with his power. Here, one feels, is a strong man, who knew what he wanted to paint, and was able to paint it. Whatever moral or poetical feelings he had or had not, he was at any rate master of the painter's language,[68] and this language is itself "so difficult and so vast, that the mere possession of it argues the man is great, and that his works are worth reading." "I have never spoken," says Ruskin elsewhere, "and I never will speak of Rubens but with the most reverential feeling; and whatever imperfections in his art may have resulted from his unfortunate want of seriousness and incapability of true passion, his calibre of mind was originally such that I believe the world may see another Titian and another Raphael, before it sees another Rubens." Rubens affords, in fact, "the Northern parallel to the power of the Venetians." Like the Venetians, [Pg 112]too, he is a great colourist. The pictures by the later Northern painters which here hang around his are dark and gloomy; his are all bright and golden. He is like Paul Veronese, too, in his "gay grasp of the outside aspects of the world."[69] His pictures in this Gallery embrace a wide range of subjects—some peaceful, others tumultuous—some religious, others profane, but over them all is the same gay glamour, "Alike, to Rubens, came subjects of tumult or tranquillity, of gaiety or terror; the nether, earthly, and upper world were to him animated with the same feeling, lighted by the same sun; he dyed in the same lake of fire the warp of the wedding-garment or of the winding-sheet; swept into the same delirium the recklessness of the sensualist and rapture of the anchorite; saw in tears only their glittering, and in torture only its flush." A fourth characteristic, which also cannot fail to be perceived in a general survey of Rubens's pictures in the Gallery, remains to be noticed. In all his exuberant joyousness is a strain of coarseness, "a want of feeling for grace and mystery." "There is an absence everywhere of refinement and delicacy, a preference everywhere for abundant and excessive types." He would have agreed, one may think, with the saying of Blake (in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell), "exuberance is beauty,"—Madonnas, goddesses, Roman matrons, have all alike a touch of grossness. Rubens, says Fromentin, "is very earthy, more earthy than any among the masters whose equal he is, but the painter comes to the aid of the draughtsman and the thinker, and sets them free." To like effect Heine speaks of "the colossal good humour of that Netherlands Titan, the wings of whose spirit were so strong that they bore him up to the sun, in spite of the hundredweights of Dutch cheese hanging to his legs."

It is instructive to notice how the art of Rubens was characteristic of the circumstances of his life and time. In the first place, though he travelled in many lands, Rubens remained to the end a Fleming, every inch of him.[70] "A man long trained to love the monk's visions of Fra Angelico, turns in proud and ineffable disgust from the first work of Rubens which he encounters on his return across the Alps. But is he right in his indignation? He has forgotten that while Angelico prayed and wept in his olive shade, there was different work doing in the dank fields of Flanders;—wild seas to be banked out; endless canals to be dug, and boundless marshes to be drained; hard ploughing and harrowing of the frosty clay; careful breeding of stout horses and fat cattle; close setting of brick walls against cold winds and snow; much hardening of hands and gross stoutening of bodies [Pg 113]in all this; gross jovialities of harvest homes and Christmas feasts which were to be the reward of it; rough affections, and sluggish imaginations; fleshy, substantial, iron-shod humanities, but humanities still; humanities which God had his eye upon, and which won, perhaps, here and there, as much favour in his sight as the wasted aspects of the whispering monks of Florence. (Heaven forbid it should not be so, since the most of us cannot be monks, but must be ploughmen and reapers still.) And are we to suppose there is no nobility in Rubens's masculine and universal sympathy with all this, and with his large human rendering of it, Gentleman though he was, by birth, and feeling, and education, and place; and, when he chose, lordly in conception also? He had his faults, perhaps great and lamentable faults, though more those of his time and his country than his own; he has neither cloister breeding nor boudoir breeding, and is very unfit to paint either in missals or annuals; but he has an open sky and wide-world breeding in him, that we may not be offended with, fit alike for king's court, knight's camp, or peasant's cottage." It is thus that Rubens was a child of Flanders. But he was also a child of the intellectual time in which he lived. He was born at a time, says Ruskin, when the Reformation had been arrested—his father, curiously enough, had fled from Antwerp as a Reformer, but afterwards returned to Catholicism. "The Evangelicals despised the arts, while the Roman Catholics were effete or insincere, and could not retain influence over men of strong reasoning power. The painters could only associate frankly with men of the world, and themselves became men of the world. Men, I mean, having no belief in spiritual existences, no interests or affections beyond the grave. Not but that they still painted Scriptural subjects. Altarpieces were wanted occasionally, and pious patrons sometimes commissioned a cabinet Madonna. But there is just this difference between men of this modern period and the Florentines or Venetians—that, whereas the latter never exert themselves fully except on a sacred subject, the Flemish and Dutch masters are always languid unless they are profane." Rubens was thus a man of the world. When a boy he was for some time page in the family of a countess at Brussels. But his bent towards art was too strong to be gainsaid. When only twenty-two he was already a master-painter in the Antwerp Guild. Two years later he went to Italy, and for eight years he was in the service of the Duke of Mantua. An excellent Latin scholar, he was also proficient in French, Italian, English, German, and Dutch. These gifts procured him diplomatic employment. In 1603 "the Fleming," as they called him, was sent on a mission to Spain. In 1608 news of his mother's illness reached him, and he hastened home, when he was appointed court-painter to the Archduke Albert, then Governor of the Netherlands. In 1620 he visited Paris, at the invitation of Mary de' Medici (a sister of the Duchess of Mantua), and received the commission for the celebrated series of pictures now in the Louvre, commemorating the marriage of that princess with[Pg 114] Henry IV. of France. In 1628 Rubens was sent on a mission to Philip IV. of Spain, and made the acquaintance of Velazquez. The great decorative master and the great realist (his junior by twenty-two years) painted together, travelled together, and talked together for eight or nine months. Rubens, we are told, was never so well pleased as when he was in the company of Velazquez, and Velazquez showed no resentment at the commissions given by the court to the foreign painter. In 1629 Rubens was sent to Charles I. of England (see under 46), by whom, in the following year, he was knighted. He was also given an honorary degree by the University of Cambridge. On this occasion, Rubens was commissioned to paint the pictures which adorn the ceiling of the Banqueting Hall of Whitehall (now the United Service Institution). Wherever he went Rubens continued to paint, and his diplomacy he considered as mere recreation. "The painter Rubens," he is reported to have said of himself, "amuses himself with being ambassador." "So said one with whom, but for his own words, we might have thought that effort had been absorbed in power, and the labour of his art in its felicity." How hard he laboured is known by the enormous number of his works which still survive, by the large fortune he amassed, and by the great request in which his talents were held. "Whatever work of his I may require," wrote a celebrated Antwerp printer, "I have to ask him six months before, so as that he may think of it at leisure, and do the work on Sundays or holidays; no week-days of his could I pretend to get under 100 florins." But of the several thousands of works ascribed to the master, many were painted from his sketches by pupils and assistants. "To put it plainly, Rubens established a picture factory at Antwerp. He was thus enabled to paint portraits, landscapes, hunting scenes, and pictures of genre, as well as to undertake several series of gigantic decorations as important as those of Raphael or Michael Angelo. The master made small, lively sketches of the work to be done, the pupils laid them in, each doing what suited his talent, while Rubens reserved to himself the duty of bringing the picture together; in some cases by using the work beneath as a ground for almost complete repainting, in most cases by mainly correcting here and there, or enhancing the effect with a few brilliant and dexterous touches" (R. A. M. Stevenson's "Portfolio monograph" on Rubens). Brueghel, Snyders, Teniers, and Van Dyck were among his assistants. Some of Rubens's letters contain curious information on his methods. Thus he offers to Sir Dudley Carleton certain pictures in exchange for a collection of antique marbles. Among them was to be "'A Last Judgment,' begun by one of my pupils after an original which I made of much larger size for the Prince of Neubourg, who paid me for it 3500 florins in ready money. As the present piece is not quite finished, I will retouch it altogether by myself, so that it can pass for an original: 1200 florins."

Rubens was unspoilt by success. Like many other great artists, he is conspicuous for "a quite curious gentleness and serene courtesy.... His letters are almost ludicrous in their unhurried polite[Pg 115]ness. He was an honourable and entirely well-intentioned man, earnestly industrious, simple and temperate in habits of life, highbred, learned, and discreet. His affection for his mother was great, his generosity to contemporary artists unfailing." He was twice married. In 1626 his first wife, Isabella Brant, died. Four years later he married Helena Fourment, a beautiful girl of sixteen, the living incarnation of his feminine type. "At the time of his second marriage Rubens was fifty-three years of age. He led a serious, happy, retired life. His leisure time he devoted to his family, to a few friends, to his correspondence, his collections, and his rides." "In the morning," we read, "he rose very early, and while he painted someone read aloud Livy, Plutarch, Cicero, Virgil or other poets. Then he would stroll in his gallery to stimulate his taste by the sight of the works of art he had brought from Italy. On other occasions he would study science, in which he always retained an active interest. Although he lived splendidly, he ate and drank moderately, and the gout from which he suffered in later life was certainly undeserved. He painted in the afternoon till towards evening, when he mounted a horse and rode out of the town." His house at Antwerp still stands; as also does his country-house, near Mechlin, of which there is a view in our Gallery (No. 66) (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 15, sec. ii. ch. ii. § 12; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. i. § 2; vol. iv. pt. v. ch. i. § 17; vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iv. § 21, pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 1-9; On the Old Road, i. 185, 186; Stones of Venice, vol. i. App. 15; Wauters, The Flemish School, p. 214).

"A miracle of agitation. A flush tide of the richest colour, which positively seems to boil up in swirling eddies of harmonious form. Its whole surface is swept by lines which rush each other on like the rapid successive entrances of an excited stretto, till the violent movement seems to undulate the entire pattern of the picture" (R. A. M. Stevenson: Velazquez, 1899, p. 51). As for the subject, see for the story of the Sabine women under 644. But the subject in this case does not greatly matter. "Rubens in one of his most marvellous pictures, the Rape of the Sabines, which hangs in the National Gallery, did not even take the trouble to dress his Sabines in the costumes of their day. Without any more ado he dressed them in the style of the seventeenth century. One might rather think it a kidnapping of beautiful Antwerp women on a Flemish fair-day. But what difference does it make? He has made white shoulders that shine, sumptuous stuffs, warriors with glittering arms—all which is instinct with life, and blazes with the deepest colouring of the greatest of Flemish masters. The colourists have never considered the subject[Pg 116] otherwise than as a means of representing life under such and such actions, or such and such aspects, joyful or sad, or simply plastic" (Benjamin Constant in North American Review, Nov. 1900).

39. THE NURSING OF BACCHUS.

The life of Nicolas Poussin may be summed up in the cry of Æneas, Italiam petimus—we make for Italy. He was born in Normandy, of a noble family, and first learnt painting under Quintin Varin at Les Andelys. When eighteen he went to Paris and became acquainted with Courtois, the mathematician, whose collection of Italian prints fired him with a desire to go to Rome. This devotion to Rome became from that day the leading point alike in his life and in his art. Among the artist friends of his wandering years was Philippe de Champaigne (see under 798). After several unsuccessful efforts to get to Rome, Poussin made the acquaintance at Lyons of the Italian poet Marino, who invited him to Rome (1624), and introduced him to Cardinal Barberini. The Cardinal, however, was called away, and for a time Poussin's life in Rome was one of severe struggle. He also fell ill, and was nursed by a compatriot, Dughet, whose daughter he afterwards married. The wife brought her husband a comfortable dowry, with which a house was bought, and the painter, now released from the pinch of poverty, was able to give free play to his talents. In 1640 he returned to Paris, where he was introduced by Richelieu (for whom amongst other pictures he painted No. 62 in this Gallery) to Louis XIII. The king appointed him his painter-in-ordinary, with a salary of £120 and rooms in the Tuileries, but two years later, disgusted with the intrigues and jealousies of Paris, and being anxious to rejoin his wife, he returned to Rome, where he remained—full of work—for the rest of his life. His house on the Pincian, adjoining the church of the Trinita, may still be seen, and he is buried in the church of St. Lorenzo. Poussin, says his biographer, Bellori, led a regular life, rising early and taking a walk for one or two hours, sometimes in the city, but more often on Monte Pincio, not far from his house. From these lovely gardens he could enjoy the view of Rome on its hills; there he met his friends and discoursed on curious and learned topics. "In the evening he went out again and walked on the Piazza di Spagna, at the foot of the hill, in the midst of the strangers who congregate there. He always had friends with him, and often they made a kind of retinue. He spoke often of art, and so clearly, that artists and all cultivated men of talent came to hear his beautiful and profound thoughts about painting." "During my sojourn [Pg 117]in Rome," says a traveller of that period, "I often saw Poussin. I admired the extreme love this excellent painter had for perfection in his art. I met him among the ruins of Rome, in the Campagna, and on the banks of the Tiber, and I saw him carry home stones, moss, flowers, and other things, in order to paint them from nature. One day I asked him how he had attained such an elevation among the greatest artists of Italy. He answered modestly, 'I have neglected nothing.'"

It is Rome which gives the leading idea also to Poussin's art. He has been called the "Raphael of France"; and certain it is that at a time when the local art of France was purely decorative in character, he returned, and strenuously adhered, to classical traditions. Already at Paris he had studied casts and prints after Raphael; and when he first went to Rome he lived with Du Quesnoy ("Il Fiammingo"), under whom he learnt the art of modelling bassi-relievi. He also studied anatomy, and attended the academy of Domenichino, whom he considered the first master in Rome. His profound classical learning has caused him to be called "the learned Poussin." "He studied the beautiful," says his biographer, "in the Greek statues of the Vatican." "He studied the ancients so much," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "that he acquired a habit of thinking in their way, and seemed to know perfectly the actions and gestures they would use on every occasion." His learning went, however, farther than this in its influence on his art. His ideal, says Lanzi, was that of "philosophy in painting"; and in one of his letters Poussin illustrates the idea from the Greek theory of "modes" in music. If a subject were serious, it should be painted in the Doric mode; if vehement, in the Phrygian; if plaintive, in the Lydian; if joyous, in the Ionic.[72] This classical learning of Poussin was the source at once of his strength and of his weakness as an artist. On the one hand, it often made his work wonderfully harmonious and impressive. Thus in the Ionic mode, his Bacchanalian pictures in this Gallery and elsewhere are nearly the best representations in art of the Epicurean ideal of life, of a world in which enjoyment is the end of existence. "His best works," says Ruskin, "are his Bacchanalian revels, always brightly wanton, full of frisk and fire; but they are coarser than Titian's[73] and infinitely [Pg 118]less beautiful. In all minglings of the human and brutal character he leans on the bestial, yet with a sternly Greek severity of treatment." Again, in more serious Doric mode, he is "the great master of the elevated ideal of landscape." He does not "put much power into his landscape when it becomes principal; the best pieces of it occur in fragments behind his figures. Beautiful vegetation, more or less ornamental in character, occurs in nearly all his mythological subjects, but his pure landscape is notable only for its dignified reserve; the great squareness and horizontality of its masses, with lowness of tone, giving it a deeply meditative character:" see especially 40. On the other hand, he had the defects of his training. It made him too restrained and too cold. "His peculiarities are, without exception, weaknesses, induced in a highly intellectual and inventive mind by being fed on medals, books, and bassi-relievi instead of nature, and by the want of any deep sensibility." Thus he "had noble powers of design, and might have been a thoroughly great painter had he been trained in Venice;[74] but his Roman education kept him tame; his trenchant severity was contrary to the tendencies of his age, and had few imitators, compared to the dashing of Salvator and the mist of Claude. These few imitators adopted his manner without possessing either his science or invention; and the Italian School of landscape soon expired.... This restraint, peculiarly classical, is much too manifest in him; for, owing to his habit of never letting himself be free, he does nothing as well as it ought to be done, rarely even as well as he can himself do it; and his best beauty is poor, incomplete and characterless, though refined." Finally, his "want of sensibility permits him to paint frightful subjects without feeling any true horror; his pictures of the plague are thus ghastly in incident, sometimes disgusting, but never impressive:" see 165 (collected from Modern Painters, vol. i. preface, p. xxv., pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 14; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 19; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 28; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. v. § 17).

The wine-god is represented in infancy, nursed by the nymphs and fauns of Eubœa, and fed not on milk but on the juice of the grape. "The picture makes one thirsty to look at it—the colouring even is dry and adust. The figure of the infant Bacchus seems as if he would drink up a vintage—he drinks with his mouth, his hands, his belly, and his whole body. Gargantua was nothing to him" (Hazlitt: Criticisms on Art, p. 33).

[Pg 119]

40. LANDSCAPE: PHOCION.

"The work of a really great and intellectual mind, one of the finest landscapes that ancient art has produced"[75] (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 8),—its excellence consisting in the perfect harmony of the landscape with the subject represented, and thus marking the painter's sense of the dependence of landscape for its greatest impressiveness on human interest. In the foreground to the left is Phocion "the good"—the incorruptible Athenian general and statesman, contemporary with Philip and Alexander the Great, of whom it is recorded that he was "never elated in prosperity nor dejected in adversity," and "never betrayed pusillanimity by a tear nor joy by a smile." He wears an undyed robe, and is washing his feet at a public fountain, the dress and action being thus alike emblematic of the purity and simplicity of his life. In entire keeping with this figure of noble simplicity is the feeling of the landscape in which "all the air a solemn stillness holds." In detail, however, Ruskin finds the picture deficient in truth—false, indeed, both in tone and colour (see ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 5).

41. THE DEATH OF PETER MARTYR.

For the legend, see under 812—a more pleasing version of the same subject. The man was afterwards regarded as a martyr and canonised; and here, too, notice that he is made to see the angels as he dies.

[Pg 120]

42. A BACCHANALIAN FESTIVAL.

A realisation of the classic legends of mirth and jollity, precisely in the spirit of Keats's ode On a Grecian Urn—

"This masterpiece, conceived in the manner of Titian and imbued with the spirit of the antique, full of life, and incomparable for its qualities of drawing and painting, is perhaps the most beautiful work which Nicolas Poussin ever painted, and, with the 'Bacchanalian Dance' (No. 62), is among the most valued possessions of the National Gallery" (Poynter: The National Gallery, ii. 104).

43. CHRIST TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS.

A sketch for a composition which Rembrandt etched and also drew. The drawing is in the British Museum. This sketch was formerly in the possession of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at whose sale it was bought by Sir George Beaumont.

44. A BLEACHING GROUND.

This little picture, which dates from the earliest days of the National Gallery, was for many years obscured with dirt and not exhibited to the public. It has recently been cleaned, and shows one of the painter's favourite subjects—the bleaching grounds in the neighbourhood of Haarlem. Before the discovery of chemical means of bleaching linen, these were a great source of income to the town. Linen was brought here from all parts of the continent to be bleached, and then went back as Dutch linen or Holland.

[Pg 121]

45. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY.

Rembrandt Harmensz—called also Van Rhyn, "of the Rhine," from having been born on the banks of that river—has a place apart by himself in the history of painting. He is the greatest genius of the Dutch School, and one of the six supreme masters of the world. He is also one of the most distinctive and individual of them all. In what, let us ask, do the genius and the individuality of Rembrandt consist? In the first place, his mastery of the resources of painting, within the sphere and for the ideals he chose for himself, is surpassed by no other artist. "It will be remembered," said Millais, "that Rembrandt in his first period was very careful and minute in detail, and there is evidence of stippling in his flesh-painting; but when he grew older, and in the fulness of his power, all appearance of such manipulation and minuteness vanished in the breadth and facility of his brush, though the advantage of his early manner remained. The latter manner is, of course, much the finer and really the more finished of the two.[76] I have closely examined his pictures at the National Gallery, and have actually seen, beneath that grand veil of breadth, the early work that his art conceals from untrained eyes—the whole science of painting. And herein lies his superiority to Velazquez, who, with all his mighty power and magnificent execution, never rose to the perfection which, above all with painters, consists in ars celare artem" (Magazine of Art, 1888, p. 291). "Rembrandt," says Sir Frederic Burton, "would have been unparalleled had he treated nothing but frivolous subjects"; but, in the second place, "the artist was a poet and a seer." He was a seer in his penetration into the mind of man; a poet in his perception of a special kind of beauty. His portraits have "an inward life that belongs to no others in a like degree." It is as a painter of character that he shows himself supreme, bringing out the personality of his sitters in their gestures and attitudes, and in the peculiarity of bearing and expression stamped upon them by temperament and habits. From his dramatic action and mastery of expression, Rembrandt has been called "the Shakespeare of Holland." In his religious subjects, the originality of his mind and power of his imagination are also conspicuous. "He gives," says Ruskin, "pathetic or powerful fancies, founded on real Scripture reading, and on his interest in the picturesque character of the Jew." In all subjects alike, "he moves us by his profound sympathy with his kind, by his tragic power, by his deep pathos, by his humour, which is thoroughly human and seldom cynical." What he held up to nature—and herein is Rembrandt's individuality [Pg 122]most marked—was the dark mirror. "He was," says Leighton, "the supreme painter who revealed to the world the poetry of twilight and all the magic mystery of gloom." "He was in the mystery," says Burton, "that underlies the surface of things." "He accosts with his dark lantern," says Fromentin, "the world of the marvellous, of conscience, and the ideal; he has no master in the art of painting, because he has no equal in the power of showing the invisible." "It was his function," says another critic, "to introduce mystery as an element of effect in the imitative arts." "As by a stroke of enchantment Rembrandt brought down a cloud over the face of nature, and beneath it, half-revealed, half-hidden, her shapes met the eye in aspects full of new suggestion."[77] In the technical method by which Rembrandt worked out his ideal he is the great master of the school of chiaroscuro—of those, that is, who strive at representing not so much the colours of objects, as the contrasts of light and shade upon them. "If it were possible for art to give all the truths of nature it ought to do it. But this is not possible. Choice must always be made of some facts which can be represented from among others which must be passed by in silence, or even, in some respects, misrepresented.... Rembrandt always chooses to represent the exact force with which the light on the most illumined part of an object is opposed to its obscurer portions. In order to obtain this, in most cases, not very important truth, he sacrifices the light and colour of five-sixths of his picture; and the [Pg 123]expression of every character of objects which depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and forcible expression is dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety."[78] Rembrandt "sacrifices the light and colour of five-sixths of his picture." This is inevitable. For both the light and the darkness of nature are inimitable by art. "The whole question, therefore, is simply whether you will be false at one end of the scale or at the other—that is, whether you will lose yourself in light or in darkness.... What Veronese does is to make his colours true to nature as far as he can. What Rembrandt does is to make his contrasts true, never minding his colours—with the result that in most cases not one colour is absolutely true."[79] An exception, however, must be made. For he often "chose subjects in which the real colours were very nearly imitable,—as single heads with dark backgrounds, in which nature's highest light was little above his own." He was particularly fond also of dark scenes lighted only by some small spot of light; as, for instance, in this picture and in No. 47.

The technical skill and sense of power which distinguish Rembrandt's work are reflected in his life—a life of hard labour, sinking towards its close into deep gloom, and a life at all times of a certain aloofness and of restricted vision. He was born at Leyden, being the fifth child of a miller, and from a very early age set himself to etch and sketch the common things about the mill. "His father's mill was, doubtless, Rembrandt's school; the strong and solitary light, with its impenetrable obscurity around, the characteristic feature of many of Rembrandt's best works, is just such an effect as would be produced by the one ray admitted into the lofty chamber of a mill from the small window, its ventilator" (Wornum). He never went to Italy or cultivated the grand style. He studied the life and manner of his own time and people. His models were not conspicuous for elegance; beauty of form was not within the compass of his art. He was indefatigable in making studies both of himself and of his mother. Among the things he studied were, it must be admitted, the lowest functions of humanity and often obscenities of a rollicking kind; coarseness of manner and conversation was common at that time. Rembrandt studied for a short period under a well-known painter, Pieter Lastman, at Amsterdam, where he had for a fellow-pupil a fellow-townsman, Jan Lievens (see 1095), but returned to Leyden in [Pg 124]1624, determined "to study and practise in his own fashion." He soon acquired a considerable reputation; a Dutch poet, in a book published in 1630, refers to him as an instance of precocity, and in disproof of the doctrine of heredity. Rembrandt, "beardless, yet already famous," was the son of a miller, "made of other flour than his father's." As most of his sitters lived in Amsterdam, then a great centre of wealth and learning, Rembrandt moved to that city in 1631. The famous "Anatomy Lesson," now in the Museum at the Hague, was produced in the following year. "He lived very simply," we are told, "and when at work contented himself with a herring or a piece of cheese and bread; his only extravagance was a passion for collecting." In 1634 he married Saskia Uilenburg, a lady of a good Frisian family, and possessed of some fortune. Her features may be recognised in a large number of the painter's pictures; in none more attractively rendered than in the famous picture of the Dresden Gallery, in which she is sitting on her husband's knee. During this period of Rembrandt's life all went well with him. Commissions poured in; his studio was crowded with scholars, and his etchings spread his fame far beyond his native land. He lived for his art and his home, mixing little in society. "When I want to give my wits a rest," he said, "I do not look for honour, but for liberty." "When he was painting," said one of his biographers, "he would not have given audience to the greatest monarch on earth, but would have compelled even such an one to wait or to come again when he was more at leisure." He never travelled, even in Holland, and he dwelt apart. He had few books, but his taste in art was catholic. To his passion for collecting we have already referred. His house, which still stands in the Breedstraat, was a museum of curiosities, containing costly materials, stuffed animals, richly ornamented weapons, casts, engravings, and pictures (including works by Palma Vecchio and Giorgione). The pearls, precious stones, rich necklaces, clasps and bracelets of every kind that Saskia wears in her portraits were not gems of the painter's imagination, but actual objects from the jewel-cases which he filled for his wife. "When Rembrandt was present at a sale," says Baldinucci, "it was his habit, especially when pictures drawn by great masters were put up, to make an enormous advance on the first bid, which generally silenced all competition. To those who expressed their surprise at such a proceeding, he replied that by this means he hoped to raise the status of his profession." This lordly buying was the undoing of Rembrandt's worldly fortunes. In 1642 Saskia died, and his financial embarrassments, which had already begun, went from worse to worse. In 1656 he was declared bankrupt; his house and collections were sold, and at the age of fifty-one he found himself homeless and penniless. He was stripped, we read, even of his household linen, though of this, to be sure, he seems to have had but a meagre store. In his life, as in his art, there were heavy shadows; but the light shines out in his undaunted perseverance. He had lived for some years with his[Pg 125] servant, Hendrickje Stoffels, an uneducated peasant, who served him as a model, and whose homely features appear in many of the pictures of his middle period (see e.g. No. 54). In 1654 Rembrandt had been summoned before the elders of the Church on account of the irregularity of their relationship. But Hendrickje was a good mother to Rembrandt's legitimate children as well as to her own, and in 1660 she and the painter's son, Titus, entered into partnership as art dealers, and supported Rembrandt by the sale of his etchings. His vogue as a painter had by this time been eclipsed by the popularity of painters of less sombre genius. Fallen from his rich estate and frowned upon by the Church, the master found himself in the last period of his life deserted and unhonoured. Yet to this period belong many of his noblest works. "He had never cared," says M. Michel, "for the suffrages of the crowd. He set his face more steadily than ever towards the goal he had marked out for himself. Within the walls of his makeshift studios, seeking solace in work and meditation, he lived for his art more absolutely than before; and some of his creations of this period have a poetry and a depth of expression such as he had never hitherto achieved." But fresh sorrows descended upon the master as the end drew near. Hendrickje died about 1664, and this blow was followed in 1668 by the death of Titus. Crushed in spirit and broken by poverty, the old painter did not long survive his son. He died in 1669—unknown, unrecorded, and dishonoured. Gerard de Lairesse, then at the height of his reputation, said of him only that he was a master "who merely achieved an effect of rottenness," and was "capable of nothing but vulgar and prosaic subjects." Now, two centuries and a quarter after his death, Rembrandt's fame stands higher than even in the heyday of his success. His work as a painter is represented in the National Gallery by several masterpieces. Of his drawings and etchings the British Museum possesses a splendid collection; an exhibition of these (illustrated by an admirable Catalogue) was arranged in 1899.

A tour de force in the artist's speciality of contrasts of light and shade. Notice how a succession of these contrasts gradually renders the subject intelligible. "The eye falls at once upon the woman, who is dressed in white, passes then to the figure of Christ, which next to her is the most strongly lighted—and so on to Peter, to the Pharisees, to the soldiers, till at length it perceives in the mysterious gloom of the Temple the High Altar, with the worshippers on the steps" (Waagen: Treasures of Art in Great Britain, i. 353). "Beyond the ordinary claims of art, this picture commands our attention from the grand conception of the painter, who here, as in other pictures and etchings, has invested Christ with a majestic dignity which recalls Leonardo and no other" (J. F. White).

[Pg 126]

This picture, which was painted in 1644 for Jan Six, the well-known patron of Rembrandt, passed eventually into the possession of Mr. Angerstein. The poet Wordsworth, describing a visit he paid to the Angerstein collection, wrote to Sir George Beaumont in 1808: "Coleridge and I availed ourselves of your letters to Lawrence, and saw Mr. Angerstein's pictures. The day was very unfavourable, not a gleam of sun, and the clouds were quite in disgrace. The great picture of Michael Angelo and Sebastian (No. 1) pleased me more than ever. The new Rembrandt has, I think, much, very much, in it to admire, but still more to wonder at rather than admire. I have seen many pictures of Rembrandt which I should prefer to it. The light in the depth of the temple is far the finest part of it: indeed, it is the only part of the picture which gives me very high pleasure; but that does highly please me" (Memorials of Coleorton, ii. 49).

46. THE BLESSINGS OF PEACE

This picture was presented in 1630 to King Charles I. by Rubens, when he came to England as accredited ambassador for the purpose of negotiating a peace with Spain. After the death of Charles, the Parliament sold the picture for £100. It passed into the possession of the Doria family at Genoa, where it was known as "The Family of Rubens." It was afterwards bought by the Marquis of Stafford for £3000, and by him presented to the National Gallery.[80]

[Pg 127]

The circumstances under which the picture was painted gave the clue to its meaning. Rubens came to urge Charles to conclude peace, and here on canvas he sets forth its blessings. In the centre of the picture is the Goddess of Wisdom, with Minerva's helmet on her head, her right hand resting on her spear, now to be used no more. Before her flies War, reluctantly, as if he dared not resist Wisdom, yet employing his shield, in order still to shelter Discord, with her torch now extinguished. Last of all in the hateful train is Malice, whose very breath is fire, and who "endeth foul in many a snaky fold"—in the serpent's folds, which ever attend the hostilities of nations. Beneath Minerva's protection sits Peace enthroned, and gives the milk of human kindness for babes to suck. From above, Zephyrus, the soft warm wind, descends with the olive wreath—the emblem in all ages of public peace, whilst at her side stands the "all-bounteous Pan," with Amalthea's storied Horn of Plenty. A band of happy children, led by Love (whose torch, now that Discord's is gone out, burns aloft), approach to taste the sweets of Peace, and to minister to abundance. In the train of Plenty comes Opulence, bringing goblets, wreaths of pearl, and other treasures; whilst behind is Music, playing on her tambourine to celebrate the arts of peace. Last of all in the foreground is a leopard, not hurting or destroying any more, but playful as a lamb—

[Pg 128]

47. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

A characteristic piece of "Bible by candle-light." There is, however, something spiritually instructive, as well as technically skilful, in the way in which such light there is all proceeds from Him who came to be the light of the world: compared with this divine light that in the lantern of the shepherds pales and is ineffectual. The picture is dated 1646. For the most part, however, the picture is a piece of pure realism, which may be contrasted in an instructive way with the essentially religious art of earlier schools. Here there is little, if any, symbolism, and "the decorative qualities with which a painter like Botticelli appealed to the imagination to heighten the impressiveness of the story have vanished also. In their stead we have pure naturalism,—naturalism of a very refined and cultured order, which appeals to the imagination as powerfully, but in a totally different way. The charm of the picture is independent of any exegetical qualities. Rembrandt treats the Nativity as a natural event, in a scientific spirit. The only connection between this picture and religious art is that it represents certain conventional attributes which are common to both. But just so much as we subtract from it as an exponent of strictly religious thought, just so much must we add to it as appealing to the intellect in general; its impressiveness, its sublimity, and its suggestiveness, and it has all these, are evolved out of the phenomena of natural effects by a poetical process" (J. E. Hodgson, R.A., in Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 42).

48. LANDSCAPE, WITH TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL.

Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino for his small stature, was born at Bologna, the son of a shoemaker. He entered the school of the Carracci, and afterwards was invited to Rome by Albani, in whose house he lived. Here he soon acquired a great reputation, and was taken by Annibale Carracci as assistant in the execution of the frescoes of the Farnese Palace. The Cardinals Borghese and Aldobrandini were also among his patrons. In 1617 he revisited Bologna, where he married. In 1621 he was recalled to Rome by the Pope Gregory XV., who appointed him principal painter and architect to the pontifical palace.[Pg 129] Some of the villas at Frascati were designed by him. In 1630 he was invited to Naples to decorate the Cappella del Tesoro of the Duomo, a commission which Guido Reni sought in vain. Here Domenichino incurred the hostility of the Neapolitan painters, and the machinations of the notorious triumvirate, the "Cabal of Naples," were suspected of causing his death. At Rome also he had been much persecuted by rival artists. Accusations of plagiarism were levelled at him, and his more pushing competitors "decried him to such a degree that he was long destitute of all commissions." It is interesting to contrast the conditions of (literally) "cut-throat competition," under which the Italian painters of the decadence worked, with the Guild System of the Flemish and the honourable time and piece-work of the earlier Italians.

The varying fortunes of Domenichino's fame form a curious chapter in the history of taste. In his own time and down to the end of the eighteenth century he was ranked among the greatest masters. Poussin placed him next to Raphael. Bellori attributed to him "the same wand which belongs to the poetical enchanters." Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks of him with high respect, and Lanzi describes him as the admiration of all professors, and records the enormous price which his pictures still fetched (1809). Against these panegyrics we may set Ruskin's invectives. "I once supposed," he says, "that there was some life in the landscape of Domenichino, but in this I must have been wrong. The man who painted the 'Madonna del Rosario' and 'Martyrdom of St. Agnes' in the gallery of Bologna is palpably incapable of doing anything good, great, or right, in any field, way, or kind whatsoever.... Whatever appears good in any of the doings of such a painter must be deceptive, and we may be assured that our taste is corrupted and false whenever we feel disposed to admire him.... I am prepared to support this position, however uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted into a gross sin by passion and forgiven, and yet there are some kinds of sins into which only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which cannot be forgiven. It should be added, however, that the artistical qualities of these pictures are in every way worthy of the conceptions they realise; I do not recollect any instance of colour or execution so coarse and feelingless." Domenichino and the Carraccis were, says Ruskin elsewhere, mere "art-weeds." "Their landscape, which may in few words be accurately described as 'scum of Titian,' possesses no single merit, nor any ground for the forgiveness of demerit." "The flight of Domenichino's angels is a sprawl paralysed." "They are peculiarly offensive, studies of bare-legged children howling and kicking in volumes of smoke" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 13; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 17; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 20; Stones of Venice, travellers' edition, vol. ii. ch. vi.; On the Old Road, vol. i. § 91). Ruskin's estimate, "though expressed with such a clangour of emphasis," yet fairly represents, as Mr. Symonds says, the feeling of modern students. Perhaps, however, the reaction against the once worshipped pictures of Domenichino has gone too far.[Pg 130] His celebrated "Diana and her Nymphs" in the Borghese Gallery is "a charming picture," says Morelli, "worthy of a purer period of art. Full of cheerful animation and naïve and delightful details, it cannot fail to please" (Roman Galleries, p. 228). Of the moral obliquity which Ruskin seems to impute, Domenichino must be acquitted. He appears to have been a simple, modest, painstaking, and virtuous person. "He was misled by his dramatic bias, and also by the prevalent religious temper of his age. That he belonged to a school which was essentially vulgar in its choice of type, to a city never distinguished for delicacy of taste, and to a generation which was rapidly losing the sense of artistic reserve, suffices to explain the crude brutality of the conceptions which he formed of tragic episodes" (Symonds, Renaissance, vii. 220). Lanzi says with truth that Domenichino's style of painting is "almost theatrical." He tears the passion of his figures to tatters—"exaggerated action destroying," as Ruskin says, "all appearance of intense feeling." An interesting tale is told of the way in which the artist worked himself up. He was engaged on a scene of martyrdom, and "in painting one of the executioners he actually threw himself into a passion, using threatening words and actions. Annibale Carracci, surprising him at that moment, embraced him, exclaiming with joy, 'To-day, my Domenichino, thou art teaching me.'"

Tobias, directed by the angel, is drawing out of the water the fish that attacked him. See the Book of Tobit, ch. vi. 4, 5, and the note on No. 781.

49. THE PORTRAIT OF RUBENS.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, the prince of court portrait-painters and the most famous of Rubens's pupils, is one of the many great artists whose gifts showed themselves almost from birth. He was born at Antwerp, the seventh child of a tradesman in good circumstances. His mother was a woman of taste, who attained considerable skill in art-needlework, and from her he doubtless derived many of the qualities for which his works are conspicuous. At the age of ten the boy had already begun to paint. His admission at the age of thirteen to the crowded studio of Rubens is a proof of his precocious talent. Documents recently discovered show that Van Dyck when seventeen had already pupils of his own, and that his independent work was sought after by artists and amateurs. At nineteen he was admitted to the painters' Guild of St. Luke. For five years (1620-25) he was for the most part travelling and painting in Italy, with introductions from Rubens. Many of his best works are still to be seen in Genoa and Turin. He also visited Venice, where the spell of Titian's genius enchanted him. Several[Pg 131] sketches in the British Museum testify to his devout study of the great Venetian. On his return to Antwerp at the end of 1625, Van Dyck soon became the great court-painter of his time. Queens visited him in his studio, and the nobility of three nations considered it an honour to be painted by him. Religious pictures were also produced by him at this time with amazing rapidity. In 1632 he came to England. He had already paid a short visit in 1620-21, when he had painted James I., and was in receipt of a grant from the Exchequer "for special service performed for His Majesty." This first visit to England seems to have been due to the initiative of the celebrated connoisseur, the Earl of Arundel. At the court of Charles I. Van Dyck came at once into the highest favour. Sir Kenelm Digby, a gentleman of the bedchamber, was his bosom friend, and on his first presentation to Charles I. he obtained permission to paint the king and queen. He was appointed painter to the court, was knighted, and received a pension of £200. A town-house was given him at Blackfriars, and a country-house at Eltham. He "always went magnificently dressed, had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept so good a table in his apartment that few princes were more visited or better served." In England alone there are said to be twenty-four portraits of the king by Van Dyck, and twenty-five of Queen Henrietta Maria. Every one of distinction desired to have his or her features immortalised by the court-painter, and for seven years he worked at the portraits of the English aristocracy with indefatigable industry. Some 300 of these portraits exist in this country. The painter's health gradually began to fail, from the constant drain upon his strength caused by the incessant labour necessary to procure the means of gratifying his luxurious tastes, and also by his irregular mode of life. Van Dyck, says Mr. Law in his Catalogue of the Hampton Court Gallery, "loved beauty in every form, and found the seduction of female charms altogether irresistible." In 1639 he married Mary Ruthven, grand-daughter of the unfortunate Lord Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie—a marriage promoted by the king, who hoped thereby to effect a change in the painter's habits of life. Margaret Lemon, the celebrated beauty, who lived with Van Dyck for some time at Blackfriars, resented the marriage most bitterly, and tried to maim the painter's right hand. In 1640-41 he travelled abroad with his wife, but returned to this country a dying man. The king offered a special reward to any doctor who could save the painter's life; but he expired in his house at Blackfriars on December 9, 1641, at the early age of forty-two. Two days afterwards he was buried in the old cathedral of St. Paul's, and the king erected a monument to record the death of one "who in life had conferred immortality on many." A magnificent collection of his works was shown at the Royal Academy in the winter exhibition of 1900.

The characteristics of Van Dyck's art may in large measure be gathered from the circumstances of his life. He is essentially the painter of princes. His sacred and other subject pictures are often remarkable for force and vigour of handling. "Van Dyck," says[Pg 132] Ruskin, "often gives a graceful dramatic rendering of received Scriptural legends." But it is not in these subjects that Van Dyck is seen in his most interesting and most characteristic manner. "Rubens is only to be seen in the Battle of the Amazons, and Van Dyck only at court." No more in him than in the other later Flemish artists is there anything spiritual. The difference between him and Teniers, for instance, is accidental rather than essential. "They lived," says Ruskin, "the gentle at court, the simple in the pot-house; and could indeed paint, according to their habitation, a nobleman or a boor, but were not only incapable of conceiving, but wholly unwishful to conceive, anything, natural or supernatural, beyond the precincts of the Presence and the tavern." What distinguishes Van Dyck is the indelible mark of courtly grace and refinement which he gives to all his sitters. Nowhere clearer than in his portraits does one see the better side of the "Cavalier" ideal. In this connection we may note Van Dyck's feeling for the nobility of the horse (see note on No. 156). One thing "that gives nobleness to the Van Dyck," says Ruskin in describing one of his "cavalier" portraits, "is its feminineness; the rich, light silken scarf, the flowing hair, the delicate, sharp, though sunburnt features, and the lace collar, do not in the least diminish the manliness, but add feminineness. One sees that the knight is indeed a soldier, but not a soldier only; that he is accomplished in all ways, and tender in all thoughts." The reader who remembers any large collection of Van Dycks will feel that the spirit of Ruskin's description is true to a very large number of them. One may forget the individual sitter; the impression left by the Van Dyck type is indelible. Charles I. and his Queen, though painted by several other painters, are known to posterity exclusively through Van Dyck—not (says M. Hymans) from a greater closeness of resemblance to the original, but from a particular power of expression and bearing, which, once seen, it is impossible to forget. The same may be said of Van Dyck's portraits generally. He endowed all his sitters alike with the same distinction of feature and elegance in bearing. He excelled in giving delicacy to the hands, and is said to have kept special models for this part of his work. He is not what is called an "intimate" portrait painter. He does not startle us with penetration in seizing points of individual character; he charms us with the refinement of his type. "In Titian," says Ruskin, "it is always the Man whom we see first; in Van Dyck the Prince or the Sir." With regard to Van Dyck's technique, his earlier productions (says Sir F. Burton) "are scarcely to be distinguished from those of Rubens, and there are cases in which dogmatism as to authorship would be hazardous.[81] Differentiation is first visible in a greater precision, a slenderer, it might be said, a more wiry touch, and a cooler colouring, on the part of the pupil." At its worst, Van Dyck's touch is distinguished by what Ruskin calls a certain "flightiness and flimsiness"; at its best, by [Pg 133]great refinement: "there is not a touch of Van Dyck's pencil but he seems to have revelled in—not grossly, but delicately—tasting the colour in every touch as an epicure would wine." His output was prodigious; in spite of his early death more than 1000 works are attributed to him. A considerable portion of many of these was done by assistants, and his later works are often hasty and careless. The references to Van Dyck in Ruskin's books are numerous. (The most interesting are Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 5, 10, 22; ch. vii. § 23; Elements of Drawing, appendix ii.; On the Old Road, i. § 154; Art of England, 1884, pp. 43, 83, 138, 212.)

A portrait of special interest as having been much prized by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it formerly belonged. When Mr. Angerstein bought it, the great Burke is said to have congratulated him on possessing Sir Joshua's "favourite picture." It is commonly called "The Portrait of Rubens," but the principal figure does not greatly resemble the well-known face of Rubens; it is more probably a portrait of Luke Vostermann, a celebrated engraver of the time. He is discoursing, it would seem, on some point of art, suggested by the little statue which a man behind is holding.

50. ST. AMBROSE AND THEODOSIUS.

A copy, with some variations, of a large picture by Rubens now at Vienna. The subject is that described by Gibbon (ch. xxvii.). The Emperor Theodosius, for a massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica, was excommunicated by Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan.

The emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches, and by those of his spiritual father; and, after he had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his own rash fury, he proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his devotions in the great church of Milan. He was stayed in the porch by the Archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of heaven, declared to his sovereign that private contrition was not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or to appease the justice of an offended Deity. Theodosius humbly represented that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty not only of murder, but of adultery. "You have imitated David in his crime, imitate then his repentance," was the reply of the undaunted Ambrose.

Observe as an instance of picturesque ornament properly[Pg 134] introduced in subordination to the figure subject, the robes of St. Ambrose. "Tintoret, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Van Dyck would be very sorry to part with their figured stuffs and lustrous silks; and sorry, observe, exactly in the degree of their picturesque feeling. Should not we also be sorry to have Bishop Ambrose without his vest in that picture of the National Gallery? But I think Van Dyck would not have liked, on the other hand, the vest without the bishop. And I much doubt if Titian or Veronese would have enjoyed going into Waterloo House, and making studies of dresses upon the counters" (Stones of Venice, vol. i. ch. xx. § 13).

51. A JEW MERCHANT.

One of the "heads of the people" whom Rembrandt saw around him; for the street in which he lived at Amsterdam swarmed with Dutch and Portuguese Jews. "In rendering human character, such as he saw about him, Rembrandt is nearly equal to Correggio, Titian, Tintoret, Veronese, or Velazquez; and the real power of him is in his stern and steady touch on lip and brow,—seen best in his lightest etchings,—or in the lightest parts of the handling of his portraits, the head of the Jew in our own Gallery being about as good and thorough work as it is possible to see of his" (Academy Notes, 1859, p. 52).

52. "PORTRAIT OF GEVARTIUS."

One of the most celebrated pictures in the Gallery. The title by which it is commonly known is incorrect; the sitter being not Gaspar Gevarts or Gevartius, but Cornelius van der Geest, an amateur of the arts and a friend of Rubens and Van Dyck. It is the grave learning of a scholar, the gentle refinement of an artist—notice especially "the liquid, living lustre of the eye"—that Van Dyck here puts before us. In point of execution this picture ranks as one of the finest portraits in the world. "From it," says Mr. Watts, R.A., "the modern student will learn more than from any I am acquainted with.[Pg 135] The eyes," he adds, "are miracles of drawing and painting. They are a little tired and overworked, and do not so much see anything as indicate the thoughtful brain behind. How wonderful the flexible mouth! with the light shining through the sparse moustache. How tremulously yet firmly painted. The ear: how set on ... so throughout there is no part of this wonderful portrait that might not be examined and enlarged upon; but I would ask my fellow-students to do this for themselves. Not a touch is put in for what is understood by 'effect.' Dexterous in a superlative degree, there is not in the ordinary sense a dexterous dab doing duty for honourable serious work: nothing done to look well at one distance or another, but to be right at every distance" (Magazine of Art, June 1889). Sir Edward Poynter is equally enthusiastic. "This wonderful portrait," he says, "is perhaps the most perfect head ever painted by this consummate painter. Not only for the brilliancy and purity of its flesh tints, the masterly drawing, and the vitality of the expression, does it rank as one of the masterpieces of portraiture existing; but for the brushwork, of which every touch expresses with supreme dexterity all the varieties of form, substance, and texture, it is unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, in the history of painting" (National Gallery, i. 152). Another P.R.A., Benjamin West, copied the "Gevartius," and at this day there is no picture in the Gallery more often copied by students.[82] Their preference is justified by that of the painter himself, who "used to consider it his masterpiece, and before he had gained his great reputation carried it about with him from court to court, and patron to patron, to show what he could do as a portrait painter."[83]

[Pg 136]

53. AN EVENING LANDSCAPE.

Cuyp was born at Dort—the son of an artist who was one of the founders of the Painters' Guild in that town. He was a deacon and elder of his church, and was a citizen of importance, holding various municipal and judicial offices. As a painter, however, he had little reputation in his own country, and, as is the case with so many of the Dutch masters, it was in England that he was first appreciated. Even in 1750 one of his pictures sold for thirty florins; in 1876 one fetched at Christie's £5040. The high esteem in which his works are thus held is justified alike by their own merits and by his important position in the history of landscape art. He is, in the first place, the principal master of pastoral landscape, "representing peasant life and its daily work, or such scenery as may naturally be suggestive of it, consisting usually of simple landscape, in part subjected to agriculture, with figures, cattle, and domestic buildings." In this respect Cuyp is an interesting case of the detachment of an artist's life. He was born and lived in troublous times; but in looking at his works one would imagine (it has been said) "that he passed his whole life in Arcadia, untroubled by any more anxious thought than whether the sun would give the effect which he required for his paintings, or the cows stay long enough for him to depict them in their natural attitudes." Dwelling on the banks of the placid Maas, he delighted also to reproduce the warm skies of summer or autumn reflected in an expanse of water overspread with marine craft. Secondly, Cuyp has been called the "Dutch Claude," for he was the first amongst the Dutch to "set the sun in the sky." "For expression of effects of yellow sunlight, parts might be chosen out of the good pictures of Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art." It is sunshine, observe, that Cuyp paints, not sun colour. "Observe this accurately. Those easily understood effects of afternoon light, gracious and sweet so far as they reach, are produced by the softly warm or yellow rays of the sun falling through mist. They are low in tone, even in nature, and disguise the colours of objects. They are imitable even by persons who have little or no gift of colour, if the tones of the picture are kept low and in true harmony, and the reflected lights warm. But they never could be painted by great colourists. The fact of blue and crimson being effaced by yellow and grey puts such effect at once out of the notice or thought of a colourist." The task of painting the sun colour was reserved for Turner; yet Cuyp's pictures had a great influence over him." He went steadily through the subdued golden chord, and painted Cuyp's favourite effect, 'sun rising through vapour,' for many a weary year. But this was not enough for him. He must paint the sun in his strength, the sun rising not through vapour. If you turn to the Apollo in the 'Ulysses and Polyphemus' (508), his horses are rising beyond the horizon—you[Pg 137] see he is not 'rising through vapour,' but above it;—gaining somewhat of a victory over vapour, it appears. The old Dutch brewer,[84] with his yellow mist, was a great man and a good guide, but he was not Apollo. He and his dray-horses led the way through the flats cheerily, for a little time; we have other horses now flaming out 'beyond the mighty sea'" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. xi. §§ 3, 4). Admirers of Cuyp should make a point of visiting the Dulwich Gallery, which is peculiarly rich in works by this master. In the British Museum are several of his drawings and studies.

An interesting study in what is called "truth of tone" may be made with this picture—by which is meant the "exact relation and fitness of shadow and light, and of the hues of all objects under them; and more especially that precious quality of each colour laid on which makes it appear a quiet colour illuminated, not a bright colour in shade." Now with regard to this Ruskin says, "I much doubt if there be a single bright Cuyp in the world, which, taken as a whole, does not present many glaring solecisms in tone. I have not seen many fine pictures of his which were not utterly spoiled by the vermilion dress of some principal figure—a vermilion totally unaffected and unwarmed by the golden hue of the rest of the picture; and, what is worse, with little distinction between its own illumined and shaded parts, so that it appears altogether out of sunshine—the colour of a bright vermilion in dead, cold daylight.... And these failing parts, though they often escape the eye when we are near the picture and able to dwell upon what is beautiful in it, yet so injure its whole effect that I question if there be many Cuyps in which vivid colours occur, which will not lose their effect and become cold and flat at a distance of ten or twelve paces, retaining their influence only when the eye is close enough to rest on the right parts without including the whole. Take, for instance, the large one in our National Gallery. (Seen at a distance) the black cow appears a great deal nearer than the dogs, and the golden tones of the distance look like a sepia drawing rather than like sunshine, owing chiefly to the utter want of aerial greys indicated [Pg 138]through them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. §§ 11, 19).

54. A WOMAN BATHING.

"Those who have been in Holland," says Mrs. Jameson, "must often have seen the peasant girls washing their linen and trampling on it, precisely in the manner here depicted. Rembrandt may have seen one of them from his window, and snatching up his pencil and palette, he threw the figure on the canvas and fixed it there as by a spell." More probably, however, this is one of Rembrandt's many pictures of his servant and model, Hendrickje Stoffels. "The finest of the whole series," says M. Michel, "is the study of Hendrickje in the National Gallery, the so-called 'Woman Bathing.' It bears the date 1654, and is undoubtedly a masterpiece among Rembrandt's less important works. The young woman, whose only garment is a chemise, stands facing the spectator, in a deep pool. Her attitude suggests a sensation of pleasure and refreshment tempered by the involuntary shrinking of the body at the first contact of the cold water. The light from above glances on her breast and forehead, and on the luxuriant disorder of her bright hair; the lower part of her face and her legs are in deep transparent shadow. The brown tones of the soil, the landscape background and the water, the purple and gold of the draperies, make up a marvellous setting alike for the brilliantly illuminated contour and the more subdued carnations of the model. The truth of the impression, the breadth of the careful but masterly execution, the variety of the handling, proclaim the matured power of the artist, and combine to glorify the hardy grace and youthful radiance of his creation" (Rembrandt: his Life, his Work, and his Time, ii. 70).

55. THE DEATH OF PROCRIS (see under 698).

"A most pathetic picture," says Constable (who made a copy of it when it was in Sir George Beaumont's possession). "The expression of Cephalus is very touching; and, indeed, nothing can be finer than the way in which Claude has told[Pg 139] that affecting story throughout. Procris has come from her concealment to die at the feet of her husband. Above her is a withered tree clasped by ivy, an emblem of love in death,—while a stag seen on the outline of a hill, over which the rising sun spreads his rays, explains the cause of a fatal mistake.... It is the fashion to find fault with his figures indiscriminately, yet in his best time they are so far from being objectionable that we cannot easily imagine anything else according so well with his scenes; as objects of colour they seem indispensable. Wilson said to a friend who was talking of them in the usual manner, 'Do not fall into the common mistake of objecting to Claude's figures'" (Leslie's Life of Constable, 1845, p. 339).

56. LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES.

57. THE CONVERSION OF ST. BAVON.

Bavon, a noble of Brabant, in the seventeenth century having determined to renounce the pomps and vanities of the world (his retinue is to be seen on the right), is met on the steps of the convent church by the bishop who is to receive him into his new life. To the left his goods are being given away to the poor, and above there is a group of ladies returning thanks for the noble penitent's conversion.

58. A STUDY OF TREES.

This picture, when in Sir George Beaumont's collection at Coleorton, was copied by Constable and called by him "The Little Grove." In 1823 Constable wrote to a friend, "I have likewise begun 'The Little Grove' by Claude; a noonday scene 'which warms and cheers, but which does not inflame or irritate.' Through the depths of the trees are seen a waterfall and a ruined temple, and a solitary shepherd is piping to some goats and sheep:—

(Leslie's Life of Constable, 1845, p. 119.)

[Pg 140]

59. THE BRAZEN SERPENT.

"It is interesting to observe the difference in the treatment of this subject by the three great masters, Michael Angelo, Rubens, and Tintoret.... Rubens and Michael Angelo made the fiery serpents huge boa-constrictors, and knotted the sufferers together with them. Tintoret makes ... the serpents little flying and fluttering monsters, like lampreys with wings; and the children of Israel, instead of being thrown into convulsed and writhing groups, are scattered, fainting in the fields, far away in the distance. As usual, Tintoret's conception, while thoroughly characteristic of himself, is also truer to the words of Scripture. We are told that 'the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people'; we are not told that they crushed the people to death. And, while thus the truest, it is also the most terrific conception.... Our instinct tells us that boa-constrictors do not come in armies; and we look upon the picture with as little emotion as upon the handle of a vase, or any other form worked out of serpents, when there is no probability of serpents actually occurring" (Stones of Venice: Venetian Index, "Rocco, Scuola di San," No. 24).

61. LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES.

The history of this picture is curiously interesting. It belonged to Sir George Beaumont, who valued it so highly that it was, we are told, his travelling companion. He presented it to the National Gallery in 1826, but unable to bear its loss begged it back for the rest of his life. He took it with him into the country, and on his death, two years later, his widow restored it to the nation. Sir George Beaumont was not the only artist who thought highly of this little picture. Constable, we are told, "looked back on the first sight of this exquisite work as an important epoch in his life.... It is called The Annunciation; but the spring by which the female is seated, and the action of the angel who points to the buildings in the distance, leave little doubt that Claude's intention was to represent the first flight of Hagar from the[Pg 141] presence of her mistress" (Leslie's Life of Constable, 1845, p. 6).

62. A BACCHANALIAN DANCE.

This picture, one of Poussin's masterpieces, is probably one of four Bacchanals painted for Cardinal Richelieu:—

63. LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES.

This picture was originally in the Giustiniani Palace at Rome; hence the figures are supposed to represent (as stated on the frame) Prince Giustiniani and his attendants returning from the chase.

64. RETURN OF THE ARK FROM CAPTIVITY.

This picture was a great favourite with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it once belonged. He cited it, together with a picture by Salvator Rosa, to the students of the Academy (Discourse xiv.) as an instance of the "poetical style of landscape," calling particular attention to the "visionary" character of "the whole and every part of the scene." The subject is the return of the ark by the Philistines to the valley of Bath-shemesh, as described in I Samuel vi. 10-14. The painter was one of the original twelve anciens of the old French Academy of painting, of which he died rector; he had formerly[Pg 142] been painter to Queen Christina of Sweden, to whose country he had fled as a Protestant.

65. CEPHALUS AND AURORA.

None of the "learned" Poussin's pictures in the Gallery shows so well as this how steeped he was alike in the knowledge and in the feeling of Greek mythology. Cephalus was a Thessalian prince whose love of hunting carried him away at early dawn from the arms of his wife Procris (see under 698). Hence the allegorical fable of the loves of Cephalus and Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, and her attempt to rival Procris in his affections. Cephalus here half yields to Aurora's blandishments, but a little Cupid holds up before him the portrait of his wife and recalls her love to his mind. Behind is Aurora's car, in which she is drawn by the white-winged Pegasus across the sky. But Pegasus, with that intermingling of many ideas which is characteristic of all Greek myths, is also "the Angel of the Wild Fountains: that is to say, the fastest flying or lower rain-cloud, winged, but racing as upon the earth."[85] Hence beside him sleeps a river-god, his head resting on his urn. But the mountain top is tipped with dawn; and behind, one sees a Naiad waking. Farther still beyond, in a brightening horizon, the form of Apollo, the sun-god whose advent follows on the dawn, is just apparent, his horses and his car melting into the shapes of morning clouds.[86]

66. A LANDSCAPE: AUTUMN MORNING.

Rubens "perhaps furnishes us with the first instances of complete, unconventional, unaffected landscape. His treatment [Pg 143]is healthy, manly, and rational, not very affectionate, yet often condescending to minute and multitudinous detail; always, as far as it goes, pure, forcible, and refreshing, consummate in composition, and marvellous in colour" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 15). Notice especially the sky. "The whole field of ancient landscape art affords, as far as we remember, but one instance of any effort whatever to represent the character of the upper cloud region. That one instance is the landscape of Rubens in our own Gallery, in which the mottled or fleecy sky is given with perfect truth and exquisite beauty" (ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. ii. § 9). Rubens's skill in landscape was partly due to fondness for the scenery he depicted. This picture was painted when he was at Genoa, but it is a purely Flemish scene—a broad stretch of his own lowlands, with the castle of Stein, it is said, which was afterwards his residence, near Mechlin, in the background, with Flemish waggon and horses fording a brook, and with a sportsman in the immediate foreground, carrying an old-fashioned firelock, intent on a covey of partridges.[87] "The Dutch painters are perfectly contented with their flat fields and pollards; Rubens, though he had seen the Alps, usually composes his landscapes of a hayfield or two, plenty of pollards and willows, a distant spire, a Dutch house with a moat about it, a windmill, and a ditch" (ibid., vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xiii. § 20). The Dutch painters agreed, in fact, with the Lincolnshire farmer in Kingsley's Alton Locke, whom Ruskin goes on to quote: "None o' this here darned ups and downs o' hills, to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards," but "all so vlat as a barn's vloor, for vorty mile on end—there's the country to live in!"

This picture is one of four "seasons." (Spring is in the Wallace collection at Hertford House, Summer and Winter are in the Royal collection at Windsor.) It was presented to the nation by Sir George Beaumont. The painter Haydon, describing a visit to Sir George at Coleorton, writes:

[Pg 144]

"We dined with the Claude and Rembrandt before us, breakfasted with the Rubens landscape, and did nothing morning, noon, or night but think of painting, dream of painting, and wake to paint again." The picture is referred to also by Wordsworth in a very interesting passage. "I heard the other day," he writes to Sir George Beaumont, "of two artists, who thus expressed themselves upon the subject of a scene among our lakes: 'Plague upon those vile enclosures!' said one; 'they spoil everything.' 'Oh,' said the other, 'I never see them.' Glover was the name of this last. Now, for my part, I should not wish to be either of these gentlemen, but to have in my own mind the power of turning to advantage, wherever it is possible, every object of Art and Nature as they appear before me. What a noble instance, as you have pointed out to me, has Rubens given of this in that picture in your possession, where he has brought, as it were, a whole country into one landscape, and made the most formal partitions of cultivation, hedgerows of pollard willows, conduct the eye into the depths and distances of his picture: and thus, more than by any other means, has given it that appearance of immensity which is so striking" (Memorials of Coleorton, ii. 135).

67. THE HOLY FAMILY AND ST. GEORGE.

On the left are the usual incidents of a "Riposo," or Repose in Egypt. St. Joseph is asleep, and the mule browses on the bank of the stream, while John the Baptist and attendant angels play with the Lamb. The Holy Child is on its mother's knee, and to them St. George is presenting his proselyte, the heathen princess whom he had saved from the dragon (see under 16). The dragon, now bridled with her girdle, follows her meekly, and St. George, as he introduces her to the mysteries of Christianity, plants the banner of the Faith. With the holy mother is St. Mary Magdalen—a penitent sinner herself, like the heathen princess, whom she now ushers into the Holy Presence.

Such appears to be the subject. As for the manner in which it is treated, it is interesting to know that the figures are portraits of the painter himself and his family. Rubens "is religious, too, after his manner; hears mass every morn[Pg 145]ing, and perpetually uses the phrase 'by the grace of God,' or some other such, in writing of any business he takes in hand; but the tone of his religion may be determined by one fact. We saw how Veronese painted himself and his family as worshipping the Madonna. Rubens has also painted himself in an equally elaborate piece.[88] But they are not worshipping the Madonna. They are performing the Madonna, and her saintly entourage" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 9).

68. A WOODY LANDSCAPE.

The scene is the beautiful avenue of oaks, called the "Galleria di Sopra," which skirts the upper margin of the Lake of Albano. Ruskin refers to this picture in illustration of his thesis that Turner's "truth of vegetation," in his representation of the exceeding intricacy of nature, is not to be paralleled among the old painters, and least of all in Gaspard Poussin with his regular "tree-patterns." The picture before us is "a woody landscape," which in nature would be a mass of intricate foliage—

"a mere confusion of points and lines between you and the sky.... This, as it comes down into the body of the tree, gets closer, but never opaque; it is always transparent, with crumbling lights in it letting you through to the sky; then, out of this, come, heavier and heavier, the masses of illumined foliage, all dazzling and inextricable, save here and there a single leaf on the extremities: then, under these, you get deep passages of broken irregular gloom, passing into transparent, green-lighted, misty hollows ... all penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and mystery of the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to us, some solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and imagine, but can never see.

"Now, with thus much of nature in your mind, go to Gaspard Poussin's 'View near Albano.' It is the very subject to unite all these effects, a sloping bank shaded with intertwined forest. And what has Gaspard given us? A mass of smooth, opaque, varnished brown, without one interstice, one change of hue, or any vestige of leafy structure, in its interior, or in those parts of it, I should say, which are intended [Pg 146]to represent interior; but out of it, over it rather, at regular intervals, we have circular groups of greenish touches, always the same in size, shape, and distance from each other, containing so exactly the same number of touches each, that you cannot tell one from another. There are eight or nine and thirty of them, laid over each other like fish-scales; the shade being most carefully made darker and darker as it recedes from each until it comes to the edge of the next, against which it cuts in the same sharp circular line, and then begins to decline again, until the canvas is covered with about as much intelligence or feeling of art as a house-painter has in marbling a wainscot, or a weaver in repeating an ornamental pattern. What is there in this, which the most determined prejudice in favour of the old masters can for a moment suppose to resemble trees? It is exactly what the most ignorant beginner, trying to make a complete drawing, would lay down; exactly the conception of trees which we have in the works of our worst drawing-masters, where the shade is laid on with the black lead and stump, and every human power exerted to make it look like a kitchen grate well polished"[89] (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. §§ 16-19).

A further "untruth of vegetation" is the perpetration of the bough at the left-hand upper corner. This is—

"a representation of an ornamental group of elephants' tusks, with feathers tied to the end of them. Not the wildest imagination could ever conjure up in it the remotest resemblance to the bough of a tree. It might be the claws of a witch, the talons of an eagle, the horns of a fiend; but it is a full assemblage of every conceivable falsehood which can be told respecting foliage, a piece of work so barbarous in every way, that one glance at it ought to prove the complete charlatanism and trickery of the whole system of the old landscape painters" (ibid., § 7).

69. ST. JOHN PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS.

Mola, a native of Milan, and the son of an architect, studied first at Rome and Venice, but afterwards at Bologna—returning ultimately to Rome, where he held the office of President of the Academy of St. Luke. "There is," says Sir Frederic Burton, "a certain idyllic character in Mola's works which renders them extremely attractive and of more artistic value than the majority of works produced in his day."

The wild figure of the Baptist is well contrasted with the turbaned Pharisee and the rest of his audience:—

[Pg 147]

The preacher places his right hand on his heart as if to attest his own sincerity, while with his left he points to the Saviour, who is seen approaching in the distance: "This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me."

70. CORNELIA AND HER JEWELS.

Alessandro Varotari was born at Padua, from which town he derived the name by which he is generally known. He was the son of a Veronese painter, but went early to Venice, where he became a student and imitator of the works of Titian and Paolo Veronese. His masterpiece is the "Marriage at Cana" in the Academy at Venice. He painted children well, and often introduced them into his pictures.

Cornelia, a noble Roman lady, daughter of the elder Scipio Africanus, and mother of the Gracchi, was visited by a friend, who ostentatiously exhibited her jewels. Cornelia being asked to show hers in turn, pointed to her two sons, just then returning from school, and said, "These are my jewels."

71. A PARTY OF MULETEERS.

Jan Both, born at Utrecht, was one of the first "Italianisers" in landscape. He was the son of a glass painter, who gave him his first lessons in drawing; he afterwards became the pupil of Abraham Bloemaert. As soon as he was old enough to travel, he set out with his brother Andries for Italy. Unlike Rubens, who even at Genoa painted only the Netherlands, Both adopted Italian scenery as his subject. At Rome he formed his style on that of Claude. The two brothers travelled, studied, and worked in Italy together. Jan excelled in landscape; the figures and cattle in his pictures were generally sketched by Andries. After some years at Rome, the brothers worked[Pg 148] for a time at Venice; here Andries, having dined one evening not wisely but too well, fell from his gondola into the water and was drowned. This was a terrible blow to Jan, who returned to Utrecht in despair, where he survived his brother for some years, during which Poelenburgh took the place of Andries (see No. 209). In the year 1649 Jan was one of the chiefs of the Painters' Guild at Utrecht, and the inscription on an engraved portrait of him published in 1662 speaks of him as a "good and well-respected landscape painter." Both loved to paint abruptly-rising rocks, with mountain paths fringed with trees, and cascades or lakes in the foreground. His best works are distinguished by the soft golden tones of the declining day. Several good examples of this master are to be seen at the Dulwich Gallery.

A reminiscence, doubtless, of one of Both's journeys in the Italian lake district. One may recall the reminiscence of Italy by another northern traveller—

72. LANDSCAPE WITH TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL.

73. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.

The confused character of this picture is sufficiently shown by the fact that whilst the official designation is as above, other critics have called it the "Destruction of Sennacherib." For a masterpiece by Ercole, see 1119. The ascription to him of this inferior work is decidedly doubtful.

74. A SPANISH PEASANT BOY.

Look at this and the other little boy near it (176), and you will see at once the secret of Murillo's popularity. "In a[Pg 149] country like Spain he became easily the favourite of the crowd. He was one of themselves, and had all the gifts they valued. Not like Velazquez, reproducing by choice only the noble and dignified side of the national character, Murillo could paint to perfection either the precocious sentiment of the Good Shepherd with the lamb by his side, or the rags and happiness of the gipsy beggar boy" (W. B. Scott's Murillo, p. 76)—

75. ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.

Compare this conventional representation of the subject with the imaginative one by Tintoretto (16). Amongst points of comparison notice the absence of anything terrible in the dragon, the crowd of spectators (on the walls in the distance), St. George's helmet; and where is his spear?

76. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

This is an old copy, or perhaps a replica, of the original picture in the possession of the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House. The treatment of the subject is remarkable, and characteristic of Correggio. "The angel hovers in mid-air with marvellous ease and lightness, and though he bears the healing message of approaching bliss, he cannot restrain his sense of pity. His face is at once radiant and sorrowful, expressing the mingled feelings with which he points on the one hand to heaven, on the other to the cross and crown of thorns. Christ, effulgent in his long straight robe and shining aureole, gazes upward with mournful resignation, the spasm of agony dying out of his face. The twilight landscape is calm and melancholy. The supernatural radiance sheds but a faint light on the grass and bushes, scarcely touching the figures of the sleeping disciples, and dying out completely in the dense foliage beyond. But in the distance a band of soldiers, scarcely visible by the faint glimmer of their torches, draws near, led by Judas, and over the mountains the sky whitens with the first pale streak of dawn" (Ricci: Correggio: his Life, his Friends, and his Time, p. 231). The effect of light,[Pg 150] Mengs points out, is peculiar: "the radiance of the Saviour's face lights up the picture. But this radiance comes from above, as if from Heaven, while the angel is illuminated by the light reflected from the Saviour." It is interesting to compare Correggio's version of the agony with the earlier one by Bellini (726) and Mantegna (1417). The earlier pictures impress us, but the manner of impression is quite different. There is no attempt either in the Bellini or in the Mantegna to win our sympathy by the beauty of the human type. This, on the other hand, is of the essence of Correggio's art. "The figure of Christ and the Angel represent the dignity of perfect humanity; and Correggio makes the pathos of the expiatory sacrifice of Calvary turn upon this consideration. This is the strictly Renaissance point of view" (J. E. Hodgson, R.A., in Magazine of Art, 1886, p. 215).

The original picture has a legend attached to it. "Correggio," says Lomazzo, "was accustomed always to value his works at a very low price, and having on one occasion to pay a bill of four or five scudi to an apothecary in his native city, he painted him 'Christ Praying in the Garden,' which he executed with all possible care." The picture was sold shortly afterwards for 500 scudi. It was subsequently in the royal collection at Madrid, and after the battle of Vittoria it was found in Joseph Bonaparte's carriage by one of Wellington's colonels. Wellington hastened to restore it to Ferdinand VII., who, not to be outdone in courtesy, presented it to the duke. The picture in our Gallery was part of the Angerstein collection.

77. THE STONING OF ST. STEPHEN.

78.[90] LANDSCAPE WITH RUINS.

Nicolas Pietersz, son of Pieter Claesz, a painter, called himself Berchem, by which name he is entered in the town records of [Pg 151]Haarlem, and by which he signed his pictures. He married the daughter of his master, Jan Wils (No. 1007). In 1642 he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke at Haarlem. No authentic information exists about his visiting Italy, but that he had travelled in that country is clear from the views represented in his pictures, and from the character of his landscapes generally. His style resembles that of another Dutch "Italianiser," Jan Both (No. 71), and there seems to have been some rivalry between the two men. It is related that a burgomaster of Dordrecht, Van der Hulk by name, commissioned a picture from each painter, promising an additional premium to the one whose work should be thought the better. On the completion Of the pictures, the patron declared that the admirable works had deprived him of the capability of preference, and that both were entitled to the premium. The picture painted on this occasion by Berchem is the "Halt of Huntsmen," now in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. Berchem's landscapes are taken, says Dr. Richter, "from the mountainous countries of Italy, and the types and costumes of the figures therein represented are also entirely Italian, though not copied direct from nature. He probably painted most of his Italian landscapes in Holland. What characterises him principally is a brilliant and easy touch, with which he renders nature with more art than exactitude. He is more ingenious in his conceptions than profound or true." The mannerism and monotony of his works accord with what is told of his life. In 1665, when at the height of his reputation, he sold his labour to a dealer, from early in the morning to four in the afternoon, for ten florins a day. His wife, it appears, kept the purse, and is said to have doled out very scanty supplies—a precaution which was perhaps necessary, as Berchem had a weakness for Italian drawings, his collection of which sold at his death for 12,800 florins.

81. THE VISION OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

Benvenuto Tisio, called Garofalo[91] from the village of that name on the Po to which his family belonged, was (like Sodoma) the son of a shoemaker, and having shown a strong taste for art, was apprenticed as a lad to the Ferrarese painter, Domenico Panetti. Seven years later he went to Cremona and attached himself to Boccaccino (806). He left Cremona suddenly, as described in a letter, still extant, from Boccaccino to Garofalo's father: "Had your son," he writes, "learnt good manners as thoroughly as he has learnt painting, he would scarcely have played me such a shabby trick. He [Pg 152]has taken himself off, I know not whither, and without a word. But this may be a clue to his whereabouts, that he said, if he is to be believed, that he would see Rome." From Rome he returned to Ferrara, where he formed a warm friendship with the brothers Dossi. In 1509 he was again in Rome, where he saw and admired Michael Angelo's frescoes in the Sixtine Chapel in all the splendour of their freshness. He also greatly admired the work of Raphael; "and displayed," says Vasari, "so much diffidence as well as courtesy that he became the friend of Raphael, who, kind and obliging as he was, assisted and favoured Benvenuto much, teaching him many things." In 1511 Benvenuto was at Mantua, but in the following year he returned to Ferrara, which remained his home for the rest of his life. There, says Vasari, who was entertained by him, he lived a particularly happy and busy life, being "cheerful of disposition, mild in his converse, warmly attached to his friends, beyond measure affectionate and devoted, and always supporting the trials of his life with patient resignation." These trials were very heavy, for soon after he was forty he lost the sight of one eye; "nor was he without fear and much danger of losing the other. He then recommended himself to God, and made a vow to wear grey clothing ever after, as, in fact, he did, when by the grace of God the sight of the left eye was preserved to him so perfectly that the works executed by Garofalo in his sixty-fifth year are so well done, so delicately finished, and evince so much care, that they are truly wonderful." For the last nine years of his life he was totally blind, in which affliction he solaced himself by cultivating music. Garofalo's works are very numerous; many of them are in France and in Rome, and in our own Gallery he is well represented. "He was conscientious and truthful within his scope, and the ease and delicacy with which he carried out his smaller works could hardly be exceeded." He was an eclectic rather than an original painter, though he remained Ferrarese throughout in his system of colouring. "His fellow-countrymen have called him the 'Ferrarese Raphael,' in the same way that the Milanese have called Luini the 'Lombard Raphael,' and, if properly understood, both appellations have their meaning; for these painters occupy much the same position in their respective schools as did Raphael in the Umbrian, Andrea del Sarto in the Florentine, etc., though the individual gifts of each were of course very different." (Morelli's Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries, pp. 200-214, contains a detailed account of Garofalo. His theory that the works attributed to Ortolano are in reality early works of Garofalo is very doubtful. See on this point under 699, and cf. Venturi's criticism in the Catalogue of the Ferrarese Exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club).

A well-known incident in the life of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa (A.D. 354-430), one of the "doctors" of the Christian Church whose writings have had a greater[Pg 153] effect than those probably of any one man on the beliefs and lives of succeeding Christian ages. Whilst busied, he tells us, in writing his discourse on the Trinity, he one day beheld a child, who, having dug a hole in the sand, was bringing water, as children at the seaside do, to empty the sea into his hole. Augustine told him it was impossible. "Not more impossible," replied the child, "than for thee, O Augustine! to explain the mystery on which thou art now meditating" ("Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea," Job xi. 7-9). The painter shows the visionary nature of the scene by placing beside St Augustine the figure of St. Catherine, the patron saint of theologians and scholars, and in the background, on a little jutting cape, St. Stephen, whose life and actions are set forth in St. Augustine's writings. The saint himself receives the child's lesson with the contemptuous impatience of a scholar's ambition; but all the time the heavens whose mysteries he would fain explore are open behind him, and the angel choirs are singing that he who would enter in must first become as a little child, "for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

82. THE HOLY FAMILY.

For better examples of this painter, see Nos. 169 and 641.

84. MERCURY AND THE WOODMAN.

"What is most to be admired in the works of Salvator Rosa," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "is the perfect correspondence which he observed between the subjects which he chose and his manner of treating them. Everything is of a piece: his rocks, trees, sky, even to his handling, have the same wild and rude character which animates his figures." There is perhaps no painter whose life is more accurately reflected in his work than Salvator. Conspicuous in this picture are a withered tree on the right and a withered tree on the left: they are typical of the painter's blasted life, and "indignant, desolate, and degraded art." He was born near Naples, the son of an architect and land-surveyor. In early youth he forsook his father's business and began[Pg 154] secretly to learn painting. At seventeen his father died, and Salvator, being one of a large and poor family, was thrown on his own resources. He "cast himself carelessly on the current of life. No rectitude of ledger-lines stood in his way; no tender precision of household customs; no calm successions of rural labour. But past his half-starved lips rolled profusion of pitiless wealth; before him glared and swept the troops of shameless pleasure. Above him muttered Vesuvius; beneath his feet shook the Solfatara. In heart disdainful, in temper adventurous; conscious of power, impatient of labour, and yet more of the pride of the patrons of his youth, he fled to the Calabrian hills, seeking, not knowledge, but freedom. If he was to be surrounded by cruelty and deceit, let them at least be those of brave men or savage beasts, not of the timorous and the contemptible. Better the wrath of the robber than enmity of the priest; and the cunning of the wolf than of the hypocrite." It was in this frame of mind that he sought the solitudes of the hills: "How I hate the sight of every spot that is inhabited," he says in one of his letters. It was thus that he formed the taste for the wild nature which distinguishes his landscapes. It is said indeed that he once herded for a time with a band of brigands in the Abruzzi. "Yet even among such scenes as these Salvator might have been calmed and exalted had he been, indeed, capable of exaltation. But he was not of high temper enough to perceive beauty. He had not the sacred sense—the sense of colour; all the loveliest hues of the Calabrian air were invisible to him; the sorrowful desolation of the Calabrian villages unfelt. He saw only what was gross and terrible,—the jagged peak, the splintered tree, the flowerless bank of grass, and wandering weed, prickly and pale. His temper confirmed itself in evil, and became more and more fierce and morose; though not, I believe, cruel, ungenerous, or lascivious. I should not suspect Salvator of wantonly inflicting pain. His constantly painting it does not prove he delighted in it; he felt the horror of it, and in that horror, fascination. Also, he desired fame, and saw that here was an untried field rich enough in morbid excitement to catch the humour of his indolent patrons. But the gloom gained upon him, and grasped him. He could jest, indeed, as men jest in prison-yards (he became afterwards a renowned mimic in Florence); his satires are full of good mocking, but his own doom to sadness is never repealed." It is characteristic of the man that the picture on the reputation of which he went up from Naples to Rome was "Tityus torn by the Vulture." At Rome, besides his fame as a painter, he made his mark as a musician, poet, and improvisatore. He cut a brave figure in the Carnival, and his satires were bold and biting. Partly on this account he afterwards found it well to leave Rome for Florence, where he formed one of the company of "I Percossi" (the stricken)—of jovial wits and artists—who enjoyed the hospitalities of Cardinal Carlo Giovanni de' Medici. But in spite of his merry-making he knew (as he says in a cantata) "no truce from care, no pause from woe." He ultimately died of the dropsy, having shortly[Pg 155] before his death married the Florentine Lucrezia, who had borne him two sons. "Of all men whose work I have ever studied," says Mr. Ruskin, in summing up his career as typical of the lives which cannot conquer evil but remain at war with, or in captivity to it, "he gives me most distinctly the idea of a lost spirit. Michelet calls him, 'Ce damné Salvator,' perhaps in a sense merely harsh and violent; the epithet to me seems true in a more literal, more merciful sense,—'That condemned Salvator.' I see in him, notwithstanding all his baseness, the last traces of spiritual life in the art of Europe.... All succeeding men ... were men of the world; they are never in earnest and they are never appalled. But Salvator was capable of pensiveness, of faith, and of fear. The misery of the earth is a marvel to him; he cannot leave off gazing at it. The religion of the earth is a horror to him. He gnashes his teeth at it, rages at it, mocks and gibes at it. He would have acknowledged religion had he seen any that was true.... Helpless Salvator! A little early sympathy, a word of true guidance, perhaps, had saved him. What says he of himself? 'Despiser of wealth and of death.' Two grand scorns: but, oh, condemned Salvator! the question is not for man what he can scorn, but what he can love." At the "opposite poles of art are Fra Angelico and Salvator Rosa; of whom the one was a man who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed constantly, and never harboured an impure thought. His pictures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the colour of the draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a painted window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon a gold ground. Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man who spent his life in masquing and revelry. But his pictures are full of horror, and their colour is for the most part gloomy grey. Truly it would seem as if art had so much eternity in it that it must take its dye from the close rather than the course of life; 'in such laughter the heart of man is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness'" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iv. See also vol. i. pt. i. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 9; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 21; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii. § 14. Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. v. § 31. For a full record of fact and romance about this painter, see Lady Morgan's interesting Life and Times of Salvator Rosa; London, 1855).

An illustration of Æsop's fable of the dishonest woodman who, hearing of the reward which an honest fellow-labourer had obtained from Mercury for not claiming either the gold or silver axe which the god first offered, threw his axe also into the water, hoping for like good fortune. Mercury—here seen standing in the stream—showed him a golden axe. He claimed it, and the god having rebuked him for his impudence, left him to lose his axe and repent of his folly. The painting of the picture is conspicuous for that want of sense for colour, noted above as fatally characteristic of Salvator:—

[Pg 156]

There is on the left-hand side something without doubt intended for a rocky mountain, in the middle distance, near enough for all its fissures and crags to be distinctly visible, or, rather, for a great many awkward scratches of the brush over it to be visible, which, though not particularly representative either of one thing or another, are without doubt intended to be symbolical of rocks. Now no mountain in full light, and near enough for its details of crags to be seen, is without great variety of delicate colour. Salvator has painted it throughout without one instant of variation; but this, I suppose, is simplicity and generalisation;—let it pass: but what is the colour? Pure sky blue, without one grain of grey, or any modifying hue whatsoever; the same brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky has been more loaded at the same part of the pallet, and the whole mountain thrown in with unmitigated ultramarine. Now, mountains can only become pure blue when there is so much air between them that they become mere flat dark shades, every detail being totally lost: they become blue when they become air, and not till then. Consequently this part of Salvator's painting, being of hills perfectly clear and near, with all their details visible, is, as far as colour is concerned, broad, bold falsehood, the direct assertion of direct impossibility.

In connection with Salvator's want of sense for colour one should take his insensitiveness to other beauty. For instance, his choice of withered trees, which are here on both sides of us, "is precisely the sign of his preferring ugliness to beauty, decrepitude and disorganisation to life and youth" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 4; vol. v. pt. vi. ch. viii. § 7).

85. ST. JEROME AND THE ANGEL.

For St. Jerome, see under 227. The apparition of the angel implies the special call of St. Jerome to the work of translating the Scriptures.

88. ERMINIA AND THE SHEPHERDS.

A scene from the "Jerusalem Delivered" by Carracci's contemporary, Tasso. Erminia from the beleaguered city of Jerusalem had beheld the Christian knight, Tancred, whom she loved, wounded in conflict. Disguised in the armour of[Pg 157] her friend Clorinda, wearing a dark blue cuirass with a white mantle over it, she stole forth at night to tend him. The sentinels espy her and give her chase. But she outstrips them all, and after a three days' flight finds herself amongst a shepherd family, who entertain her kindly. The old shepherd is busily making card-baskets, and listening to the music of his children. Their fear gives place to delight as the strange warrior, having dismounted from her horse and thrown off her helmet and shield, unbinds her tresses and discloses herself a woman—

This picture has sometimes been ascribed to Domenichino; as the latter was occasionally employed by Annibale to execute his designs, both masters may have had a share in the work.

91. VENUS SLEEPING.

93. SILENUS GATHERING GRAPES.

Silenus in a leopard skin, the nurse and preceptor of Bacchus, the wine-god, is being hoisted by two attendant fauns, so that with his own hands he may pick the grapes. This and the companion picture, 94, originally decorated a harpsichord.

[Pg 158]

94. BACCHUS PLAYING TO SILENUS.[92]

A clever picture of contrasts. The old preceptor is leering and pampered, yet with something of a schoolmaster's gravity, "half inclining to the brute, half conscious of the god." The young pupil—like the shepherd boy in Sidney's Arcadia, "piping as though he should never be old"—is "full of simple careless grace, laughing in youth and beauty; he holds the Pan's pipe in both hands, and looks up with timid wonder, with an expression of mingled delight and surprise at the sounds he produces" (Hazlitt: Criticisms upon Art, p. 6).

These two pictures—together with the "Lot" and "Susannah" of Guido (193 and 196)—used to hang in the Lancellotti Palace in Rome. Lanzi describes our picture, No. 94, as one of the principal treasures of that collection. It is exquisitely finished, he says; the figures are "at once designed, coloured, and disposed with the hand of a great master" (Bohn's translation, iii. 79).

95. DIDO AND ÆNEAS.

Dido, Queen of Carthage, enamoured of the Trojan Æneas, the destined founder of Rome, sought to detain him by strategy within her dominions. The goddess Juno, who had espoused Dido's cause, contrived that a storm should befall when the Queen and her guests were on a hunting party (Æneid, iv. 119). In front of the cave a Cupid holds the horse of Æneas, and two others are fluttering above. High in the clouds is Juno, accompanied by Venus, who had contrived all this for Dido's undoing.

As for the execution of the picture, "the stormy wind blows loudly through its leaves, but the total want of invention in the cloud-forms bears it down beyond redemption. Look [Pg 159]at the wreaths of cloud (?), with their unpleasant edges cut as hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick black paint can make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail badly reefed"[93] (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. iv. § 23; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 18).

97. THE RAPE OF EUROPA.

(A study for a larger picture now at Vienna.) Jupiter, enamoured of Europa, a Phoenician princess, transformed himself into a white bull, and mingled with her father's herds whilst she was gathering flowers with her attendants. Europa, struck by the beauty and gentle nature of the beast, caressed him, and even mounted on his back. Two of her attendants are here assisting her, while a third remonstrates with her on her foolhardiness. Europa is replying that she has no fears. The amorous bull meanwhile is licking her foot. He is garlanded with a wreath of flowers, which is held by his master Cupid, forming thus the leading-string of Love. With the other hand Cupid has "taken the bull by the horn"; whilst above, two little winged loves are gathering fruit and scattering roses. In the middle distance Europa and the bull appear again, about to enter the sea; whilst farther on, the bull is swimming with her toward the land. For the story goes that as soon as Europa had seated herself on his back Jupiter crossed the sea and carried her safely to the island of Crete, and from this rape of Europa comes the name of the continent to which she was carried.

98. VIEW OF LA RICCIA.

This picture and the scene of it—the ancient town of Aricia, about fifteen miles from Rome, famous in Roman legend, and Horace's first stopping-place on his journey to Brindisi—are described by Ruskin in a celebrated passage of Modern Painters:—

"Whether it can be supposed to resemble the ancient Aricia, now La Riccia, close to Albano, I will not take upon me to determine, [Pg 160]seeing that most of the towns of those old masters are quite as much like one place as another; but, at any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes, of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and discover in one place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature have been cool and grey beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being moreover completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road which, in order to make allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage-roads, is given in a very cool green grey; and the truth of the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown.[94]

"Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage road.... The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and their masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour: it was conflagration. Purple and crimson and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark rock—dark though flushed with scarlet lichen, casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound; and over all, the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the sea. Tell me [Pg 161]who is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" (vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. §§ 1-3).

Ruskin further instances the picture as an example of "untruth of trees." It is an elementary law of tree structure that stems only taper when sending off foliage and sprays:—

"Therefore we see at once that the stem of Gaspard Poussin's tall tree, on the right of the 'La Riccia,' is the painting of a carrot or a parsnip, not of the trunk of a tree" (see further, ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. § 6; and cf. vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 18).

101, 102, 103, 104. THE FOUR AGES OF MAN.

Lancret, a painter of the "fêtes galantes" school, was an imitator of Watteau, but his productions lack the airy grace and touch of poetry which elevate even the most frivolous pictures of that "prince of court painters" into works of fine art. Examples of Watteau are now included among the National treasures in the Wallace collection at Hertford House. Lancret was the son of humble parents, and received his early training as an engraver. Entering subsequently the studio of Claude Gillot he came under the influence of Watteau, but his friendship with that painter was short-lived. A rivalry appears to have sprung up between them, and they remained estranged until the closing year of Watteau's life. "Lancret was a thorough bourgeois, and passed his time chiefly in Paris. He was a regular frequenter of the opera and the 'Comique,' and was a friend of the dancers La Camargo and La Sallé, whom he frequently represented in his works" (Bryan's Dictionary of Painters). In 1719 he was admitted into the Academy, and in 1735 was elected Councillor. In 1840 he married a grand-daughter of the comic poet Boursault.

These pictures, which are among the principal works of Lancret, are interesting historical records as showing the ideal of life at the French Court in the time of the regent Orleans and Louis XV. In "Infancy" (101) children, in the gayest clothes and garlanded with flowers, are at play under a stately portico—life being not so much a stage as a game, and all the men and women (in that sense) "merely players." To what should children, thus educated, grow up but to the pomps and vanity of life, as shown in "Youth" (102)? The adornment of the person is the chief occupation, it would seem, of the dwellers in "the Armida Palace, where the inmates live enchanted lives, lapped in soft music of adulation, waited on by the splendours of the[Pg 162] world." And "Manhood" (103) is like unto youth. The business of life is pleasure on the greensward, with shooting at the popinjay! "Old Age" (104) has no place in such a philosophy of life. One old man is indeed attempting a last amour. The other caresses a dog, while the old women sleep or spin. But in "Old Age" the painter changes his scene from the court to common life; the thought of old age is banished, it seems, from the high life of princes. "In short," wrote an English observer at the time when this picture was painted, "all the symptoms which I have ever met with in History, previous to all Changes and Revolutions in government, now exist and daily increase in France" (Lord Chesterfield: see Carlyle's French Revolution, bk. i. ch. ii.).

125. IZAAK WALTON (1593-1683).

Huysman was one of the many foreign artists who settled in England under the Stuarts. He obtained considerable employment as a portrait painter, in spite of Sir Peter Lely's rivalry; one of the portraits among the "Windsor Beauties," now at Hampton Court, was painted by him.

A portrait of the retired city hosier who became famous as the author of the Complete Angler. It was painted for his family (with whom it remained till it was presented to the National Gallery in 1838), and was engraved in one of the later editions of the book (1836). Izaak Walton—"that quaint, old, cruel coxcomb" (as Byron, who was no fisherman, called him)—lived to be ninety: his fishing did something, one may expect, to keep him in the vigorous health which is here stamped on his face. "The features of the countenance often enable us," says Zouch in the Memoirs of Izaak Walton (cited in M. E. Wotton's Word Portraits of Famous Writers, p. 323), "to form a judgment, not very fallible, of the disposition of the mind. In few portraits can this discovery be more successfully pursued than in that of Izaak Walton. Lavater, the acute master of physiognomy, would, I think, instantly acknowledge in it the decisive traits of the original,—mild complacency, forbearance, mature consideration, calm activity, peace, sound understanding, power of thought, discerning attention, and secretly active friendship. Happy in[Pg 163] his unblemished integrity, happy in the approbation and esteem of others, he enwraps himself in his own virtue. The exaltation of a good conscience eminently shines forth in this venerable person."

127. VENICE: THE SCUOLA DELLA CARITÀ.

Antonio Canale, commonly called Canaletto,[95] was born in Venice, lived in Venice, and painted Venice. His pictures (of which the one before us is among the best) are in some respects very like the place, but most of those who love it best soon find much that is wanting in Canaletto's representations. "The effect of a fine Canaletto," says Ruskin, "is, in its first impression, dioramic. We fancy we are in our beloved Venice again, with one foot, by mistake, in the clear, invisible film of water lapping over the marble steps of the foreground. Every house has its proper relief against the sky; every brick and stone its proper hue of sunlight and shade; and every degree of distance its proper tone of relieving air. Presently, however, we begin to feel that it is hard and gloomy, and that the painter, compelled by the lowness of the utmost light at his disposal to deepen the shadows, in order to get the right relation, has lost the flashing, dazzling, exulting light which was one of our chief sources of Venetian happiness. But we pardon this, knowing it to be unavoidable, and begin to look for something of that in which Venice differs from Rotterdam, or any other city built beside canals. We know that house, certainly; we never passed it without stopping our gondola, for its arabesques were as rich as a bank of flowers in spring, and as beautiful as a dream. What has Canaletto given us for them? Four black dots. Well; take the next house. We remember that too; it was mouldering inch by inch into the canal, and the bricks had fallen away from its shattered marble shafts, and left them white, skeleton-like; yet, with their fretwork of cold flowers wreathed about them still, untouched by time, and through the rents of the wall behind them there used to come long sunbeams, greened by the weeds through which they pierced, which flitted and fell, one by one, round those grey and quiet shafts, catching here a leaf and there a leaf, and gliding over the illumined edges and delicate fissures, until they sank into the deep dark hollow between the marble blocks of the sunk foundation, lighting every other moment one isolated emerald lamp on the crest of the intermittent waves, when the wild sea-weeds and crimson lichens [Pg 164]drifted and crawled with their thousand colours and free branches over its decay, and the black, clogging, accumulated limpets hung in ropy clusters from the dripping and tinkling stone. What has Canaletto given us for this? One square red mass, composed of—let me count—five-and-fifty, no; six-and-fifty, no; I was right at first, five-and-fifty bricks, of precisely the same size, shape, and colour, one great black line for the shadow of the roof at the top, and six similar ripples in a row at the bottom! And this is what people call 'painting nature'! It is, indeed, painting nature, as she appears to the most unfeeling and untaught of mankind. The bargeman and the bricklayer probably see no more in Venice than Canaletto gives—heaps of earth and mortar, with water between—and are just as capable of appreciating the facts of sunlight and shadow, by which he deceives us, as the most educated of us all. But what more there is in Venice than brick and stone—what there is of mystery and death, and memory and beauty—what there is to be learned or lamented, to be loved or wept—we look for to Canaletto in vain" (Modern Painters, vol. i. sec. ii. pt. i. ch. vii. § 7, first edition). Canaletto's pictures of Venice in this room should be compared with Turner's. It is impossible to get a more instructive instance of the different impression made on different minds by the same scenes. Canaletto drew, says one of his admirers (Lanzi, ii. 317), exactly as he saw. Well, what he did see we have shown us here. What others have seen, those who have not been to Venice can discover from Turner's pictures, from Shelley's and Byron's verse, or Ruskin's prose. "Let the reader restore Venice in his imagination to some resemblance of what she must have been before her fall. Let him, looking from Lido or Fusina, replace, in the forest of towers, those of the hundred and sixty-six churches which the French threw down; let him sheet her walls with purple and scarlet, overlay her minarets with gold, ... and fill her canals with gilded barges and bannered ships; finally, let him withdraw from this scene, already so brilliant, such sadness and stain as had been set upon it by the declining energies of more than half a century, and he will see Venice as it was seen by Canaletto (as it might have been seen by him, Ruskin means); whose miserable, virtueless, heartless mechanism, accepted as the representation of such various glory, is, both in its existence and acceptance, among the most striking signs of the lost sensation and deadened intellect of the nation at that time.... The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole range of art. Professing the most servile and mindless imitation, it imitates nothing but the blackness of the shadows; it gives no single architectural ornament, however near, so much form, as might enable us even to guess at its actual one; ... it gives the buildings neither their architectural beauty nor their ancestral dignity, for there is no texture of stone nor character of age in Canaletto's touch; which is invariably a violent, black, sharp, ruled penmanlike line, as far removed from the grace of nature as from her faintness and transparency: and for his truth of colour let the[Pg 165] single fact of his having omitted all record whatsoever of the frescoes, whose wrecks are still to be found at least on one half of the unrestored palaces, and, with still less excusableness, all record of the magnificent coloured marbles" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 30). Stated in the fewest words, the difference between Canaletto and the others is this: To Canaletto Venice was a city of murky shadows, to them it is a city of enchanted colour. But his pictures satisfied the taste of his time, as the great number of them still extant testifies. Moreover his fame extended beyond his own country. There was an English resident at Venice who engaged Canaletto (who started in life at his father's profession, that of scene painter) to work for him at low prices, and then used to retail the pictures at an enormous profit to English travellers. At last Canaletto came to England himself, and was given many commissions; but after two years he returned to Venice, as it was still Venetian pictures that his patrons wanted. How completely the public taste has now changed is shown by the fact that the Venice of all the most popular painters to-day, of whatever nation, is the Venice of Ruskin and Turner. Canaletto's pictures, however, will always possess one element of interest, apart from any fluctuations in taste. Within his limits they are historical records of the appearance of Venice in his time; and as more and more of the old Venice is destroyed, Canaletto's pictures will increase in interest. For though he is mechanical, yet his mechanism is very good. He was, by the way, the first to apply the camera obscura to linear perspective, and he painted in a workmanlike manner, so that his pictures endure.[96]

An interesting piece of "old Venice." Beyond the canal is what is now the National Gallery of Venice—the Academy of Arts—but was in Canaletto's time still the Scuola della Carità, the conventual buildings of the Brotherhood of our Lady of Charity. Notice the green grass in the little square: the Campo, as it is called (the field), is now covered with flagstones (there is a sketch of this spot among the Turner drawings given by Ruskin to the University Galleries at Oxford: see Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 34).

[Pg 166]

134. A LANDSCAPE.

"Amongst the artists who followed the footsteps of Ruysdael and Hobbema, the one who most nearly resembled these masters was Cornelius Decker, whose works may be classed among the best Dutch landscapes" (Havard's Dutch School, p. 209). He painted at Haarlem, and studied under Salomon Ruysdael (see 1344).

135. LANDSCAPE WITH RUINS.

The artist, "disgusted with his first profession (of scene painter), removed," we are told, "while still young to Rome, where he wholly devoted himself to drawing views from nature, and in particular from ancient ruins" (Lanzi, ii. 317).

137. LANDSCAPE.

Jan van Goyen, one of the first masters in the native Dutch art of landscape as opposed to the exotic work of the Italianisers, was born at Leyden in 1596. He studied with the elder Swanenburch, the father of Rembrandt's first master, and subsequently went to Haarlem to work under Esaias van de Velde. His position in the world of art was considerable. In 1640 he was President of the Guild of St. Luke at the Hague; his portrait was painted by Vandyck and Frans Hals; and Jan Steen was his son-in-law. His earlier extant pictures date from 1621, his latest go down to the year of his death. His production during this period of thirty-five years was immense; "a single London expert claims to have had at least three or four hundred genuine pictures by the master passing through his hands during the last thirty years." Like so many of the Dutch masters whose works are now prized, he received in his lifetime very small sums for his pictures—often not more than fifteen or twenty florins apiece. He tried to help his income by speculating in houses, and even, after the fashion of the time, in tulips. But he died insolvent. His work, however, and influence remained. His extant pictures are very numerous; and among the successors whose skill was largely formed by him are Cuyp, Jan van de Cappelle, and Salomon Ruysdael. "The subjects which he preferred were of two kinds: flat landscapes with a little broken ground in the front, a cottage, the figures of a few peasants, and a clump of trees; or, on the other hand,—and these are his best and most[Pg 167] characteristic productions—broad views of the river scenery of Holland, a wide expanse of water under a wide sky." He was one of the first to discover a poetry in the unbroken horizons of his native land. "Where he is at his best is in the painting of the infinitely varied sky that overhangs a great Dutch river or estuary, the clouds taking at every movement new shapes or new effects of light and shade, and the water below reflecting them" (see an article on "The Landscape Painters of Holland" in The Quarterly Review, October 1891). In order to give his favourite effects, he generally placed the skyline very low in the picture, sometimes not more than a quarter of the canvas being given to the landscape. Van Goyen aimed rather at tone than at colour. "His silvery river-views, with all their delicate shades of grey, are almost studies in monochrome." In his landscapes the foliage and the herbage partake more or less of brown or gray. "No heavy, dark, no bright colour disturbs," says Sir F. Burton, "the dreamy monotone."

This work was formerly ascribed to J. Ruysdael.

138. A VIEW IN ROME.

Panini, who obtained celebrity as a painter of architectural subjects, was born at Piacenza, and studied in Rome. His settled place of abode was that city, but for some time he lived in Paris, and in 1732 he was elected a member of the French Academy.

Roman ruins with the pyramid of Caius Cestius.

140. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Of the life of Van der Helst, one of the most distinguished of the Dutch portrait painters, little is known, except that he resided constantly at Amsterdam, and was in good practice there as a portrait painter. He had a part in founding the Painters' Guild there, whilst his likeness of Paul Potter at the Hague (1654), and his partnership with Bakhuizen, who laid in the backgrounds of some of his pictures in 1668, indicate a constant companionship with the best artists of the time. His masterpiece is in the Museum at Amsterdam. It contains thirty-five portraits, whole length, and represents a banquet given by a company of the civil-guard of Amsterdam, in commemoration of the Peace of Münster, in 1648. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his Journey to Flanders and Holland, says of that work that it "is, perhaps, the first picture of portraits in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make a perfect portrait than any other I have ever seen." Whilst delighted with Van der Helst, Sir Joshua was disappointed by[Pg 168] Rembrandt; and certainly "Van der Helst attracts by qualities entirely differing from those of Rembrandt and Frans Hals: nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the strong concentrated light and the deep gloom of Rembrandt, and the contempt of chiaroscuro peculiar to his rival, except the contrast between the rapid sketchy touch of Hals and the careful finish of Van der Helst."

This picture is dated 1647.

146. A VIEW ON THE MAES.

About the life of this marine painter nothing is known. His pictures usually represent views near Amsterdam, "with a variety of shipping and boats, and a number of small figures, correctly drawn, and handled with spirit. His ships are well drawn, his colouring clear and transparent, and his skies and water light and floating" (Bryan).

Rotterdam is seen in the distance.

147. CEPHALUS AND AURORA.

148. THE TRIUMPH OF GALATEA.

Agostino was the elder brother of Annibale Carracci (see under 9) and cousin of Lodovico (see under 28). It was he who composed the well-known sonnet in which the aims of the Eclectic School are set forth. He was the most learned of the Carracci, being painter, engraver, poet, and musician, and well versed in the arts and sciences generally. His pictures are rare. The best is the "Communion of St. Jerome" in the Academy at Bologna. His prints are numerous; his engraving of Tintoretto's "Crucifixion," executed at Venice in 1589, was highly praised by that artist. In the same year Agostino returned to Bologna, and became the principal teacher in the school of the Carracci. He afterwards went to Rome to assist Annibale in the frescoes for the Farnese Palace. He executed the "Cephalus and Aurora" and "Galatea" in that series; his success excited the jealousy of Annibale, and caused a feud between the two brothers. Agostino thereupon left Rome for Parma, where he died shortly afterwards.

These are the cartoons made by Agostino for the frescoes referred to above. They formed part of Sir Thomas Lawrence's collection of drawings. In 147, Cephalus, while on a hunting expedition on Mount Hymettus, is forcibly carried off by Aurora. The aged Tithonus, her husband, is sleeping in the[Pg 169] foreground. In 148, the sea-nymph Galatea is borne on the ocean by Glaucus, preceded by Triton blowing his horn, and surrounded by Nereids and Cupids on Dolphins.

149. A CALM AT SEA.

William Van de Velde, the younger, was the son of an artist of the same name, and the two together were the most famous sea-painters of their time. The father was specially commissioned by the East India Company to paint several of their ships. The son was for a time engaged in painting the chief naval battles of the Dutch. In 1675 they were both established in England, living at Greenwich, as painters to King Charles II., who granted each of them a pension of £100 a year; the father "for taking and making draughts of sea-fights"; and the son "for putting the said draughts into colours." The Vandeveldes, thus employed, "produced," says Macaulay, "for the king and his nobles some of the finest sea-pieces in the world." "The palm," says Walpole, "is not less disputed with Raphael for history than with Vandevelde for sea-pieces." But in no branch of art has the English School of this century made more conspicuous advance than in sea-painting, and those who are fresh from reminiscences of Turner or Lee, or, amongst later artists, of Hook and Moore and Brett, will hardly be inclined to agree at this day with such high praise of Vandevelde. "It is not easily understood," says Ruskin, "considering how many there are who love the sea, and look at it, that Vandevelde and such others should be tolerated. Foam appears to me to curdle and cream on the wave sides, and to fly flashing from their crests, and not to be set astride upon them like a peruke; and waves appear to me to fall, and plunge, and toss, and nod, and crash over, and not to curl up like shavings; and water appears to me, when it is grey, to have the grey of stormy air mixed with its own deep, heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not the grey of the first coat of cheap paint on a deal floor."

"It is not easy to understand," perhaps, but two helps towards understanding may be mentioned in Ruskin's own words. First, previous painters—including even the Venetians, sea-folk though they were—had all treated the sea conventionally. Vandevelde and his fellows, at any rate, endeavoured to study it from nature. Bakhuizen, as we shall see, like Turner after him, used to go to sea in all weathers, the better to obtain "impressions." Hence the Dutch sea-painting did mark an advance, and how great was its influence on later artists and sea-lovers we know from the case of Turner, who "painted many pictures in the manner of Vandevelde, and always painted the sea too grey, and too opaque, in consequence of his early study of him." And this grey and opaque rendering of the sea by the Dutch was to some extent due to natural causes. "Although in artistical qualities lower[Pg 170] than is easily by language expressible, the Italian marine painting usually conveys an idea of three facts about the sea,—that it is green, that it is deep, and that the sun shines on it. The dark plain which stands for far-away Adriatic with the Venetians, and the glinting swells of tamed wave which lap about the quays of Claude, agree in giving the general impression that the ocean consists of pure water, and is open to the pure sky. But the Dutch painters, while they attained considerably greater dexterity than the Italian in mere delineation of nautical incident, were by nature precluded from ever becoming aware of these common facts; and having, in reality, never in all their lives seen the sea, but only a shallow mixture of sea-water and sand; and also never in all their lives seen the sky, but only a lower element between them and it, composed of marsh exhalation and fog-bank,—they are not to be with too great severity reproached for the dulness of their records of the nautical enterprise of Holland. We only are to be reproached, who, familiar with the Atlantic, are yet ready to accept with faith, as types of sea, the small waves en papillote and peruke-like puffs of farinaceous foam, which were the delight of Bakhuizen and his compeers"[97] (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 20; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 30; On the Old Road, i. 283; Harbours of England, p. 18). The storms of Van der Velde are certainly unattractive, but the silvery daylight of his "calms at sea" gives to many of his works an enduring charm. This painter is well represented both in the Dulwich Gallery and in the Wallace collection.

150. A GALE AT SEA.

[Pg 171]

151. A RIVER SCENE.

Signed with the artist's name, and dated 1645.

152. AN EVENING LANDSCAPE.

This painter was a native of Amsterdam, and lived and worked there. His pictures are now much appreciated; but he died destitute, and the pictures he left behind him were valued at only three florins apiece.

Aart (Arthur) van der Neer is the Dutch painter of "the hues and harmonies of evening." Before the door of the country house are a lady and gentleman, who have come out as if to gaze on one of such effects. This is one of the largest of his pictures—which is the more valuable as the figures are by Cuyp, whose name is inscribed on the pail; but 239 is perhaps more attractive.

153. THE CRADLE.

Maes (or, in more modern form, Maas), was a pupil of Rembrandt, and ranks high among Dutch masters, being distinguished from many of the genre painters by his richer colouring. "He assimilated the principles of his master," says Sir. F. Burton, "without adopting his subjects. In the class of pictures by which he is best known, namely, indoor scenes taken from ordinary life, he unites subtlety of chiaroscuro, vigorous colour, and great mastery in handling, with that true finish which never becomes trivial. The figures are finely drawn, and their action is perfect. Harmonies of red and black prevail in these works—sometimes pervading the picture in subdued tones; sometimes brought out in full contrasting force against white. The smaller pictures by Maes in this Gallery are among the finest examples of the former mode of treatment." Maes entered Rembrandt's studio in 1650 and remained there four years. He then returned to Dort, his native town, where he lived till 1678. In that year he moved to Amsterdam, where he remained to the end of his life, and was employed by most of the distinguished persons of his time. In these latter years he was mostly engaged in portraits. His earlier portraits (of which No. 1277 is a good specimen) are worthy of a pupil of Rembrandt. The later portraits are so different in style and inferior in quality that some critics ascribe them to the painter's son or some other artist of the[Pg 172] same name. "Maes's favourite colour," says Havard, "was red. No artist uses this colour with more boldness or more success than he does in his earlier works [note, e.g. the crimson curtain which forms the background in 1277]. For this reason doubts have been raised if he ever painted the series of large bewigged portraits which have been attributed to him, sombre and morose faces, uniformly set against a dark background. It is difficult to imagine the brilliant painter of 'The Cradle' forgetting his skill in light and shade and his love of nature, to give himself up, as in these commonplace productions, to mannerism and affectation" (The Dutch School, p. 100).

154. A MUSIC PARTY.

Teniers, though a Fleming by birth, belongs rather to the Dutch School in style—being one of the principal genre painters, of whom most of the other leading masters are Dutch. His art stands, however, in direct relation to that of the Flemish painters preceding him, through the want of spiritual motive common to him and to them. But Teniers and the genre painters carry this banishment of spiritual motive a step further. "Rubens often gives instructive and magnificent allegory. Rembrandt, pathetic or powerful fancies, founded on real Scripture-reading, and on his interest in the picturesque character of the Jew. And Van Dyck, a graceful rendering of received Scriptural legends. But (with Teniers) ... we lose, not only all faith in religion, but all remembrance of it. Absolutely now at last we find ourselves without sight of God in all the world.... Farthest savages had, and still have, their Great Spirit, or, in extremity, their feather-idols, large-eyed; but here in Holland we have at last got utterly done with it all. Our only idol glitters dimly, in tangible shape of a pint pot, and all the incense offered thereto comes out of a small censer or bowl at the end of a pipe." The place of Teniers in art history is, therefore, so far as the ideals of art go, that he is, par excellence, "the painter of the pleasures of the ale-house and card-table" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 10, 11; ch. viii. § 11). He did, indeed, occasionally venture on the ground of religious painting; but his essays in this sort are absurd. His devotion to genre entirely hit the taste of his time, and his fame was rapid and enduring. He was taught the rudiments of art by his father, David Teniers, the elder, a mediocre painter of small rustic subjects (see 949); but his real masters were Rubens and Brouwer, though he did not actually study with them. In 1633, at the age of twenty-three, he received the dignity of master. Four years later he married the daughter of Velvet Breughel, the former ward of Rubens, who acted as witness at the marriage ceremony. His talents were in universal request. The Archduke Leopold-William, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, appointed him his private painter, and[Pg 173] gave him an office in his household. Queen Christina of Sweden and King Philip IV. of Spain were amongst his patrons. He gave Don Juan of Austria lessons in painting, and this prince painted the portrait of Teniers's son, and presented it to the master as a token of his regard. In 1644 he was chosen to preside over the Antwerp Guild of Painters. In 1647 he took up his abode in Brussels. His country-seat at Perck (see 817) was a constant resort of the Spanish and Flemish nobility. Shortly after the death of his first wife in 1656 he married Isabella de Fren, daughter of the Secretary of the Council of Brabant, and he strove his utmost to prove his right to armorial bearings. The king declared his readiness to grant the request, but only on condition that Teniers should give up selling his pictures. Teniers did not accept the condition, and transferred his energies to procuring a charter for an Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp to which artists should alone be admitted, whereas the former Guild of St. Luke made no distinction between art and handicraft.

The aristocratic leanings of Teniers may be detected in his pictures. He is indeed, as we have seen, "the painter of the ale-house." "He depicted the manners of the Flemish rustic, told of the intimacy of his domestic life and his happy, coarse laughter. His folk go to market, clean out the stable, milk the cows, raise the nets, sharpen knives, shoot off arrows, play at nine-pins or cards, bind up wounds, pull out teeth, cure bacon, make sausages, smoke, sing, dance, caress the girls, and, above all things, drink, like the live Flemings they are." Yet as compared with some other masters of genre, Teniers seems to treat his rustics somewhat from the outside. Their expressions are often exaggerated, and their gestures pass into grimace. "Brouwer knew more of taverns; Ostade was more thoroughly at home in cottages.... Teniers seems anxious to have it known that, far from indulging in the coarse amusements of the boors he is fond of painting, he himself lives in good style and looks like a gentleman. He never seems tired of showing the turrets of his château of Perck, and in the midst of rustic merry-makings we often see his family and himself received cap in hand by the joyous peasants" (e.g. in 817). So too, though many of his interiors are very good, Teniers is on the whole at his best in open-air scenes. In his skies he has given (says Ruskin) "some very wonderful passages" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 20; H. Hymans in Encyclopædia Britannica; Wauters's Flemish School, p. 294). Good examples of Teniers continue to be greatly appreciated. The Belgian Government, for instance, gave £5000 in 1867 for the "Village Pastoral," now in Brussels Museum. The taste of Teniers may justly be condemned; his technique will always be admired. "Take," says Ruskin, "a picture by Teniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice; it is an entirely clever picture—so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal to it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an expression of delight in the prolonged[Pg 174] contemplation of a vile thing, and delight in that is an 'unmannered' or 'immoral' quality" (Crown of Wild Olive, § 56). His bright palette, his freshness of handling, his straightforwardness in means and intent, give to the best works of Teniers a permanent interest. He "touched with a workmanly hand, such as we cannot see rivalled now"; and he seems "never to have painted indolently, but gave the purchaser his thorough money's worth of mechanism." Hence it is that Sir Joshua Reynolds, though condemning Teniers's vulgarity of subject, yet held up his pictures as models to students who wished to excel in execution. It should, however, be noted that his works vary very much in this respect. Many of his later pictures are painted so thinly that the ground is in places barely covered. They have been called "afternoons," not from their subject, but from the time the painter took in producing them.

This and the companion picture, 158, are characteristic specimens of the painter. The human specimens are ugly and vulgar; the pottery is pretty, and beautifully painted.

155. THE MONEY CHANGERS.

A man and his wife—usurers, we may suppose—counting their money. There is all the miser's misery in the withered careworn faces, all the miser's greed in the thin, tremulous hands. The man alone seems not quite to like some transaction which they are discussing; the woman—Portia's prerogative of mercy being reversed—seems to be thinking, "Come, man, don't be a fool: a bond is a bond."

156. A STUDY OF HORSES.

An interesting sketch as illustrating Van Dyck's affection for the horse. "In painting, I find that no real interest is taken in the horse until Van Dyck's time, he and Rubens doing more for it than all previous painters put together. Rubens was a good rider, and rode nearly every day, as, I doubt not, Van Dyck also. The horse has never, I think, been painted worthily again, since he died" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 22).

The particular choice of subject in this sketch shows further in its literary connection a lover of the horse. The subject, as we know from the words equi Achillis on a scroll[Pg 175] in the left corner of the picture, is the horses of Achilles, said for their swiftness to be the sons of the wind Zephyrus: in the upper part of the picture is a sketch of a zephyr's head. "The gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, depends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower and loftier animal-life, ... taught most perfectly by Homer in the fable of the horses of Achilles. There is, perhaps, in all the Iliad nothing more deep in significance—there is nothing in all literature more perfect in human tenderness, and honour for the mystery of inferior life, than the verses that describe the sorrow of the divine horses at the death of Patroclus, and the comfort given them by the greatest of the gods"[98] (Fors Clavigera, 1871, ix. 13).

157. A LANDSCAPE: SUNSET.

For Rubens's landscapes see under 66. "It is to be noted, however, that the licenses taken by Rubens in particular instances are as bold as his general statements are sincere.... In the Sunset of our own Gallery many of the shadows fall at right angles to the light" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 15).

158. BOORS REGALING.

159. THE DUTCH HOUSEWIFE.

"There are few pictures in the National Gallery," says C. R. Leslie (Handbook for Young Painters, p. 243), "before which I find myself more often standing than at this." Its great attraction, he adds, is "the delight of seeing a trait of childhood we have often observed and been amused with in nature, for the first time so felicitously given by art." The Dutch housewife sits intently engaged in scraping a parsnip, [Pg 176]whilst the child stands by her side "watching the process, as children will stand and watch the most ordinary operations, with an intensity of interest, as if the very existence of the whole world depended on the exact manner in which that parsnip was scraped." Note the Flemish kruik, or beer-jug, so often introduced into the pictures of Maes. Signed and dated 1655.

160. A "RIPOSO."

The Italians gave this title to the subject of the Holy Family resting on the way in their flight to Egypt,—"the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt."

161. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

Gaspard travelled largely in Italy in search of the picturesque, and this striking landscape may be a recollection of the mountain scenery in the North—possibly near Bergamo. The spray of foliage prominent on the left is characteristic of Gaspard's method:—

"One of the most remarkable characters of natural leafage is the constancy with which, while the leaves are arranged on the spray with exquisite regularity, that regularity is modified in their actual effect. For as in every group of leaves some are seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some foreshortened, some crossing each other, every one differently turned and placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though in themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and differing forms in the group.... Now go to Gaspard Poussin and take one of his sprays, where they come against the sky; you may count it all round: one, two, three, four, one bunch; five, six, seven, eight, two bunches; nine, ten, eleven, twelve, three bunches; with four leaves each; and such leaves! every one precisely the same as its neighbour, blunt and round at the end (where every forest leaf is sharp, except that of the fig-tree), tied together by the stalks, and so fastened on to the demoniacal claws above described (see under 68), one bunch to each claw" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. §§ 16, 17).

[Pg 177]

163. VENICE: A VIEW ON THE GRAND CANAL.

The Church, that of S. Simeone Piccolo, was built in Canaletto's time. "One of the ugliest churches in Venice or elsewhere. Its black dome, like an unusual species of gasometer, is the admiration of modern Italian architects" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. Venetian Index, s. v. Simeone).

165. THE PLAGUE AT ASHDOD.

The Philistines having overcome the Israelites removed the ark of the Lord to Ashdod, and placed it in the temple of their god Dagon. "And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark ..." (seen here in the temple to the right). "But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he smote them with a loathsome plague" (1 Samuel v. 4, 6).

The picture—a ghastly subject ghastlily treated—is yet a good instance of Poussin's learned treatment. Everywhere the intention to express alarm is obvious, and in the foreground are figures fleeing the infection, with nose and mouth muffled. Others are engaged removing the dead and dying, while in the centre are the dead bodies of a mother and child; another child approaches the mother's breast, but the father stoops down to avert it. A similar group to this occurs in a design by Raphael, "Il Morbetto," and was also in the celebrated picture by Aristides which Alexander the Great, at the sack of Thebes, claimed for himself and sent to his palace at Pella (Wornum: Epochs of Painting, p. 47, ed. 1864). This picture is a replica of one, now in the Louvre, which was painted in Rome in 1630—Poussin receiving only 60 scudi (about 12 guineas) for it.

166. A CAPUCHIN FRIAR.

Michel ascribes this portrait to the year of Rembrandt's tribulations. "At this period, when his emotions were so[Pg 178] deeply stirred by the vision of a compassionate Saviour, he felt a kindred attraction for those mystic souls who sought in solitude and prayer a closer communion with the Christ to whom he felt himself drawn by his own sorrows. The 'Capuchin' in the National Gallery has suffered from time, but the devout gravity of the face is finely expressed" (Rembrandt: his Life, his Work, and his Time, ii. 126).

167. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

This drawing—of the same composition as we see in the picture No. 218—was made at Bologna in 1521 for Count Giovanni Battista Bentivogli. The drawing was presented to the National Gallery by Lord Vernon, together with a print from the plate engraved from it by Agostino Carracci.

168. ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA.

This is a picture of Raphael's second period—"painted about the year 1507, to judge from its close resemblance in style to the celebrated picture of the Entombment in the Borghese (Rome), which is known to have been executed at that time." There are several studies for the picture in the University Galleries at Oxford, and another in the Chatsworth collection. The finished cartoon in black and white chalk, pricked for transfer to the panel, is exhibited in the Louvre.

A perfect picture of saintly resignation. St. Catherine (for whose story see 693) leans on the wheel, the instrument of her martyrdom, and "looks up to heaven in the dawn of the eternal day, with her lips parted in the resting from her pain." Her right hand is pressed on her bosom, as if she replied to the call from above, "I am here, O Lord! ready to do Thy will." From above, a bright ray is seen streaming down upon her, emblematic of the divine inspiration which enabled her to confound her heathen adversaries. The studies existing show the pains Raphael took with the exquisite expression; but the result defies analysis. "It is impossible to explain in language the exact qualities of the lines on which depend the whole truth and beauty of expression about the half-opened lips of Raphael's St. Catherine."[Pg 179] But these lines should be noticed as exemplifying the principle of "vital beauty"—of beauty, that is to say, as consisting in the appearance in living things of felicitous fulfilment of function. Thus eyes and mouths become more beautiful precisely as they become more perfect means of moral expression. The mouth of a negro is ugly because it is only a means of eating; the mouth of St. Catherine is beautiful for the feeling it expresses (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 47; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xii. § 10, sec. ii. ch. v. § 21). It may be noticed, lastly, how much the pathetic feeling of the picture is heightened by the herbage in the foreground, and especially perhaps by the carefully-painted dandelion "clock": "so soon passeth it away, and we are gone."

169. THE HOLY FAMILY.

Ludovico Mazzolino, "whose brilliant colours play through all shades," has been called "the glowworm of the Ferrarese School;" creamy-toned backgrounds of architectural subjects also enrich his compositions. "He was principally a genre painter, though in his early period he is said to have worked much in fresco. His brilliant colouring made him a favourite with art-loving prelates of succeeding generations; hence his small pictures abound in Roman collections" (Italian Painters, Borghese Gallery, p. 219). Morelli elsewhere adds the conjecture that Mazzolino studied at Ferrara under Domenico Pannetti. In another of his characteristics—the minuteness, namely, of his work—he resembles rather the Flemish School. Of his life little or nothing is known; but his interest in decorative craftsmanship is proved by his pictures.

The background and accessories here, as well as in 641, are particularly interesting as a record of the decorative art of the time. A few years before the date of these pictures the Pope Leo X. had unearthed the buried treasures of the Baths of Titus, and Giovanni da Udine rediscovered the mode by which their stucco decorations were produced. This method of modelling in wet plaster on walls and ceilings was extensively used in house decoration from that time down to the middle of the last century, but has since then been supplanted by the cheaper process of casting. No sooner was Giovanni da Udine's invention known than it must have been adopted by Ferrarese artists, for here we find Mazzolino[Pg 180] portraying it in the background of his picture. As in Tura's pilaster (see 772), the winged sphere plays a principal part in the design, for it was a favourite badge of the ducal house of Ferrara. Nor is it only in the plaster modelling that Mazzolino's interest in decorative art shows itself. The back of the bench on which the Madonna sits is crowned by the most delicate carving, whilst up aloft, peeping over the wall on which the plaster work occurs, there is a choir of angels playing on a portable organ, which is full of suggestions for decorative design (G. T. Robinson in Art Journal, May 1886, pp. 151, 152).

170. THE HOLY FAMILY.

Notice the rich cap in which the little St. John is dressed; it is not unlike those which French and Flemish children are still made to wear as a protection from tumbles. There is a grace in the figures of the Virgin and St. Elizabeth which recalls Raphael. A less happy effect of his influence may be seen in the vision of the heavenly host above, full of that exaggerated action which marks the decadence of Italian art. God the Father is represented gesticulating wildly, almost like an actor in melodrama. And so with the playing angels. In pictures of the great time they are shown "with uninterrupted and effortless gesture ... singing as calmly as the Fates weave" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, p. 15), but here they are all scrambling through their songs, their hair floating in the breeze and their faces full of excited gesture.

172. THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS.

Michael Angelo Amerighi, the son of a mason, is usually called Caravaggio from his birthplace, a town of that name near Milan.[99] He was the leader of the so-called "Naturalist" School (see introduction to "The Later Italian Schools"), which numbered among its [Pg 181]disciples Spagnoletto (235) and the Dutch Gerard von Honthorst (1444). The characteristics of his art, as described below, were not out of keeping with the sombre character of the man.[100] He had established himself as a painter at Rome, when he had to fly for homicide. He was playing at tennis and became so violent in a dispute that he killed his companion. After a short stay at Naples he went to Malta, where he gained the favour of the grand-master, and was made a Knight of the Cross of Malta. His ungovernable temper, however, again led him into trouble, and quarrelling with one of the knights, he was cast into prison. He escaped to Sicily and thence returned to Naples. Having procured the Pope's pardon for his original offence, he hired a felucca and set sail for Rome. The coast-guard arrested him in mistake for another person; the crew of the felucca plundered him of all his belongings; and after wandering disconsolately along the coast, he was seized with fever, and died at the early age of forty.

One notices first in this picture the least important things—the supper before the company, the roast chicken before Christ. Next one sees how coarse and almost ruffianly are the disciples, represented as supping with their risen Lord at Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 30, 31). Both points are characteristic of the painter, who was driven by the insipidities of the preceding mannerists into a crude "realism," which made him resolve to describe sacred and historical events just as though they were being enacted in a slum by butchers and fishwives. "He was led away," says Lanzi (i. 452), "by his sombre genius, and represented objects with very little light. He ridiculed all artists who attempted a noble expression of countenance or graceful folding of drapery." His first altar-piece was removed by the priests for whom it was painted, as being too vulgar for such a subject. "Many interesting studies from the taverns of Italy remain to prove Caravaggio's mastery over scenes of common life. For the historian of manners in seventeenth-century Italy, those pictures have a truly precious value, as they are executed with such passion as to raise them above the more careful but more lymphatic transcripts from beer-cellars in Dutch painting. But when he applied his principles to higher subjects, then vulgarity became apparent. It seems difficult for realism, either in literature or art, not to fasten upon ugliness, vice, pain, and disease, as though these imperfections of our nature were more real than beauty, [Pg 182]goodness, pleasure, and health. Therefore Caravaggio, the leader of a school which the Italians christened Naturalists, may be compared to Zola" (Symonds, vii. 221).

173. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.

Jacopo da Ponte is commonly called Il Bassano or Jacopo da Bassano from his native town, near Venice. His father, Francesco, who was a painter in the school of the Bellini, was his first master; he afterwards studied under Bonifazio at Venice. After a short stay in that city, Jacopo returned to his native town, where he remained for the rest of a long life. "His best works are almost worthy," says Sir F. Burton, "of Titian. They are conspicuous among other qualities for Venetian excellence of colouring—especially in his green, where he exhibits a peculiar brilliancy. Most of his pictures seem at first sight as dazzling, then as cooling and soothing, as the best kind of stained glass; while the colouring of details, particularly of those under high lights, is jewel-like, as clear and deep and satisfying as rubies and emeralds." No. 228 in this Collection has passages which illustrate this point. Jacopo was nearly contemporary with the great Tintoretto, but while the latter was the last of the Venetian painters in the grand style, Bassano after a time devoted himself to simple scenes of country life. His distinguishing place in the history of art is that he was the first Italian painter of genre—a painter, that is, du genre bas, painter of a low class of subjects, of familiar objects such as do not belong to any other recognised class of paintings (as history, portrait, etc.): see, for instance, No. 228, in which the religious subject merely gives the painter an opportunity for a scene of market life. "His pictures were for the inhabitants of the small market-town from which he takes his name, where, besides the gates, you still see men and women in rustic garb crouching over their many-coloured wares; and where, just outside the walls, you may see all the ordinary occupations connected with farming and grazing. Inspired, although unawares, by the new idea of giving perfectly modern versions of Biblical stories, Bassano introduced into nearly every picture he painted episodes from the life in the streets of Bassano and in the country just outside the gates. Another thing Bassano could not fail to do, working as he did in the country and for country people, was to paint landscape. He loved to paint the real country. He was, in fact, the first modern landscape painter" (Berenson: Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, § xxi). "Giovanni Bellini places his figure in the crystal air of an Italian morning; Titian and Tintoretto give us daylight, mighty while subdued; but Bassano throws a lurid grey over his landscape and carries the eye to the solemn twilight spread along the distant horizon. This peculiarity of feature is partly accounted for by the position of the town of[Pg 183] Bassano, which is wrapped in an early twilight by the high mountains above it on the west" (Layard's edition of Kugler, ii. 624).

A fine portrait—somewhat recalling Rembrandt in style—of a very refined face. In the vase beside him is a sprig of myrtle. This painter is fond of introducing such vases: see one in 277. In the principal street of Bassano, where the artist was born and, after studying at Venice, continued to live, such vessels may still be seen placed out for sale.

174. PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL CERRI.

Carlo Maratti (called also Carlo delle Madonne, from the large number of Madonna pictures that he painted) was an imitator of Raphael, and for nearly half a century the most eminent painter in Rome. The portrait of a cardinal should have come kindly to him, for he was in the service of several popes, and was appointed superintendent of the Vatican Chambers by Innocent XI.

176. ST. JOHN AND THE LAMB.

An interesting illustration of the substitution of the palpable image for the figurative phrase. The mission of St. John the Baptist was to prepare the way for Christ, to proclaim to the people "Behold the Lamb of God!" Murillo makes the standard of the Lamb, with those words upon it, lie upon the ground below; but he further represents the young St. John as embracing an actual lamb.

177. THE MAGDALEN.

Just such a picture as might have suggested the lines in Pope's epistle on "The Characters of Women"—

Just such a picture, too, as Guido turned out in numbers.[Pg 184] "He was specially fond," says one of his biographers, "of depicting faces with upraised looks, and he used to say that he had a hundred different modes" of thus supplying sentimentality to order.

179. VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

180. A PIETÀ.

Of Francesco Raibolini's life the two most interesting things are these: first, that great artist though he came to be, he never painted a picture, so far as we know, till he was forty; and secondly, the intimate connection, exemplified in him, between the artist and the craftsman. He was the son of a carpenter, and, like so many of the greatest old masters, was brought up to the goldsmith's trade. The name of Francia was that of his master in goldsmith's work, and was adopted by him in gratitude.[101] He attained great skill in his trade, especially as a die-engraver and a worker in "niello" (inlaying a black composition into steel or silver). He was appointed steward of the Goldsmiths' Guild in 1483, and afterwards became master of the Mint—a post which he held till his death. In some of his earlier pictures the hand of a goldsmith is seen—in the clear outline, the metallic and polished surface, and the minuteness of detail; and even on some of his later and more important works, such as 179, he signed himself "Francia aurifex (goldsmith) Bononiensis." It was with Costa, the Ferrarese artist (see 629), who migrated to Bologna, and with whom he entered into partnership, that Francia learnt the art of painting, and thus, though a Bolognese, he is properly included in the Ferrarese School. His work marks the culminating point of that school, just as Raphael's[102] marks that of the Umbrian, and in these pictures (originally one altar-piece, painted for the Buonvisi chapel in S. Frediano at Lucca, where, says Vasari, it was held to be of great value) we have some of his best work. Many of his pictures are still at Bologna, including the one which some consider his chef d'œuvre, the Bentivoglio altar-piece in S. Giacomo Maggiore.[Pg 185] Francia is the most pathetic of painters. Raphael is said to have remarked that Francia's Madonnas were the most devoutly beautiful he knew,[103] and there is considerable affinity between Francia and Perugino. But the Umbrian master was more ideal; in Francia there are touches of realism. "It will be observed in No. 180 that the Virgin is represented as a middle-aged woman, and that the lids of the angels' eyes are red with weeping. In spirit also they are different. Francia makes his angels appeal to the spectator as if to enlist his sympathy in the pathos of the tragedy, holding up the beautiful tresses of Christ's hair to aid in the appeal. This Perugino would never have done; his angels, and his saints also, are always wrapt in a spiritual ecstasy to which Francia could not attain" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 173).

(179) On the throne are the Virgin and her mother, St. Anne, who offers the infant Christ a peach, symbolical, as the fruit thus offered in these pictures originally was, of "the fruits of the spirit—joy, peace, and love." At the foot of the throne stands the little St. John (the Baptist), "one of the purest creations of Christian art," holding in his arms the cross of reeds and the scroll inscribed "Ecce Agnus Dei" ("Behold the Lamb of God"). The discovery of Benedetto Buonvisi's will has shown why the various saints were selected—St. Anne, because the Buonvisi chapel was dedicated to her; St. Lawrence as the patron of the founder's father; St. Paul as the patron of the founder's brother and heir; St. Sebastian as the saint invoked in plagues (from which calamity Lucca suffered in 1510); and St. Benedict as the patron of the founder (G. C. Williamson's Francia, p. 111).

(180) This picture, which was the "lunette," or arch, forming the top of the altar-piece, is a "pietà," i.e. the Virgin and two angels weeping over the dead body of Christ. The artist has filled his picture with that solemn reverential pity, harmonised by love, which befits his subject. The body of Christ—utterly dead, yet not distorted nor defaced by death—is that of a tired man whose great soul would not let him rest while there was still His father's work to do on earth. In the face of the angel at His head there is a look of quiet joy, [Pg 186]as of one who knows that "death is but a covered way that leads into the light"; in the attitude and expression of the angel at the feet there is prayerful sympathy for the sorrowing mother. The face of the mother herself, which before was pure and calm, is now tear-stained and sad, because her son has met so cruel a death—

Yet it bears a look of content because the world has known him. She rests His body tenderly on her knee as she did when he was a little child—thus are "the hues of the morning and the solemnity of eve, the gladness in accomplished promise, and sorrow of the sword-pierced heart, gathered into one human Lamp of ineffable love" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 21).

181. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN.

If really by Perugino,[104] this must be one of his early works. It is painted in tempera. The Flemish process of oil-painting found its way to Venice, where Perugino is known to have been in 1494, and where he probably learnt it. The superiority of the new method may be seen in a moment by comparing the cracked surface and faded colours of this picture with 288, which was painted when Perugino had obtained complete mastery over the new medium, and which is still as bright and fresh as when it was painted. The style of this picture is, however, thoroughly Peruginesque. It is interesting to compare the Umbrian type of the Madonna—innocent and girl-like, with an air of far-off reverie—with the types of other schools. The Umbrian Madonna is less mature, more etherealised than the Venetian. She is a girl, rather than a mother. Therein she resembles the Florentine type; but an air of dreamy reverie in the Umbrian takes the place of the intellectual [Pg 187]mysticism of the Florentine. In Perugino "the Umbrian type finds its fullest and highest representative. Dainty small features, all too babyish for the figures that bear them; a mouth like a cupid's bow; a tiny and delicate chin; eyes set well apart, with curiously heavy and drooping lids; faint pencilled eyebrows; a broad smooth forehead,—these are the main elements in Perugino's Madonnas" (Grant Allen in the Pall Mall Magazine, 1895, p. 620).

184. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY.

Lucidel (a name which is supposed to be a corruption of Neufchatel) studied painting at Antwerp, and afterwards settled at Nuremberg. This picture, dated 1561, was formally ascribed to Sir Antonio More and supposed to represent Jeanne d'Archel; but it reveals (says the latest edition of the Official Catalogue) "in its style and its Upper German costume, the handiwork of Lucidel."

"The picture is much obscured," says Sir Edward Poynter, "by a coarse brown varnish. A beautiful example of this master, in the collection of Lord Spencer, is remarkable for the purity of its colour, and doubtless this portrait had originally the same qualities" (The National Gallery, i. 294).

186. PORTRAITS OF JAN ARNOLFINI AND HIS WIFE.

The Van Eycks—Hubert, the elder brother, and Jan—were natives of Maesyck (Eyck-sur-Meuse), and are famous as being the artists to whose ingenuity the first invention of the art of painting in oils was for a long time ascribed. The probability is that although the practice of mixing oil with colours was employed for decorative purposes in Germany and elsewhere long before their time, they were the first to so improve it as to make it fully serviceable for figure-painting.[105] The [Pg 188]art of oil painting reached higher perfection in many ways after their time; but there is no picture in the Gallery which shows better than this, one great capacity of oil painting—its combination, namely, of "imperishable firmness with exquisite delicacy" (On the Old Road, i. 141). The place of the Van Eycks in the development of early Flemish art has been described in the introduction to that School, but the suddenness and completeness of their mastery remains among the wonders of painting. "The first Italian Renaissance," says Fromentin, "has nothing comparable to this. And in the particular order of sentiments they expressed and of the subjects they chose, one must admit that neither any Lombard School, nor Tuscan, nor Venetian, produced anything that resembles the first outburst of the School of Bruges." The two brothers were granted the freedom of the profession by the Corporation of Painters of Ghent in 1421. In that year Jan left Hubert and took an appointment as painter to Count John of Bavaria at the Hague. In 1424 he returned to Bruges as painter to Philip, Duke of Burgundy, in whose service he remained to the end of his life. Like Rubens, the painter Jan van Eyck "amused himself with being ambassador." "He was frequently employed on missions of trust; and following the fortunes of a chief who was always in the saddle, he appears for a time to have been in ceaseless motion, receiving extra pay for secret services at Leyden, drawing his salary at Bruges, yet settled in a fixed abode at Lille. In 1428 he joined the embassy sent by Philip the Good to Lisbon to beg the hand of Isabella of Portugal. His portrait of the bride fixed the Duke's choice. After his return he settled finally at Bruges, where he married, and his wife bore him a daughter, known in after years as a nun in the convent of Maesyck. At the christening of this child the Duke was sponsor; and this was but one of the many distinctions by which Philip the Good rewarded his painter's merits" (Crowe). But never was there an artist less puffed up. "Jan van Eyck was here." "As I can, not as I would." Such signatures are the sign-marks of modesty. In 1426 his brother Hubert died, leaving the great altar-piece—the Adoration of the Lamb—for Jan to finish. This masterpiece of the Van Eycks was in 1432 set up in the Chapel of St. Bavon at Ghent, where the[Pg 189] central portions still remain—the other original panels being now at Brussels and Berlin. The portraits by Jan in our Gallery belong to the next three years. There are no finer specimens of his marvellous precision and delicacy in this branch of the art.

This wonderful picture of a Flemish interior—dated 1434—is as spruce and clean now (for the small twig broom did its work so well that the goodman and his wife were not afraid to walk on the polished floor without their shoes), as it was when first painted five hundred years ago. This is the more interesting from the eventful history the picture has had. At one time we hear of a barber-surgeon at Bruges presenting it to the Queen-regent of the Netherlands, who valued it so highly that she pensioned him in return for the gift. At another it must have passed again into humbler hands, for General Hay found it in the room to which he was taken in 1815 at Brussels to recover from wounds at the battle of Waterloo. He purchased the picture after his recovery, and sold it to the British Government in 1842. "It is," says Sir Edward Poynter, "one of the most precious possessions in the national collection, and, in respect of its marvellous finish, combined with the most astounding truth of imitation and effect, perhaps the most remarkable picture in the world."

For the delicacy of workmanship note especially the mirror, in which are reflected not only the objects in the room, but others beyond what appears in the picture, for a door and two additional figures may be distinguished. In the frame of the mirror, too, are ten diminutive pictures of the ten "moments" in the Passion of Christ "as material for the lady's meditation while doing her hair." Notice also the brass-work of the chandelier. "There are many little objects about, such as an orange on the window-sill, placed there to catch the light. Through the window you can see a cherry-tree, with sunshine on the ripe fruit. In the treatment of these and similar details Jan van Eyck shows a liking for dots and spots of light" (Conway). Above the chandelier, elaborately wrought, is the painter's signature. This signature (in Latin), "Jan van Eyck was here," exactly expresses the modesty and veracity which were the keynote of his art. The artist only professed to come, to see, and to record what he saw. Arnolfini was the representative at Bruges of a Lucca firm of merchants, and Van Eyck gives us a picture of the quiet, dry, business folk exactly as he found them.

[Pg 190]

187. THE APOTHEOSIS OF WILLIAM THE TACITURN OF HOLLAND.

A sketch of a picture in the possession of the Earl of Jersey. This sketch was formerly in the possession of Sir David Wilkie, R.A.

189. THE DOGE LEONARDO LOREDANO.

Giovanni Bellini (often shortened into Giambellini)—the greatest of the fifteenth-century artists—"the mighty Venetian master who alone of all the painters of Italy united purity of religious aim with perfection of artistical power"[106]—belonged, it is interesting to note, to a thoroughly artistic family. His father, Jacopo, drawings by whom may be seen in the British Museum, was an artist of repute; his elder brother Gentile (see 1213) was another. The two brothers studied together in their father's school at Padua, and there they formed a friendship with Mantegna, who afterwards married their sister. Two pictures in our Gallery (Bellini's, 726; and Mantegna's, 1417) recall the days of their early association. By blood every inch an artist, so was Giovanni also in character. His life was one long devotion to his art. He lived to be ninety, and showed to the end increasing knowledge and power. Albert Dürer wrote in 1506, when the grand old man was eighty, that "though very old he was still the best painter in Venice."[107]

[Pg 191]

This famous portrait must have been painted about the same time, for Leonardo Loredano only became Doge in 1501. About 1460, Bellini had settled in Venice, where he soon rivalled and eclipsed the established school of the Vivarini. In 1479, when his elder brother Gentile departed to Constantinople, Giovanni was appointed in his place to carry on the series of pictures for the Hall of the Great Council in the Ducal Palace. These works were destroyed by fire in 1577. The documents referring to them show the terms on which he worked. He was engaged at a fixed rate of salary to work "constantly and daily, so that said pictures may be completed as expeditiously as possible, with three assistants, also paid by the State, to render speedy and diligent assistance." One of these assistants was Carpaccio (see 750). Three years later he was appointed State painter to the Republic. His fame is sounded by Ariosto, who in "Orlando Furioso" ranks him with Leonardo. It may be gathered also from the number of great painters who attended his studio, including Giorgione and Titian. He was overwhelmed with work, and doubtless employed assistants to complete commissions from his design. Hence the confusion that exists in the matter of attribution among pictures of this school (see under 599). With Titian he was on terms of warm friendship, and his last work (a companion piece to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," now in the Duke of Northumberland's Gallery at Alnwick) was left for Titian to finish. Bellini was buried in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, in the same tomb where Gentile had lain since 1507.

Giovanni Bellini's long life covers the end of one period and the beginning of another in the history of Italian art. In point of technique this is so: his earliest works are in tempera, his later ones in oil—the use of which medium he learnt perhaps from Antonello da Messina. It is so also in motive. "The iridescence of dying statesmanship in Italy, her magnificence of hollow piety, were represented in the arts of Venice and Florence by two mighty men on either side—Titian and Tintoret, Michael Angelo and Raphael. Of the calm and brave statesmanship, the modest and faithful religion, which had been her strength, I am content to name one chief representative artist at Venice, John Bellini." The years of change were 1480-1520 (roughly speaking those of Raphael's life). "John Bellini precedes the change, meets and resists it victoriously till his death. Nothing of flaw or failure is ever to be discerned in him" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, pp. 11-13). His position is thus unique: he was the meeting-point of two ways: as great in artistic power as the masters who came after, as pure in religious aim as those who went before. An interesting episode is recorded which marks the transition and Bellini's meeting of it. Isabella Gonzaga, the Duchess of Mantua, wrote in 1501 to her agent in Venice to get Bellini to do for her a picture of which the subject was to be profane, to suit Mantegna's allegories. Bellini suggests that he cannot do such a subject in a way to compare with Mantegna; with such a subject "he cannot do anything to look well." Isabella thereupon is content to put up with a religious subject,[Pg 192] but Bellini on his side agrees to add "a distant landscape and other fantasies" (qualche luntani et altra fantaxia). Bellini, however, was by no means stagnant in his art, or in his outlook. At the end of his life, he undertook, as we have seen, a Bacchanal, and in his middle period he painted the beautiful little allegories now in the Academy at Venice. "Bellini," says Morelli, "was ever making progress. He knew how to adapt himself to his subject, and was, as occasion required, grand and serious, graceful and attractive, naïve and simple." It is in Venice that Bellini can be best studied; but our National Gallery is fortunate in having more of his works than can be seen in any other collection north of the Alps. And how varied are his powers! The same hand has given us subjects of intense religious conviction, like "The Agony in the Garden" (726) and "The Blood of the Redeemer" (1233); "sunny pictures of devotional sentiment" (280 and 599); the noble portrait here before us; and delicate landscape work, like the "Peter Martyr" (812). In his earliest pictures he devoted himself to the profoundest sentiments of Christianity—perhaps, as has been suggested, under the influence of S. Bernardino, then preaching at Padua (Roger Fry's Giovanni Bellini, p. 22). Afterwards the "note" in Bellini's work is rather "genial serenity." The expression of his Madonnas is often tender and solemn, but he never lets it pass into the region of the ecstatic. All is bright and peaceful and sunny. He belongs to what Ruskin calls "the age of the masters," in which the main object is "pictorial perfectness and deliciousness."

A magnificent portrait of one of the greatest men of the Venetian Republic. Leonardo, the 67th Doge, held office from 1501 to 1521. He belonged to one of the most ancient and noble families in the State, and Venice, under his rule, was one of the Great Powers of Europe—as the league of Cambrai formed against him sufficiently shows. There is all the quiet dignity of a born ruler in his face—"fearless, faithful, patient, impenetrable, implacable—every word a fate" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix. § 1). In his capacity of State painter to the Republic it was Bellini's duty to execute the official portraits of the Doges. During his long life he saw no fewer than eleven Doges, and was State painter during the reigns of four. This, however, is the only portrait of a Doge by Bellini which has been preserved (Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 42). It is remarkable alike for strong characterisation, simplicity of conception, and brilliancy of colouring.

190. A JEWISH RABBI.

[Pg 193]

191. THE YOUTHFUL CHRIST AND ST. JOHN.

St. John is charming in the beauty of boyhood. In the youthful Christ the painter has striven after something more "ideal," and has produced a somewhat namby-pamby face.

192. PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF.

Dou, who stands at the head of the Leyden School, is remarkable for the patient industry which he devoted to his work, and which was rewarded by his attainment of wonderful mastery in delicate execution. "Mr. Slap-dash whips out his pocket-book, scribbles for five minutes on one page, and from that memorandum paints with the aid of the depths of his consciousness the whole of his picture. Not so the true follower of Gerard Dou. To him the silent surface with the white ground is a sacred place that is to tell on after ages, and bring pleasure or power or knowledge to hundreds of thousands as silently. No eyes, emperor's or clown's, telling the other that they have been there. It is worth this man's while to spend a whole sketch-book, if need be, over one twelve-inch panel" (Letters of James Smetham, p. 173). With Gerard Dou "a picture was a thing of orderly progression, even as the flowers of spring gradually unfold their leaves and buds and blossoms to the sun. He hurried his work for no man, but moved with a princely ease, as much as to say to the world, 'Other men may hurry as they please, from necessity or excitement; but Gerard Dou at least chooses to think, and to perfect his works until he has satisfied himself.'" At first he worked at portrait-painting, but his manner was too slow to please his sitters. "The wife of a wealthy burgomaster paid the penalty of possessing a fair white hand by having to sit five long days while the painter transferred it to canvas. Had his patrons come into the world for no other purpose than to serve Gerard Dou, he could not have dissipated their time with greater indifference. The cheek of his fair model would grow pale with hunger and fatigue while he was rounding a pearl on her neck" (968). Afterwards Dou devoted himself to scenes of indoor genre, and herein "he spent as much time in imitating an indentation on a copper stewpan as he devoted to a dimple in the refulgent cheek of beauty. Each object he transcribes is sharp or dull, transparent or opaque, rounded or squared, as it ought to be. The texture is always given with exactness, even to the minute threads in a costly robe. He paints goblets of wine which would tempt an ascetic. His gentlemen smoke such delicately moulded clay pipes with so much serenity that smoking in his pictures is invested with all the grace of an accomplish[Pg 194]ment. He carried his neatness and love of order into his studio. Other painters were content to sit at an easel of plain deal—Gerard Dou must have one of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He locked up his colours in a costly cabinet as if they had been rubies, emeralds, and brilliants of the first water. On arriving in front of his easel, he is said to have paused for a few moments to allow the dust to settle before he uncovered the picture" (Merritt's Art Criticism and Romance, i. 170). The German painter Sandrart relates that he once visited Dou's studio and admired the great care bestowed by the artist on the painting of a broomstick. Dou remarked that he would still have to work at it for three days more. The history of his pictures is a remarkable instance of industry rewarded. In his lifetime an amateur of the name of Spiering used to pay him one thousand florins a year—in itself a good income—for the mere privilege of having the first offer of his pictures; and since his death their value has steadily increased. Of his life, beyond what has been stated above, little is known. He was the son of a glazier at Leyden, and was apprenticed successively to an engraver and a glass-painter. At the age of fifteen he entered the studio of Rembrandt, with whom he remained three years. He lived nearly all his life in his native town. Among his pupils were Schalcken (199), Mieris (840), and Metsu (838).

This fine portrait is painted (says Sir Edward Poynter) in a style unusually large and free for the master.

193. LOT AND HIS DAUGHTERS LEAVING SODOM.

This and the companion picture (196) are interesting as being two of the nation's conspicuously bad bargains. The purchase of them at very high prices, £1680 and £1260, was indeed one of the grievances that led to the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1853, and to the subsequent reconstitution of the Gallery. "Expert" witnesses declared before the Committee that these two pictures ought not to have been bought at any price or even accepted as a gift. Ruskin had some time previously written to the Times about them as follows:—

"Sir, if the canvases of Guido, lately introduced into the Gallery, had been good works of even that bad master, which they are not,—if they had been genuine and untouched works, even though feeble, which they are not,—if, though false and retouched remnants of a feeble and fallen school, they had been endurably decent or elementarily instructive,—some conceivable excuse might perhaps have been by[Pg 195] ingenuity forged, and by impudence uttered, for their introduction into a gallery where we previously possessed two good Guidos (11 and 177) ... but now, sir, what vestige of an apology remains for the cumbering our walls with pictures that have no single virtue, no colour, no drawing, no character, no history, no thought?" (Arrows of the Chace, i. 64, 65).

194. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.

At the wedding of Thetis and Peleus an apple was thrown amongst the guests by the Goddess of Discord, to be given to the most beautiful. Paris, the Trojan shepherd, was ordered by Jupiter to decide the contest. He is here seated with Mercury, the messenger of the gods, at his side, about to award the apple to Venus. On the right of Venus is Juno with her peacock at her feet; on the left, Minerva, with her owl perched behind her. Paris thus chose Pleasure, instead of Power or Wisdom; and from his choice came, the story adds, all the troubling of domestic peace involved in the Trojan War. The Goddess of Discord, already assured of her victory and its consequences, hovers in the clouds above, spreading fire and pestilence.

This picture—one of Rubens's masterpieces and "evidently entirely the work of his own hand"—belongs to his latest period; "never did he show his intense appreciation of the beauty of flesh and the delights of colour more conspicuously than in the pictures of his old age." Characteristic also is the painter's treatment of the subject. The goddesses are as substantial as any figures of flesh and blood; the picture is realistic, not symbolic. An exactly opposite method of treatment was exemplified in Mr. Watt's "Judgment of Paris," exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1887. Paris was left out, for does not every lover have the same choice to make for himself? and the goddesses were soft visionary forms of purely ideal beauty (cf. Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. viii. § 7).

195. A MEDICAL PROFESSOR.

The interest of this picture lies in the history of its purchase. It was bought by the trustees in 1845, on the advice of the[Pg 196] then Keeper, as a Holbein. "The veriest tyro might well have been ashamed of such a purchase" (Arrows of the Chace, i. 65); and very much ashamed the trustees were, when immediately after the purchase the hoax was discovered. There and then they subscribed £100 between them, which they offered to M. Rochard, the dealer, "to induce him to annul the bargain, but he declined, and there was an end of it."[108]

196. SUSANNAH AND THE ELDERS.

"A work devoid alike of art and decency" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xiv. § 24). For the circumstances of its acquisition see above under 193.

197. A WILD BOAR HUNT.

Don Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez was born at Seville of well-to-do parents—his father's name being Silva, his mother's Velazquez. His talent for drawing quickly showed itself, and when only twenty he married Juana, the daughter of his second master, Pacheco (his first being another painter of Seville, Herrera). Pacheco's house, says one of the Spanish historians, was "the golden prison of painting," and it was here that Velazquez met Cervantes, and obtained his first introduction to the brilliant circle in which he was himself to shine. In Pacheco's company he went in 1622 to Madrid, where he had influential friends, and next year he was invited to return by Olivares, the king's great minister. Olivares persuaded the king to sit to Velazquez for his portrait. The portrait was a complete success, and the painter stepped at once into fame and favour. This immediate success is characteristic of his extraordinary facility. "Just think," says Ruskin, "what is implied when a man of the enormous power and facility that Reynolds had, says he was 'trying to do with great labour' what Velazquez 'did at once.'" Velazquez shows indeed "the highest reach of technical perfection yet attained in art; all effort and labour seeming to cease in the radiant peace and simplicity of consummate human power"[109][Pg 197] (Two Paths, § 68; Fors Clavigera, 1876, p. 188). From the time of this first portrait of Philip IV. onwards, the life of Velazquez was one long triumph. He was not only the favourite but the friend of the king. He was made in succession painter to the king, keeper of the wardrobe, usher of the royal chamber, and chamberlain, and offices were also found for his friends and relations. He lived in the king's palace on terms of close intimacy, painting the king and his family in innumerable attitudes, and accompanying him on his royal progresses. When our Charles I., then Prince of Wales, visited Madrid in 1623, Velazquez painted his portrait, and figured in all the royal fêtes held in the English prince's honour. The Duke of Buckingham, it would seem, was also his friend, and Velazquez saw much too of Rubens, when the latter came on his diplomatic mission to Madrid. Rubens advised Velazquez to visit Italy, and in 1630 the king gave his consent. He travelled with recommendations from the king, and wherever he went—Venice, Ferrara, Rome, Naples—he was received with all the honours accorded to princes. His second visit to Italy was in 1648, when the king sent him to buy pictures with the view of forming a Spanish Academy. At Rome he painted the portrait of the Pope (Innocent X.), which made so great a mark that it was carried in triumphal procession, like Cimabue's picture of old. His royal master, however, became impatient for his return, and he hurried back to Madrid, after giving commissions to all the leading artists then at Rome. On his return he was given fresh honours and offices—especially that of Marshal of the Court, whose duty it was to superintend the personal lodgment of the king during excursions. It was the duties of this office which were the immediate cause of his death. He accompanied the king to the conference at Irun—on the "Island of the Pheasants"—which led to the marriage of Louis XIV. with the Infanta Maria Teresa. There is a picture of him at Versailles by the French artist Lebrun, which was painted on this occasion. The portrait, sombre and cadaverous-looking, was no doubt true to life; and when Velazquez returned to Madrid, it was found that his exertions in arranging the royal journey had sown the seeds of a fever, from which after a week's illness he died. Seven days later his wife died of grief, and was buried at his side.

Though Velazquez spent all his life, as we have seen, amongst the great ones of the earth, no trace of vanity or meanness is discernible in his character. Ruskin (The Two Paths, §§ 62, 65) connects his sweetness of disposition with the truthfulness which was characteristic of his art. "The art which is especially dedicated to natural fact always indicates a peculiar gentleness and tenderness of mind, and all great and successful work of that kind will assuredly be the production of thoughtful, sensitive, earnest, kind men, large in their views of life, and full of various intellectual power ... (One instance is Reynolds). The other painter whom I would give you as an instance of this gentleness is a man of another nation, on the[Pg 198] whole I suppose one of the most cruel civilised nations in the world,—the Spaniards. They produced but one great painter, only one; but he among the very greatest of painters, Velazquez. You would not suppose, from looking at Velazquez's portraits generally, that he was an especially kind or good man; you perceive a peculiar sternness about them; for they were as true as steel, and the persons whom he had to paint being not generally kind or good people, they were stern in expression, and Velazquez gave the sternness; but he had precisely the same intense perception of truth, the same marvellous instinct for the rendering of all natural soul and all natural form that our Reynolds had. Let me, then, read you his character as it is given by Mr. Stirling (afterwards Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell): 'Certain charges, of what nature we are not informed, brought against him after his death, made it necessary for his executor to refute them at a private audience granted to him by the king for that purpose. After listening to the defence of his friend, Philip immediately made answer, "I can believe all you say of the excellent disposition of Diego Velazquez." Having lived for half his life in courts, he was yet capable both of gratitude and generosity.... No mean jealousy ever influenced his conduct to his brother artists; he could afford not only to acknowledge the merits, but to forgive the malice of his rivals. His character was of that rare and happy kind, in which high intellectual power is combined with indomitable strength of will, and a winning sweetness of temper.'" Nothing shows his character better than his treatment of Murillo, who came to Madrid, an unfriended youth, in 1640. Velazquez received him to his house, gave directions for his admission to all the galleries and for permission to copy, presented him to the king, procured him commissions, and offered him facilities for making the journey to Rome.

The chief characteristics of Velazquez's art have been already incidentally alluded to. "Rejecting all influences," says Sir Frederick Burton, "alike native and foreign, and following nature alone, he succeeded in imitating the true appearances of things as seen through the atmosphere that surrounds them, with a fidelity that has never been matched. Whatever he undertook to paint, whether the human face and figure, other animals, or landscape scenery, the result in his hands was a presentment intensely individualised, and yet, at the same time, suggestive of the type." Some modern writers claim the work of Velazquez as "impressionism"—a much abused and a very ill-defined term. Certainly Velazquez, like every other great artist, painted his impressions. But his sheet-anchor was fidelity to fact; and as for his technique, it was only by constant observation and practice that he attained that lightness of hand, that felicity of touch, by which his later work is characterised. For a painting of the master's earliest period, see 1375. The truthfulness of Velazquez had its reward, says Ruskin, in making him distinguished also amongst all Spanish painters by the sparkling purity of his colour. "Colour[Pg 199] is, more than all elements of art, the reward of veracity of purpose.... In giving an account of anything for its own sake, the most important points are those of form. Nevertheless, the form of the object is its own attribute; special, not shared with other things. An error in giving an account of it does not necessarily involve wider error. But its colour is partly its own, partly shared with other things round it. The hue and power of all broad sunlight is involved in the colour it has cast upon this single thing; to falsify that colour, is to misrepresent and break the harmony of the day: also, by what colour it bears, this single object is altering hues all round it; reflecting its own into them, displaying them by opposition, softening them by repetition; one falsehood in colour in one place, implies a thousand in the neighbourhood.... Hence the apparent anomaly that the only schools of colour are the schools of Realism.... Velazquez, the greatest colourist, is the most accurate portrait painter of Spain" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. xi. § 8 n.).[110] It is curious that the influence of Velazquez was in his own time and country comparatively circumscribed. He exercised no such overpowering attraction as that of Leonardo, or Raphael, or Michael Angelo. The real followers of Velazquez are painters of our own day, and more especially the French painters of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and their imitators in the other schools of Europe and America.

A very interesting picture, both for the sparkling brilliancy of its execution and for the truth with which it reproduces the court life of the time. Philip IV. was as fond of the chase as he was of the arts; and here we see some state hunting-party in a royal enclosure (such as was arranged, no doubt, for the pleasure of our Charles I. when he visited Madrid), with an array of huntsmen and guards, and magnificent carriages for the ladies of the court. "The king has just thrown his horquilla [a kind of pitchfork] into the flank of a boar tearing furiously by.... Here the heroes of the day are [Pg 200]very slightly sketched, but we at once recognise Philip IV. from the few touches suggesting his face; he keeps to the right, owing to the proximity of the ladies, and by him stands Olivares as equerry-in-chief.... In the second carriage is Queen Isabella. Occasionally the boars made tremendous leaps; hence the ladies are also provided with pitchforks to turn them aside. Moreover, two huntsmen with spears keep watch by the Queen's coach. The groups of spectators deserve minute study. They contain studies of costume and character enough for a scrap-book of "Castilian Types of the Seventeenth Century." Thus, notice under the tree on the right a peasant resting with elbows and chest on the patient back of his beloved ass—verily, another Sancho Panza! And those two rogues on the grass, one holding the water-jug to his mouth, look like a sketch by Murillo. The mendicant, again, in the brown cloak, both hands resting on his stick, is surely a privileged speculator, who solemnly invites the rich folk to increase their stock in the next world by entrusting their investments to him. Elsewhere is a rider slashing at the hard flanks of his obstinate mule, while his escudero shoves from behind; two cavaliers paying each other formal compliments; a group of experts in "dog-flesh" near the master of the hounds, thronging round the fine boar-hound, who has been ripped up by the quarry. Notice, too, the isolated group of cavaliers in grey and scarlet cloaks, with the clergyman, perhaps the "chaplain to the hunt." They stand apart from the scene, having more weighty matters on hand." "The figures do not seem very numerous, as they are scattered about without a trace of conventional grouping. Yet, even without the heads that are merely suggested, there are over a hundred figures, some sixty outside and fifty inside the central enclosure. Sir Edwin Landseer declared that he had never seen so much large art on so small a scale" (Justi's Velazquez and his Times, pp. 212-14). Notice especially the two splendid dogs near the left-hand corner. Velazquez is very great in painting dogs; he "has made some of them nearly as grand as his surly kings" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 13).

With regard to the execution of the picture (which was bought in 1846 and was alleged to have been damaged in cleaning), Ruskin wrote: "I have seldom met with an example of the master which gave me more delight, or which I believed to be in more genuine or perfect condition....[Pg 201] (The critic's) complaint of loss of substance in the figures of the foreground is, I have no doubt, altogether groundless. He has seen little southern scenery if he supposes that the brilliancy and apparent nearness of the silver clouds is in the slightest degree overcharged; and shows little appreciation of Velazquez in supposing him to have sacrificed the solemnity and might of such a distance to the inferior interest of the figures in the foreground.... The position of the horizon suggests, and the lateral extent of the foreground proves, such a distance between the spectator and even its nearest figures as may well justify the slightness of their execution. Even granting that some of the upper glazings of the figures had been removed, the tone of the whole picture is so light, grey, and glittering, and the dependence on the power of its whites so absolute, that I think the process hardly to be regretted which has left these in lustre so precious, and restored to a brilliancy which a comparison with any modern work of similar aim would render apparently supernatural, the sparkling motion of its figures and the serene snow of its sky"[111] (Arrows of the Chace, i. 58-60).

[Pg 202]

198. THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY.

The legend of the temptation of St. Anthony, here realistically set forth, is the story of the temptations that beset the ascetic. In the wilderness, brooding over sin, he is tempted; it is only when he returns to the world and goes about doing good that the temptations cease to trouble him. St. Anthony lived, like Faust, the life of a recluse and a visionary, and like him was tempted of the devil. "Seeing that wicked suggestions availed not, Satan raised up in his sight (again like Mephistopheles in Faust) the sensible images of forbidden things. He clothed his demons in human forms; they hovered round him in the shape of beautiful women, who, with the softest blandishments, allured him to sin." The saint in his distress resolved to flee yet farther from the world; but it is not so that evil can be conquered, and still "spirits in hideous forms pressed round him in crowds, scourged him and tore him with their talons—all shapes of horror, 'worse than fancy ever feigned or fear conceived,' came roaring, howling, hissing, shrieking in his ears." In the midst of all this terror a vision of help from on high shone upon him; the evil phantoms vanished, and he arose unhurt and strong to endure. But it is characteristic of the love of horror in the Bolognese School that in Carracci's picture the celestial vision does not dissolve the terrors.

199. LESBIA AND HER SPARROW.

Schalcken was probably a pupil of Gerard Dou (see 192), whose delicate finish he sought to rival. "But the smooth, polished surface[Pg 203] of his works is unpleasant, and the labour bestowed upon them is too obvious" (Burton). He spent the greater part of his life at Dort, but he was employed for some time in England by King William III. In addition to his genre pieces, Schalcken painted numerous portraits, and also attempted sacred subjects. He especially excelled in pictures of candle-light.

A picture in illustration of a Latin poem, as befits a painter whose father was headmaster of a Latin school (at Dort). Lesbia is weighing jewels against her sparrow, which she loved better even than her own eyes—

200. THE MADONNA IN PRAYER.

Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato from his birthplace, not far from Urbino, is generally described as a follower of the Carracci, but he seems to have been chiefly a copyist of Raphael, Perugino, and other early masters. Compare Sassoferrato's Madonnas with the earlier models, and the distinction between sentimentality and sentiment becomes plain. His works are, however, marked by real feeling, and he maintained a certain elevation of style.

202. DOMESTIC POULTRY

This painter, a member of a noble family of Brabant, devoted himself to the poultry-yard, and became famous for his pictures of fowl and other birds. His compositions show a constant study of the subjects he treats. He studied first under his father, Gysbert de Hondecoeter, and afterwards under his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix (1096).

"A beautiful brood of young chickens in the foreground. The cock was Hondecoeter's favourite bird, which he is said to have taught to stand to him in a fixed position as a model." (Official Catalogue).

[Pg 204]

203. CONVENTUAL CHARITY.

Works by W. Van Herp, a member of the Painters' Guild at Antwerp, are not numerous. They show the influence of Rubens and also of Jordaens, the two leaders of the Flemish School at his time.

Franciscan friars are distributing food to the poor at the gate of a convent.

204. DUTCH SHIPPING.

Ludolf Bakhuizen comes second in the succession of Dutch sea painters to W. van de Velde, and the reader is referred to the remarks on that painter (see under 149) for the general characteristics of them both. Whereas, however, Van de Velde preferred calms, Bakhuizen preferred storms, and even "voluntarily exposed his life several times," says a compatriot, "for the sake of seizing, in all its horrible reality, the effects of rough weather" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 255). It cannot be said, however, that the result was very successful. There is, adds the same critic, a hardness about his forms and a want of transparency in his colours "which cannot be counterbalanced by the fury of upheaved waves or the furious driving of the heavy clouds across the sky." Bakhuizen, before he took to painting, was successively a book-keeper (his father was town-clerk of Emden) and a writing-master. Perhaps it is to his experience in the latter capacity that the hardness and "peruke-like" regularity of his waves are due. In his own day, however, his sea-pieces were very greatly esteemed. The King of Prussia was among his patrons, and the Tzar, Peter the Great, frequently visited his studios, and even himself took lessons of him. He made many constructive drawings of ships for that monarch. He was also an etcher, and the British Museum possesses a fragment of a sketch-book of his.

205. ITINERANT MUSICIANS.

Johann Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich was born at Weimar, where his father was court-painter. So precocious was his talent that when only in his eighteenth year he was himself appointed court-painter to Augustus II., King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. In 1743 he went to Italy, and after this visit he turned his name into Italian by signing it Dietrici (as in the picture dated 1745). He was afterwards appointed keeper of the celebrated Gallery at Dresden, a Professor of the[Pg 205] Academy there, and Director of the school of painting attached to the porcelain manufactory. His pictures and etchings are numerous. In his original work his style remained German. But he had also a remarkable facility in imitating the works of other painters. "He did more," says Merritt, the picture-restorer, "to confound collectors than all other imitators put together. Hundreds of his imitations of the various masters have been sold to second-rate amateurs for original productions" (Art Criticism and Romance, i. 164).

206. THE HEAD OF A GIRL.

To understand the great reputation which Greuze enjoyed in his day one should remember, besides the prettiness of his pictures in themselves, the contrast which they afforded in their subject-matter to the art around them. Look, for instance, at 1090 and 101-104. Those pictures are nearly contemporary with Greuze's, and are typical, the first of the mythology, the latter of the courtliness, and all of the sensuality, of the current art of the time. The return to nature, the return to simpler life and sounder morals, which inspired Rousseau, found expression in Greuze's domestic scenes and sweet girl faces. "Courage, my good Greuze," said Diderot of one of Greuze's pictures of domestic drama; "introduce morality into painting. What, has not the pencil been long enough and too long consecrated to debauchery and vice? Ought we not to be delighted at seeing it at last unite with dramatic poetry in instructing us, correcting us, inviting us to virtue?"[112] Greuze's art, in comparison with what was around it, was thus simple, natural, moral. Yet one sees now that something of the artificiality, against which his pictures were a protest, nevertheless affected them. For instance there is an obvious posing in this picture, just as there is a touch of affectation in 1154. Decidedly, too, Greuze "invests his lessons of bourgeois morality with sensuous attractions." There is neither the innocence nor the unconsciousness in the girls of Greuze that there is in those of Reynolds or Millais.

The life of Greuze is interesting for the curious instance it affords of the inability, which so many eminent men have shown, to know in what direction their best powers lay. Greuze's reputation rested on his genre painting—on his rendering of domestic scenes or faces; [Pg 206]but his ambition was to figure as an historical painter. His one picture in this style—"Severus and Caracalla" (in the Louvre)—was painted in 1769 as his diploma work for the French Academy. They praised him for "his former productions, which were excellent," and not for "this one, which was unworthy alike of them and of him," and admitted him as a painter in the class of genre only. Greuze, who was vain and overbearing in the days of his vogue, was greatly incensed and ceased to exhibit at the Academy until after the Revolution. But his power had then begun to fail; the classic school reigned supreme; and Greuze, who had been unhappily married, and whose large earnings were squandered by extravagance and bad management, died in great poverty. He was born in Burgundy, of humble middle-class parents, in the little town of Tournus, where his modest birthplace may still be seen. His happiest productions were taken from the daily life of the middle-classes, and his sweet girl faces are unique in French art (Lady Dilke's article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and Morley's Diderot, vol. ii. chap. iii.).

Campbell's "Lines on a picture of a girl by Greuze" may be quoted of this picture:—

207. THE IDLE SERVANT.

In the background is the family at dinner. The waiting-maid comes to the kitchen to serve the next course—the duckling, perhaps, which a cat is stealing—and finds the cook of Sancho Panza's philosophy: "Blessings on him who invented sleep, ... the food that appeases hunger, the drink that quenches thirst, ... the balance that equals the simple with the wise." Signed and dated 1655.

[Pg 207]

208. THE FINDING OF MOSES.

Breenbergh, after visiting Italy, established himself in France, where, after the example of Poussin and Claude, he painted "classical landscapes," into which he introduced small figures, supposed to represent scenes from Holy Writ, etc. His work was in great request in France, and several of his pictures are now in the Louvre.

209. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.

The landscape by Both, the figures by Poelenburgh. For the subject of the judgment of Paris, see under 194.

210. VENICE: THE PIAZZA DI SAN MARCO.

Francesco Guardi was a scholar and imitator of Canaletto. "Less prized during the heyday of his master's fame, he has been steadily acquiring reputation on account of certain qualities peculiar to himself. His draughtsmanship displays an agreeable stateliness; his colouring a graceful gemmy brightness and a glow of sunny gold. But what has mainly served to win for Guardi popularity, is the attention he paid to contemporary costume and manners. Canaletto filled large canvases with mathematical perspectives of city and water. At the same time he omitted life and incident. There is little to remind us that the Venice he so laboriously depicted was the Venice of perukes and bagwigs, of masks and hoops and carnival disguises. Guardi had an eye for local colour and for fashionable humours" (J. A. Symonds, "Pietro Longhi," in the Century Guild Hobby Horse, April 1889).

Notice the effect of light on the Church of St. Mark at the end of the square: "Beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see it far away;—a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of coloured light" (Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. iv. § 14).

211. A BATTLE-PIECE.

Huchtenburgh was in great request as a battle-painter, and in 1708 was commissioned by Prince Eugene to paint the victories won by that prince and the Duke of Marlborough over the French.

[Pg 208]

212. A MERCHANT AND HIS CLERK.

This painter—the son of an eminent sculptor and architect—was born at Amsterdam, and was one of the chief forerunners of Rembrandt in the art of portrait painting. "If," says Burton, "in some of his work remains of the formality and stiffness of the sixteenth century may be traced, the greater number show a freedom and a sense of life unusual among those of his predecessors."

This picture—which is signed (on the mantelpiece) and dated 1627—is interesting as showing us, in a particular instance, the condition of social and political life out of which the Dutch art of the seventeenth century arose. The merchant has his globes before him: he was one of those who had built up the riches of his country by foreign trade. But he is a man of taste as well as of business, and the two things are closely united.[113] His office is itself hung with rich tapestry, and amongst the implements of his trade, his plans and books and maps, is a guitar. "The United Provinces, grouped together by the Convention of Utrecht (1579), ... concentrated the public functions in the hands of an aristocratic middle class (such as we see them in Terburg's historical picture, 896), educated and powerful, eager for science and riches, bold enough to undertake everything, and persevering enough to carry their enterprises to a successful conclusion. The brilliant heroism, implacable will, and indefatigable perseverance which had aided the people to recover their liberty and autonomy were now directed to other objects.... Their shipbuilders covered the seas with vessels, a legion of adventurous sailors went forth in all directions to discover distant shores or to conquer unknown continents.... Gold was now to be found in plenty in the country which hitherto had been poor, and with the influx of riches, taste, luxury, appreciation of the beautiful and love of Art were developed" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 62).

[Pg 209]

213. THE VISION OF A KNIGHT.

This picture—with the original pen-and-ink drawing from which it was traced[114]—is the earliest known work of Raphael, painted when he was not more than seventeen and was "pluming his wings and meditating a flight." His first (or as it is commonly called, "Perugian") period may be divided into two: (1) Down to about 1500, before he went to Perugia, and whilst he was still studying at Urbino under Timoteo Viti; (2) From 1500-1504, at Perugia. This picture probably belongs to the former of these periods. It is unlike Perugino in several respects—in the landscape, for instance, and in the broad hand of the sleeping knight, whereas Perugino's hands are narrower and longer. In connection, too, with Raphael's early pupilage under a Ferrarese master, note that the figure of Duty is like Francia's saint in No. 638 (see further on this subject Morelli's Italian Pictures in German Galleries, pp. 285-340). The picture, which was at one time in the possession of Sir Thomas Lawrence, came to England from the Borghese Gallery at Rome. It was originally in the Ducal Palace at Urbino. "The subject breathes the very essence of that courtly and romantic atmosphere which haunted the palace of Urbino and may well have been inspired by the Duchess Elizabeth herself. This accomplished lady was the first to honour the son of her old friend Giovanni Santi with her patronage, and Raphael may have painted this little allegory for the decoration of her chamber, just as Costa and Mantegna painted their picture of Parnassus and the Muses for Isabella d'Este's grotto at Mantua" (Julia Cartwright: Early Work of Raphael, p. 12).

A young knight sleeps under a laurel—the tree whose leaves were in all ages the reward of honour; and in a dream of his future career he sees two figures approach him, between whom he has to make his choice. The one on the left speaks with the voice of Duty; she is purple-robed and offers him a book and a sword—emblematic of the active life of study and conflict. The other is of fair countenance and is gaily decked with ribbons and strings of coral. Hers is the voice of Plea[Pg 210]sure, and the flower she offers is a sprig of myrtle in bloom—"myrtle dear to Venus." Raphael was thinking, perhaps, of the Greek story which told of the choice of Hercules. For Hercules, when he came to man's estate, laid him down to rest and pondered which road in life to take; and lo! there stood by him two women. And one of them took up her parable and said: "O Hercules, if thou wouldst choose the smoothest and the pleasantest path, then shouldst thou follow me." And Hercules said: "O lady, I pray thee tell me thy name." And she answered: "Those who love me call me Pleasure, and those who hate me call me Evil." Then the other woman came forward and said: "O Hercules, there is no road to happiness except through toil and trouble; such is the gods' decree, and if thou wouldst be happy in thy life and honoured in thy death, then up and follow me." And her name was Duty. And Hercules chose the better part, and went about the world redressing human wrong, and was reverenced by men and honoured by the gods—

214. CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

In pictures of this subject two distinct conceptions may be noticed. In some the coronation of the Virgin is, as it were, dramatic; the subject is represented, that is to say, as the closing act in the life of the Virgin, and saints and disciples appear in the foreground as witnesses on earth of her coronation in heaven. No. 1155 is a good instance of that treatment. This picture, on the other hand, shows the mystical treatment of the subject—the coronation of the Virgin being the accepted type of the Church triumphant. The scene is laid entirely in heaven, and the only actors are the angels of the heavenly host. Notice the carefully symmetrical arrange[Pg 211]ment of the whole composition, as well as the charming faces of many of the angel chorus.

215, 216. VARIOUS SAINTS.[115]

Taddeo Gaddi was the godson and pupil of Giotto, with whom he lived twenty-four years, and whose tradition he faithfully carried on: art had "gone back," he used to say, "since his master's death." His most extensive works were the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (described in ch. iv. of Ruskin's Mornings in Florence). Taddeo was also distinguished as an architect. "He built the Ponte Vecchio, and the old stones of it were so laid by him that they are unshaken to this day."

There is an air of settled peace, of abstract quietude, about this company of saints which is very impressive—something fixed in the attitude and features recalling the conventual life as described by St. Bernard and paraphrased by Wordsworth in his Ecclesiastical Sonnets—

[Pg 212]

218. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

Baldassare Peruzzi, an excellent draughtsman and fair painter, was most distinguished as an architect. His life, says Sir Edward Poynter, was one which any artist might envy. "Brought up at his own wish as a painter at Siena, he soon gave evidence of such talent that he was entrusted with important commissions at Rome, making acquaintance by this means with one of the great Roman patrons of art, Agostino Chigi, the same for whom Raphael painted a chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. Baldassare found leisure to devote himself to the study of architecture; from this time he seems to have had almost the happiest lot that one can imagine falling to an artist, that of building palaces and decorating them with his own hand" (Lectures on Art, ch. viii.). Among these were the Farnesina Palace for Agostino Chigi, and the Palazzo Massimi, which is "justly considered one of the most beautiful and ingeniously constructed in Rome." It is characteristic of the taste of the time that what Vasari most admired in Peruzzi's buildings was "the decoration of the Loggia at the Villa Farnesina, painted in perspective to imitate stucco work." "This is done so perfectly," he says, "with the colours, that even experienced artists have taken them to be works in relief. I remember that Titian, a most excellent and renowned painter, whom I conducted to see these works, could by no means be persuaded that they were painted, and remained in astonishment when, on changing his point of view, he perceived that they were so." Baldassare also designed the fortifications of Siena, and on the death of Raphael was appointed architect of St. Peter's at Rome. His life was not free from adventures. At the sack of Rome in 1527 he was plundered of all he possessed by the Imperial soldiers, and was forced to paint a picture of their general, the Constable Bourbon, who had been killed in the assault of the city. He died at Rome, not without suspicion of having been poisoned, and was buried in the Pantheon, near the tomb of Raphael.

There is a drawing by Peruzzi of this subject in possession of the National Gallery, No. 167. Girolamo da Treviso (623) made a copy of it, which is perhaps this work. The figures of the three magi are interesting as having been portraits of Titian, Raphael, and Michael Angelo.

[Pg 213]

219. THE DEAD CHRIST.

Perhaps to be ascribed to Bazzi (see under 1144).

221. HIS OWN PORTRAIT.

Compare No. 672. That was painted when he was about thirty; this, some thirty years later. We see here the same features, though worn by age; the same self-reliant expression, though broken down by care. "In manner," says Sir Walter Armstrong, "it is amazingly free, irresponsible, and what in any one but a stupendous master we should call careless. It looks as though he had taken up the first dirty palette on which he could lay his hands, and set himself to the making of a picture with no further thought. To those who put signs of mastery above all other qualities, it is one of the most attractive pictures in the whole Gallery" (Portfolio, September 1891).

222. A MAN'S PORTRAIT (dated 1433).

One of Van Eyck's obviously truthful portraits, so highly finished that the single hairs on the shaven chin are given. On the upper part of the frame is the inscription, "Als ich kan"—as I can, the first words of an old Flemish proverb, "As I can, but not as I will,"—an inscription beautifully illustrative of a great man's modesty; accurately true also as a piece of criticism. No pictures are more finished than Van Eyck's, yet they are only "as he can," not as he would. "Let all the ingenuity and all the art of the human race he brought to bear upon the attainment of the utmost possible finish, and they could not do what is done in the foot of a fly, or the film of a bubble. God alone can finish; and the more intelligent the human mind becomes, the more the infiniteness of interval is felt between human and divine work in this respect" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt iv. ch. ix. § 5).

223. DUTCH SHIPPING.

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224. THE TRIBUTE MONEY.

The Pharisee, hoping to entrap Jesus into sedition, asks him whether it is lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar. "Show me the tribute money" is the answer. "Whose is this image and superscription?... Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Titian's great picture of this subject (painted about 1514) is at Dresden.

225. BEATIFIC VISION OF THE MAGDALEN.

A semicircular fresco (formerly in the church of the Trinita de' Monti, Rome), showing the Magdalen borne upwards by angels to witness the joys of the blessed.

226. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ST. JOHN AND ANGELS.

This is a copy of a picture by Botticelli in the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome. In the background is a hedge of roses, Botticelli's favourite flower. "No man has ever yet drawn, and none is likely to draw for many a day, roses as well as Sandro has drawn them" (Fors Clavigera, 1872, xii. 2). And he painted them, just as he painted his Madonnas, from life, and from everyday life—for even as late as forty years ago, Florence was "yet encircled by a wilderness of wild rose." It should be noticed, further, that there was a constant Biblical reference in the flowers which the painters consecrated to their Madonnas—especially the rose, the emblem of love and beauty. The background in Madonna pictures is frequently, as here, a piece of garden trellis: "a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse" (Song of Solomon, iv. 12).

227. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

Kneeling below are Girolamo Rucellai and his son. The arms of the Rucellai family are at each end of the predella. The picture was[Pg 215] originally an altar-piece in the Rucellai Chapel in the church of the Eremiti di San Girolamo at Fiesole. Formerly ascribed to Cosimo Rosselli, the picture is now conjecturally attributed to Botticini (for whom see under 1126).

St. Jerome (A.D. 342-420) who first made the great Eastern book, the Bible, legible in the West, by translating the Hebrew into Latin, was one of the chief saints of the Latin or Western Church, and was a favourite subject in Christian art; there are a dozen pictures of him in the National Gallery alone. One of the chief events in his life is told in the left-hand compartment at the bottom of this picture. Jerome is tending a sick lion, and in all the pictures of him a lion appears as his constant companion. The story is that one evening a lion entered the monastery, limping as in pain, and all the brethren fled in terror, as we see one of them doing here, whilst the others are looking on safely behind a door; but Jerome went forward to meet the lion, as though he had been a guest. And the lion lifted up his paw, and Jerome, finding it was wounded by a thorn, tended the wild creature, which henceforward became his constant companion and friend. What did the Christian painters mean by their fond insistence on the constancy of the lion-friend? They meant to foretell a day "when the Fear of Man shall be laid in benediction, not enmity, on inferior beings,—when they shall not hurt or destroy in all the holy Mountain, and the Peace of the Earth shall be as far removed from its present sorrow, as the present gloriously animate universe from the nascent desert, whose deeps were the place of dragons, and its mountains, domes of fire. Of that day knoweth no man; but the Kingdom of God is already come to those who have tamed in their own hearts what was rampant of the lower nature, and have learned to cherish what is lovely and human, in the wandering children of the clouds and fields" (Bible of Amiens, ch. iii. § 54). The other compartments depict incidents in the lives of St. Damasus, St. Eusebius, St. Paula, and St. Eustache—saints associated with St. Jerome. The picture itself shows an earlier period of his life, when, before he settled in a monastery, but after a life of pleasure in Rome, he left (as he himself tells us) not only parents and kindred, but the accustomed luxuries of delicate life, and lived for ten years in the desert in the effort to obtain some closer knowledge of the Being and Will of God. The saints who are made by the painter to keep St. Jerome com[Pg 216]pany below are in sorrow; the angels above, in joy. The other kneeling figures are portraits of the patron for whom the the picture was painted.

228. CHRIST AND THE MONEY-CHANGERS.

Christ is driving out from the House of Prayer all those who had made it a den of thieves—money-changers, dealers in cattle, sheep, goats, birds, etc. A subject which lent itself conveniently to Bassano's characteristic genre style.

230. A FRANCISCAN MONK.

Zurbaran—the contemporary of Velazquez—unites in a typical manner the two main characteristics of the Spanish School—asceticism in subject, realism in presentment. He is, says Stirling-Maxwell, the peculiar painter of monks, as Raphael is of Madonnas, and Ribera of martyrdoms; he studied the Spanish friar, and painted him with as high a relish as Titian painted the Venetian noble, and Vandyck the gentleman of England. In the Museum of Seville are several pictures which he painted for the Carthusians of that city. "The venerable friars seem portraits; each differs in feature from the other, yet all bear the impress of long years of solitary and silent penance; their white draperies chill the eye, as their cold hopeless faces chill the heart; and the whole scene is brought before us with a vivid fidelity, which shows that Zurbaran studied the Carthusian in his native cloisters with the like close and faithful attention that Velazquez bestowed on the courtier, strutting it in the corridors of the Alcazar or the alleys of Aranjuez" (Annals of the Artists of Spain, ch. xi.). Zurbaran was the son of a peasant, but having shown an early talent for drawing was released from the plough and sent to the studio of the painter-priest Juan de Roelas, at Seville. His abilities and his close study of nature soon gained him a high reputation; his forcible naturalistic style acquired for him the name of "the Caravaggio of Spain." He was employed in the cathedral of Seville, which remained his abode for the greater part of his life. In his picture of "St. Thomas Aquinas" in the museum there, the dark wild face, immediately behind the Imperial adorer, is traditionally held to be the portrait of Zurbaran himself. His habits were those of the recluse, but in 1650 he was, through the influence of Velazquez, called to Madrid. There he was set to a task little suited to his tastes—the production of a series of pictures (now in the Prado) to illustrate the labours of Hercules. Philip IV. used, we are told, to visit the artist whilst engaged on these pictures, and on one occasion expressed his admira[Pg 217]tion of his powers by laying his hand on his shoulder, and calling him "painter of the King, and king of the painters." "His best characteristic," says Burton, "is his power of imparting the sense of life to the heads of his figures. He was in fact a great, though not a professed, portrait painter."

It is a transcript from the religious life around him that Zurbaran here sets before us. Seville was the most orthodox city in the most Catholic country—at every corner of the streets there were Franciscan monks, with prayers or charms to sell in exchange for food or money. "For centuries in Spain country people bought up the monks' old garbs, to use them in dressing the dead, so that St. Peter might pass them into heaven thinking they were Franciscans." It was in the streets and convents of Seville therefore that Zurbaran found his models. This picture was bought for the National Gallery from the Louis Philippe sale in 1853. When the gallery of Spanish pictures to which it formerly belonged was inaugurated in the Louvre, "what remained most strongly in the Parisian mind, so impressionable and so blasé, was not the suavity of Murillo, nor the astonishing pencil of Velazquez, making the canvas speak and palpitate with life; it was a certain 'Monk in prayer' of Zurbaran, which it was impossible to forget, even if one had seen it only once" (C. Blanc, cited in W. B. Scott's Murillo, p. 55). "Of his gloomy monastic studies," says Stirling-Maxwell, "the kneeling Franciscan holding a skull is one of the ablest; the face, dimly seen beneath the brown hood, is turned to heaven; no trace of earthly expression is left on its pale features, but the wild eyes seem fixed on some dismal vision; and a single glance at the canvas imprints the figure on the memory for ever."

232. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

A characteristic and fine example of the naturalistic treatment of such subjects by the Spanish School; formerly supposed to be an early work of Velazquez, now attributed by the authorities of the Gallery, following M. de Beruete, to Zurbaran.[116] The affinity of the Spanish School in this [Pg 218]respect to the Italian naturalists may be seen by a glance at No. 172 in the late Italian Room. In the distance is the guiding angel as the star of the Epiphany. It is a pretty piece of observation of child nature that makes the painter show the boy offering his animals to the infant Christ. One remembers George Eliot's "young Daniel" (in Scenes of Clerical Life), who says to Mr. Gilfil, by way of making friends, "We've got two pups, shall I show 'em yer? One's got white spots." Zurbaran was noted for his successful delineation of animals. Palomino mentions with approbation his picture of an enraged dog from which chance observers used to run away, and of a yearling lamb, deemed by the possessor of more value than a hecatomb of full-grown sheep.

234. A WARRIOR ADORING THE INFANT CHRIST.

Of Vincenzo di Biagio, commonly called Catena (possibly from a partiality for jewellery), little is known, and until recently little was heard. Modern critics have, however, decided that he was one of the ablest of the School of Bellini, and have attributed to him many beautiful works, which have hitherto borne famous names.[117] He was born at Treviso; his first master was probably the elder Girolamo da Treviso, but he must have finished his artistic education in the School of Bellini. Signed pictures from his hand are to be found in several of the Venetian churches and elsewhere. He was fond of introducing a partridge (as here and in 694) and a white poodle dog (as here) into his pictures, by which they may often be recognised. An altar-piece, [Pg 219]representing S. Cristina in the church of S. Maria Mater Domini, and another of S. Giustina in S. Simpliciana are referred to as offering marked analogies with the work now before us. A letter is extant, dated April 11, 1520, when Raphael was just deceased and Michelangelo infirm, in which Catena is recommended to be on his guard, "since danger seems to be impending over all very excellent painters." He was famous for his portraits; the portrait of Count Raimund Fugger, specially praised by Vasari, is now at Berlin. He died in 1531, in which year he made a will leaving legacies to a number of poor painters, and the greater part of his substance to the Guild of his art. In his later works the influence of Giorgione is strongly marked—as here in the rich full colour of the Kneeling Knight, and in other respects. "Giorgione," says Mr. Berenson, "created a demand which other painters were forced to supply. One of them, turning toward the new in a way that is full of singular charm, gave his later works all the beauty and softness of the first spring days in Italy. Upon hearing the title of one of Catena's works in the National Gallery, A Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ, who could imagine what a treat the picture itself had in store for him? It is a fragrant summer landscape enjoyed by a few quiet people, one of whom, in armour, with the glamour of the Orient about him, kneels at the Virgin's feet, while a romantic young page holds his horse's bridle. A good instance of the Giorgionesque way of treating a subject; not for the story, nor for the display of skill, nor for the obvious feeling, but for the lovely landscape, for the effects of light and colour, and for the sweetness of human relations" (The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, p. 31).

Observe, for the technical merits of this picture, the horse-bridle: "An example of true painter's work in minor detail; unsurpassable, but not, by patience and modesty, inimitable" (Academy Notes, 1875, p. 48). As for the subject, the warrior portrayed is nameless. This is suggestive; it is not a peculiar picture, it is a type of what was the common method of Venetian portraiture. "An English gentleman, desiring his portrait, gives probably to the painter a choice of several actions, in any of which he is willing to be represented. As for instance, riding his best horse, shooting with his favourite pointer, manifesting himself in his robes of state on some great public occasion, meditating in his study, playing with his children, or visiting his tenants; in any of these or other such circumstances, he will give the artist free leave to paint him. But in one important action he would shrink even from the suggestion of being drawn. He will assuredly not let himself be painted praying. Strangely, this is the action which, of all others, a Venetian desires to be painted in. If they want a noble and complete portrait, they nearly all[Pg 220] choose to be painted on their knees" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 15). Notice also the little dog in the corner—"one of the little curly, short-nosed, fringy-pawed things which all Venetian ladies petted." "The dog is thus constantly introduced by the Venetians (in Madonna pictures) in order to give the fullest contrast to the highest tones of human thought and feeling.... But they saw the noble qualities of the dog too—all his patience, love, and faithfulness ...," and introduced him into their sacred pictures partly therefore in order to show that "all the lower creatures, who can love, have passed, through their love, into the guardianship and guidance of angels" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 21, ch. vi. § 14; Fors Clavigera, 1877, p. 31).[118]

235. THE DEAD CHRIST.

Ribera is a leading artist amongst what are called the Naturalisti or Tenebrosi (an alternative title, curiously significant of the warped and degraded principle of the school, as if "nature" were indeed only another name for "darkness").[119] His works show remarkable force and facility; his subjects were painful. As Byron says—

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"It is a curious example of the perversity of the human mind," says Stirling-Maxwell, "that subjects like these should have been the chosen recreations of an eye that opened in infancy on the palms and the fair women of Valencia, and rested for half a lifetime on the splendour of the Bay of Naples." His life was like his art, being "one long contrast between splendour and misery, black shadow and shining light" (Scott). He made his way when quite a youth to Rome, where one day, as he was sketching in the streets, dressed in rags and eating crusts, he was picked up by a cardinal and taken into his household. They called him in Italy, owing to his small stature, by the name Lo Spagnoletto, the little Spaniard. But Ribera could not brook the cardinal's livery, and stole away into poverty and independence again. He especially studied the works of Caravaggio, and went afterwards to Parma to study Correggio. Then he moved to Naples, where a picture-dealer discovered his talent and gave him his daughter in marriage. A large picture of the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, which he painted about this time, was exhibited by the dealer on the balcony of his house, and created such a furore that the Spanish Viceroy, delighted at finding the painter to be a Spaniard, loaded him with appointments and commissions. This was the making of Ribera's fortune. He soon became very wealthy—never going out but in his carriage, and with an equerry to accompany him, and so hard had he to work to keep pace with his orders that his servants were instructed at last to interrupt him when working hours were fairly over. He kept open house—entertaining Velazquez, for instance, when the latter visited Naples in 1630; but though lavish he was yet mean. Ribera, Corenzio (a Greek), and Caracciolo (a Neapolitan), formed a memorable cabal, with the object of establishing a local monopoly in the artistic profession for themselves. In this object, by means of force and fraud, they succeeded for many years. Domenichino, Annibale Carracci, and Guido Reni were all more or less victims of the cabal. The story of the conspiracy of Ribera and his allies to get the commission for painting the chapel of St. Januarius, forms one of the most curious and disgraceful chapters in the history of art, and may be read in Lanzi's History of Painting (vol. ii. in Bohn's translation). Ribera's life ended like his pictures, in darkness. His daughter was carried off by one of his great friends, Don Juan of Austria, and Ribera was so overwhelmed with grief that he left Naples and was never more heard of.[120]

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The Virgin, accompanied here by St. John and Mary Magdalen, is weeping over the dead Christ—the subject termed by the Italians a Pietà. It is instructive to compare this Spanish treatment of it with an Italian Pietà, such as Francia's No. 180. How much more ghastly is the dead Christ here! How much less tender are the ministering mourners!

236. CASTLE OF SANT' ANGELO, ROME.

Vernet, one of the most celebrated of French landscape and marine painters, received his inspiration and lived a large part of his life in Italy. He was born at Avignon, and in 1732 went to Italy with a view of improving himself in historical painting, but the beautiful scenery of Genoa and Naples induced him to devote himself to marine landscape. One of his Mediterranean pictures is No. 1393 in this Gallery. It is said that on his first voyage he was so impressed with the effect of a stormy sea as to have himself tied to the mast in order to be able more accurately to observe it. For some time Vernet lived in poverty. He had to paint carriages, and a picture, afterwards sold for 5000 francs, procured him only a single suit of clothes. His subjects were now the rivers, landscapes, and costumes of Rome (as in this picture). In 1752 he was invited to Paris by Louis XV. In the following year he was elected a member of the French Academy of Arts, and was commissioned by the Government to paint his celebrated pictures, now in the Louvre, of the seaports of France. This task occupied him the greater part of the year. He died in the Louvre, where he had been given apartments by the king. His last years were embittered by the madness of his wife, a daughter of the Pope's naval commandant, whom he had married in 1745. He was the grandfather of the celebrated historical painter, Horace Vernet (see 1285).

Past and present in the eternal city, as it was in Vernet's day. Behind is the castle which the Emperor Hadrian had built for his family tomb, in which were buried several of the Emperors after him, and the history of which in the Middle Ages was almost the history of Rome itself. In front is a fête on the Tiber, with a fashionable crowd in crinolines watching the boats tilting on the river.

237. A WOMAN'S PORTRAIT.

Of interest as being one of his last works: dated 1666.

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238. DEAD GAME.

Jan Weenix, the younger, was born at Amsterdam—the son of Jan Baptista Weenix (see 1096)—and is usually considered the best of all Dutch artists in this style. For some years he was employed at the Court of John William, Elector of the Palatinate.

A stag, a couple of hares (a speciality with this artist), a heron, and a fowling-piece.

239. A MOONLIGHT SCENE.

A good example of "the penetrating melancholy of moonlight"—an effect in which this painter excelled.

240. CROSSING THE FORD.

242. THE GAME OF BACKGAMMON.

"An example," says Mr. J. T. Nettleship in a comparison between Morland and some of the Dutch masters, "not only of the works that Morland loved, but of the life (alas!) he best loved too. In one respect it at once takes rank above the English painter, for every man must be a portrait; the two playing might indeed be English as well as Dutch, the man looking on is a degraded boor. In the chimney-place are several men farther off—one with his back to you is seated on a bench with his head against the chimney-jamb, a 'poor drinker,' he seems. The standing man, standing with his back to the fire, smoking a long clay, looks half-pitying, half-scornful at the feebler sinner" (George Morland, p. 23).

243. AN OLD MAN.

A noble picture of the dignity of old age (dated 1659).

244. A SHEPHERD WITH A LAMB.

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245. PORTRAIT OF A SENATOR.

This portrait is dated 1514, and signed with the monogram of Albert Dürer, to whom it was formerly ascribed. But the monogram is now said to be a forgery, and the picture is identified as the work of Dürer's friend Baldung. On the death of Dürer (in 1528) Baldung received a lock of his hair (now preserved in the Library of the Academy of Arts at Vienna), and Dürer, in his Journal in the Low Countries, records having sold several of Baldung's engravings. Baldung, painter, engraver, and designer, was a native of Gmünd in Swabia, and his earliest works show the influence of Martin Schongauer (see 658). He lived at Freiburg-in-the-Breisgau (in the monastery at which place is his greatest work, a "Coronation of the Virgin"), and also at Strassburg, of which latter city he became a senator shortly before his death. Baldung's portraits, says the Official Catalogue, "are highly individual and full of character. When unsigned they have sometimes passed for the work of Dürer, but they want his searching modelling." Baldung acquired and adopted the name of Green or Grün, either from his habit of dressing in that colour or from his fondness for a peculiarly brilliant tint of green often found in his pictures.

The influence of Dürer was strong on Hans Baldung, and a similar spirit is discernible in the works of both painters. This old man, strong and yet melancholy, is precisely true to Dürer's favourite type of human strength founded on labour and sorrow. And the choice of this type is characteristic of his mind. With the Reformation came, says Mr. Ruskin, "the Resurrection of Death. Never, since man first saw him face to face, had his terror been so great." Nothing shows the character of men of that time so clearly as the way in which they severally meet the King of Terror. "It haunted Dürer long; and the answer he gave to the question of the grave was that of patient hope; and twofold, consisting of one design in praise of Fortitude, and another in praise of Labour.... The plate of 'Melancholia' is the history of the sorrowful toil of the earth, as the 'Knight and Death' is of its sorrowful patience under temptation" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iv.).

246. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Pacchia, who is often confused with his fellow-countryman Pacchiarotto, was born at Siena, being the son of a cannon-founder[Pg 225] from Croatia who had settled in that city. He first studied in his native town, but afterwards went to Florence. His works recall the style of the Florentine masters of the time. In 1500 he went to Rome, returning to Siena with an established reputation in 1508. Many of his works are to be seen in the churches and picture-gallery in that city, famous alike for its religious revivals, its artistic activity, and its civic turbulence. Pacchia, in company with Pacchiarotti, joined the revolutionary club of the Bardotti, and on its suppression in 1535 the two artists fled the city. After that date no record of Pacchia has been found.

This graceful picture resembles the style of Andrea del Sarto.

247. "ECCO HOMO!"

"Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!" (Ecco Homo) (St. John xix. 5). In the "glory" around the head are the Latin letters signifying "Jesus Christ of Nazareth"; on the outer edge of the background, "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth" (Philippians ii. 10).

248. THE VISION OF ST. BERNARD.

"St. Bernard was remarkable for his devotion to the blessed Virgin; one of his most celebrated works, the Missus est, was composed in her honour as mother of the Redeemer; and in eighty sermons from the Song of Solomon he set forth her divine perfection. His health was extremely feeble; and once, when he was employed in writing his homilies, and was so ill that he could scarcely hold the pen, she graciously appeared to him, and comforted and restored him by her divine presence" (Mrs. Jameson: Legends of the Monastic Orders, p. 152). Notice the peculiar shape of the picture, the upper corners of the square being cut away. The picture was painted in 1447 (the artist receiving 40 lire, equal now perhaps to £60, for it and another work) to fit a space over the door of the Palazzo della Signoria at Florence. "Have you ever con[Pg 226]sidered, in the early history of painting, how important is the history of the frame-maker? It is a matter, I assure you, needing your very best consideration, for the frame was made before the picture. The painted window is much, but the aperture it fills was thought of before it. The fresco by Giotto is much, but the vault it adorns was planned first ... and in pointing out to you this fact, I may once for all prove to, you the essential unity of the arts" (Ariadne Florentina, §§ 59, 60).

249. THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA.

This picture is signed by the artist "Laurentius the second of Severino"—to distinguish himself from the earlier Lorenzo, who was born in 1374, and who painted some frescoes at Urbino in 1416. The date of this picture is approximately fixed by the fact that Catherine is described on her nimbus as "saint," and she was not canonised till 1461; and perhaps also by the influence on Lorenzo of Crivelli (painted 1468-1493), which has been traced in the execution of the details: see for instance the cucumber and apple on the step of the throne (cf. 724, etc).

St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) is one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages. She was the daughter of a dyer, brought up in the humblest of surroundings, and wholly uneducated. When only thirteen she entered the monastic life as a nun of the Dominican order (St. Dominic is here present on the right), and at once became famous in the city for her good works. She tended the sick and plague-stricken, and was a minister of mercy to the worst and meanest of her fellow-creatures. On one occasion a hardened murderer, whom priests had visited in vain, was so subdued by her tenderness that he confessed his sins, begged her to wait for him by the scaffold, and died with the names of Jesus and Catherine on his lips. In addition to her piety and zeal she succeeded as a mediator between Florence and her native city, and between Florence and the Pope; she travelled to Avignon, and there induced Gregory XI. to return to Rome; she narrowly escaped political martyrdom during one of her embassies from Gregory to the Florentine republic; she preached a crusade against the Turks, and she aided, by her[Pg 227] dying words, to keep Pope Urban on the throne. But "when she died she left behind her a memory of love more than of power, the fragrance of an unselfish and gentle life. Her place is in the heart of the humble. Her prayer is still whispered by poor children on their mother's knee, and her relics are kissed daily by the simple and devout."

The mystical marriage which forms the subject of this picture, where the infant Christ is placing the ring on her finger, suggests the secret of her power. Once when she was fasting and praying, Christ himself appeared to her, she said, and gave her his heart. For love was the keynote of her religion, and the mainspring of her life. In no merely figurative sense did she regard herself as the spouse of Christ; she dwelt upon the bliss, beyond all mortal happiness, which she enjoyed in supersensual communion with her Lord. The world has not lost its ladies of the race of St. Catherine, beautiful and pure and holy, who live lives of saintly mercy in the power of human and heavenly love. (See further, for St. Catherine of Siena, J. A. Symonds, Sketches in Italy (Siena), from which the above account is principally taken.)

250. FOUR SAINTS.

The Meister von Werden, or the painter of this picture and of Nos. 251 and 253, which were found in the old Abbey of Werden, near Düsseldorf, is otherwise unknown. These three pictures probably formed folding wings of an altar-piece. A fourth panel, belonging to the same series, is in the National Gallery of Scotland.

The saints in this picture are Jerome (with his lion), Benedict (in the habit of his order), Giles (with his doe), and Romuald (founder of the eremite order of the Camaldoli).

251. FOUR SAINTS.

The saints in this picture are Augustine (with the heart transfixed with an arrow), Ludger (Bishop of Münster, Apostle of Saxony), Hubert (patron saint of the chase, see No. 783) and Maurice.

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252. THE CONVERSION OF ST. HUBERT.

253. THE MASS OF ST. HUBERT.

For St. Hubert, see under 783. Here the saint, in his canonicals, is represented bending before the altar; while an angel from heaven is, according to the legend, descending with the stole.

254-261. FRAGMENTS OF AN ALTAR-PIECE.

The principal work of this master, whose name has not come down to us, was a high altar-piece for a convent church of the Benedictines at Liesborn, near Münster in Westphalia. This work was cut in pieces and sold in 1807, when the convent was suspended, and Napoleon established the modern kingdom of Westphalia. Some of the pieces were afterwards lost, some were obtained by different collectors, while others, which were acquired by Herr Krüger of Minden, were purchased in 1854 by the British Government. The sweet but feeble faces, with the gold background, recall the earliest Lower Rhine School, of which the Westphalian was an offshoot.

In 259—a Head of Christ on the Cross—we have a fragment of the centre compartment of the altar-piece.

In 260 and 261 we have the saints who stood by the side of the Cross (hence their melancholy expression). In 260 the saints are St. John, St. Benedict, and St. Scholastica (the first Benedictine nun and the sister of St. Benedict himself). In 261 the saints are Sts. Cosmas and Damian (see under 594), and the Virgin.

In 254 and 255 we have other saints: in 254, St. Ambrose (see under 50), St. Exuperius (a Bishop of Toulouse), and St. Jerome (saying, as it were, "Down, down" to his lion); in 255, St. Gregory, St. Hilary, and St. Augustine.

On either side of the central groups in the altar-piece were represented various sacred subjects. No. 256, represents the Annunciation; No. 257, the Purification of the Virgin and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple; No. 258, The Adoration of the Magi.

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262. THE CRUCIFIXION.

In the form of a predella or decoration of the base of the altar-piece. In the centre is Christ on the Cross; on either side are four Saints; on the left St. Scholastica, Mary Magdalen, St. Anne with the Virgin in her arms, who holds the Infant Christ; and the Virgin. On the right St. John the Evangelist, St. Andrew, St. Benedict, and St. Agnes with the Lamb. In the background is a representation of Jerusalem; here depicted as a little Westphalian town.

264. A COUNT OF HAINAULT AND HIS PATRON SAINT.

The count and the confessor. The count, attired as a monk, is praying. Behind him is his patron saint (St. Ambrose), holding a cross in one hand, a scourge in the other. More important, however, than the penitence of the count is the splendour of the robes. The picture is a good illustration of the love of jewellery characteristic of the time. "That this love of jewels was shared by the painters is sufficiently shown by the amount and beauty of the jewelled ornaments introduced by them into their pictures. Not only are brooches and clasps, sceptres and crowns, studded with precious stones, but the hems of garments are continually sewn with them, whilst gloves and shoes of state are likewise so adorned" (Conway, p. 121). This picture is by some ascribed to Gerard van der Meire (see under 1078).

265. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

266. THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS.

Lambert Lombard of Liège was, says Vasari, "a distinguished man of letters, a most judicious painter, and an admirable architect." His pictures, which are scarce, are generally remarkable for correctness of drawing, but his colouring was thin and cold. Lombard, who was a[Pg 230] pupil of Mabuse (see 656), travelled as a young man in Germany and France, and visited Italy in the suite of Cardinal Pole, when he became acquainted with Vasari. On his return he opened a school at Liège.

268. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

A striking example of the old symbolical conception, according to which the adoration of the Magi—the tribute of the wise men from the East to the dawning star of Christianity—was represented as taking place in the ruins of an antique temple, signifying that Christianity was founded upon the ruins of Paganism. This picture was painted in 1573 for the church of San Silvestro in Venice, where it remained until 1835. It is mentioned in most of the guidebooks and descriptions of Venice. One of these published in 1792 says, in describing the church of San Silvestro: "Many are the pictures by Tintoretto, by scholars of Titian, by Palma Vecchio, etc.; but among them all the famous Adoration of the Magi by Paolo Veronese deserves especial attention." The picture has recently been covered with glass, an operation which is noteworthy on account of the great size of the pane required, 11 ft. 7 in. by 10 ft. 7 in. The pane had to be obtained in France.

269. A KNIGHT IN ARMOUR.

Giorgio[121] of Castelfranco, called Giorgione, George the Great,—a name given him, according to Vasari, "because of the gifts of his person and the greatness of his mind,"—is one of the most renowned of the old masters, and exercised a deeper influence upon the artists of his time than any other painter. He was the fellow-pupil with Titian of Bellini at Venice, and after executing works at his native place was employed in Venice. Here by way of exhibiting a specimen of his ability, he decorated the front of his house with frescoes. He was afterwards employed in conjunction with Titian there to decorate the façade of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. These paintings have been destroyed by the sea-winds.[122] But what was more [Pg 231]original in Giorgione's work was his small subject pictures. He was, says Pater, "the inventor of genre, of those easily movable pictures which serve for uses neither of devotion, nor of allegorical or historical teaching—little groups of real men and women, amid congruous furniture or landscape—morsels of actual life, conversation or music or play, refined upon or idealised, till they come to seem like glimpses of life from afar." Some of Bellini's late works are already of this kind; but they were a little too austere and sober in colour for the taste of the time. Carpaccio was full of brilliancy, fancy, and gaiety, but he painted few easel pictures. Giorgione brought to the new style all the resources of a poetical imagination, of a happy temper, and of supreme gifts as a colourist. He was, says Ruskin, one of "the seven supreme colourists."[123] The chief colour on his palette, it has been said, was sunlight. In the glowing colour with which he invested the human form "the sense of nudity is utterly lost, and there is no need nor desire of concealment any more, but his naked figures move among the trees like fiery pillars, and lie on the grass like flakes of sunshine" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xiv. § 20). Giorgione, says Mr. Colvin, came to enrich Venetian painting further, with "a stronger sense of life and of the glory of the real world as distinguished from the solemn dreamland of the religious imagination. He had a power hitherto unknown of interpreting both the charm of merely human grace and distinction, and the natural joy of life in the golden sunlight among woods and meadows." Giorgione, by his originality and his exact correspondence with the spirit of the time, created a demand which other painters were forced to supply. His influence, says Morelli, is not only to be traced in the early work of Titian; it stands out broadly in the paintings of nearly all his Venetian contemporaries—Lotto, Palma, Pordenone, Bonifacio, Cariani, and many others, not to speak of his scholar, Sebastiano del Piombo. The surviving pictures which are undoubtedly by Giorgione's own hand are very few. This category hardly includes more than four,—the altar-piece at Castelfranco (see below), the so-called "Famiglia di Giorgione" (now identified as "Adrastus and Hypsipyle," in the Palazzo Giovanelli at Venice), the "Three Philosophers" (in the Belvedere at Vienna), and the lovely "Sleeping Venus," identified by Morelli, in the Dresden Gallery. Among pictures in a second and less certain category, may be mentioned the "Concert" in the Louvre (the "Venetian Pastoral" of Rossetti's sonnet), another "Concert" in the Pitti, the "Head of a Shepherd" at Hampton Court, and (more doubtfully) No. 1160 in this Gallery. The number of reputed Giorgiones is very large. His fame has been constant [Pg 232]from his own day to ours, and as every gallery desired to have a Giorgione, the wish was freely gratified by dealers and cataloguers. Modern criticism has played havoc among most of these so-called Giorgiones;[124] but the Giorgionesque spirit remains—unmistakable and distinct—in many works. Such in this Gallery are Nos. 930, 1123, and 1173, ascribed by the director to "the School of Giorgione." It is a school, as we have seen, of genre. It "employs itself mainly with painted idylls, but, in the production of this pictorial poetry, exercises a wonderful tact in the selecting of such matter as lends itself most readily and entirely to pictorial form, to complete expression by drawing and colour. For although its productions are painted poems, they belong to a sort of poetry which tells itself without an articulated story." Vasari remarked that it was difficult to give Giorgione's representations an explanatory name. As Morelli has well pointed out, the genius of Titian was wholly dramatic; Giorgione was a lyric poet, who gives us at most dramatic lyrics. A picture by Giorgione or in his style "presents us with a kind of profoundly significant and animated instant, a mere gesture, a look, a smile perhaps—some brief and wholly concrete moment—into which, however, all the motives, all the interests and effects of a long history, have condensed themselves, and which seem to absorb past and future in an intense consciousness of the present. Such ideal instants the school of Giorgione selects, with its admirable tact, from that feverish, tumultuously coloured life of the old citizens of Venice—exquisite pauses in Time, in which, arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the fulness of existence, and which are like some consummate extract or quintessence of life." Pictures in the Giorgionesque spirit are, as it were, "musical intervals in human existence—filled with people with intent faces listening to music, to the sound of water, to time as it flies" (Pater: "The School of Giorgione," Fortnightly Review, October 1877, reprinted in the third edition of The Renaissance). The landscapes of Giorgione have the same quality of quickened life. "Most painted landscapes leave little power to call up the actual physical sensations of the scenes themselves, but Giorgione's never fail to produce this effect; they speak directly to the sensations, making the beholder feel refreshed and soothed, as if actually reclining on the grass in the shade of the trees, with his mind free to muse on what delights it most. In so far as poetry may be compared to painting, Giorgione's feeling for landscape suggests Keats" (Mary Logan: Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 13).

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Giorgione's pictures may be described as showing us golden moments of a golden age. His life, as told by Vasari and Ridolfi, corresponds with this ideal, which also was in exact accordance with the spirit of the times. Many readers will remember that it is with a mention of Giorgione that Ruskin prefaces his noble description of Venice in the days of the early Renaissance: "Born half-way between the mountains and the sea—that young George of Castelfranco—of the Brave Castle; stout George they called him, George of Georges, so goodly a boy he was—Giorgione. Have you ever thought what a world his eyes opened on—fair, searching eyes of youth? What a world of mighty life, from those mountain roots to the shore; of loveliest life, when he went down, yet so young, to the marble city, and became himself as a fiery heart to it?" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix. § 1). He spent his childhood at Castelfranco, "where the last crags of the Venetian Alps break down romantically with something of a park-like grace to the plain." "Giorgione's ideal of luxuriant pastoral scenery, the country of pleasant copses, glades and brooks, amid which his personages love to wander or recline with lute and pipe, was derived, no doubt, from these natural surroundings of his childhood." Close by his birthplace is Asolo, whence the word asolare, "to disport in the open air; to amuse oneself at random" (see Browning's Asolando). Giorgione "found his way early into a circle of notable persons—people of courtesy, and became initiated into those differences of personal type, manner, and even of dress, which are best understood there. Not far from his home lived Catherine of Cornaro, formerly Queen of Cyprus, and up in the towers which still remain, Tuzio Costanzo, the famous condottiére—a picturesque remnant of mediæval manners, in a civilisation rapidly changing" (Pater). In Venice Giorgione's gracious bearing and varied accomplishments introduced him into congenial company. "He took no small delight," says Vasari, "in love-passages and in the sound of the lute, to which he was so cordially devoted, and which he practised so constantly, that he played and sang with the most exquisite perfection, insomuch that he was for this cause frequently invited to musical assemblies and festivals by the most distinguished personages." "It happened, about his thirty-fourth year, that in one of those parties at which he entertained his friends with music, he met a certain lady of whom he became greatly enamoured, and 'they rejoiced greatly,' says Vasari, 'the one and the other in their love.' And two quite different legends concerning it agree in this, that it was through this lady he came by his death; Ridolfi relating that, being robbed of her by one of his pupils, he died of grief at the double treason; Vasari, that she being secretly stricken of the plague, and he making his visits to her as usual, he took the sickness from her mortally, along with her kisses, and so briefly departed" (Pater).[125]

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This little panel is a study for the figure of San Liberale, the warrior-saint, in the altar-piece by Giorgione at Castelfranco—one of his acknowledged masterpieces, and according to Ruskin one of the two best pictures in the world.[126] Notice "the bronzed, burning flesh" of the knight—"the right Giorgione colour on his brow" characteristic of a race of seamen (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 19). This "original little study in oil, with the delicately gleaming silver-grey armour is," says Mr. Pater, "one of the greatest treasures of the National Gallery, and in it, as in some other knightly personages attributed to Giorgione, people have supposed the likeness of his own presumably gracious presence." From a MS. memorandum on the back of the Castelfranco picture, it appears, however, that the warrior was said to represent Gaston de Foix. The only difference between this study and the picture is that in the altar-piece the warrior wears his helmet, while in the picture he is bareheaded. On this ground, and owing to the high finish of our picture, some have argued that it is not an original study for the picture, but a later copy from it (see e.g. Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 86). The argument does not seem conclusive. Do artists never make elaborate studies? and is not an artist as likely to vary his design as a copyist his model? Our picture, which was formerly in the collection of Benjamin West, P.R.A., was bequeathed to the National Gallery by Samuel Rogers.

270. "NOLI ME TANGERE!"

A picture of the evensong of nature and of the evening of a life's tragedy. "The hues and harmonies of evening" are upon the distant hills and plain; and whilst the shadows fall upon the middle slopes, there falls too "the awful shadow of some unseen Power" upon the repentant woman who has [Pg 235]been keeping her vigil in the peaceful solitude; at the sound of her name she has turned from her weeping and fallen forward on her knees towards him whom she now knows to be her master. "The impetuosity with which she has thrown herself on her knees in shown by the fluttering drapery of her sleeve,[127] which is still buoyed up by the air; thus with a true painter's art telling the action of the previous moment" (Quarterly Review, October 1888). She stretches out her hand to touch him, but is checked by his words; as Christ, who is represented with a hoe in his hand because she had first supposed him to be the gardener, bids her forbear: "Touch me not," "noli me tangere," "for I am not yet ascended to my Father:" it is not on this side of the hills that the troubled soul can enter into the peace of forgiveness.

This beautiful picture was bequeathed to the National Gallery by Samuel Rogers. It is usually ascribed to Titian's earlier or "Giorgionesque" period. "The Magdalen is, appropriately enough, of the same type as the exquisite golden-blond courtesans—or, if you will, models—who constantly appear and re-appear in this period of Venetian art" (C. Phillips: The Earlier Work of Titian, p. 52).

271. "ECCE HOMO!"

For the subject, see under 15, by Correggio. It was from Correggio that the Eclectics borrowed the type of face [Pg 236]for this subject—which was a favourite one with them; but notice how much more they dwell on the physical pain and horror, how much less on the spiritual beauty, than Correggio did.

272. AN APOSTLE.

From a church near Venice. Formerly ascribed to Pordenone.

274. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Andrea Mantegna, the greatest master of the Paduan School, has a commanding name in art history, so much so that many writers describe the epoch of painting (from 1450 to 1500 and a little onwards), of which he was one of the chief representatives, as the Mantegnesque period. "No painter more remarkable for originality than Mantegna ever lived. Whoever has learned to relish this great master will never overlook a scrap by him; for while his works sometimes show a certain austerity and harshness, they have always a force and will which belong to no one else" (Layard). "Intensity may be said to be the characteristic of Mantegna as an artist. Deeply in earnest, he swerved from his purpose neither to the right nor to the left. In expressing tragic emotion, he sometimes touched a realism beyond the limits prescribed by poetic art. So, too, he never arrived at an ideal of female beauty. But he could be as tender as he was stern; and we forget the homely plainness of his Madonnas in the devoted and boding mother or the benign protectress. His children are always childlike and without self-consciousness. His drawing was remarkably correct. An occasional lengthiness in his figures adds to their dignity, and never oversteps possible nature. Drapery he treated as a means of displaying the figure. This peculiarity he derived from an almost too exclusive study of ancient sculpture. Yet so thoroughly does it accord with his whole style, that none would willingly miss a single fold which the master thought worthy of almost infinite care" (Burton). He was a tempera painter, and "excelled in harmoniously broken tones, but with little attempt at those rich and deep effects which by the practice of art his later Venetian contemporaries initiated." "He loved allegory and symbolism; but with him they clothed a living spirit." The beauty of classical bas-relief entered deep into his soul and ruled his imagination. His classical pictures are "statuesque and stately, but glow with the spirit of revived antiquity" (Symonds). He was equally distinguished as an engraver and a painter, and his plates spread his fame and influence widely abroad.

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Mantegna was born at Padua,[128] and according to Vasari, was originally, like Giotto, a shepherd boy. Like Giotto, too, he early displayed great aptitude for drawing, so much that when only ten years old he was adopted by Squarcione as son and pupil. Squarcione was an indifferent painter, but must have been an able teacher, and it was from him that Mantegna imbibed his love of the antique. It was Squarcione's intention to make him his heir, but Mantegna married a daughter of Jacopo Bellini, Squarcione's rival; "and when this was told to Squarcione he was so much displeased with Andrea that they were ever afterwards enemies." Of Mantegna's association with his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini, the pictures numbered 726 and 1417 in this gallery are an interesting record. Mantegna soon obtained recognition. Among the most important of his early works are the frescoes of the chapel of St. James and St. Christopher in the church of the Eremitani at Padua. Copies of some of these may be seen in the Arundel Society's collection. Of about the same date is "The Agony in the Garden," No. 1417. To his early period belong also the "St. George" in the Venice Academy, and the triptych in the Uffizi. The picture now before us, the beautiful "Madonna della Vittoria," and the "Parnassus" of the Louvre belong to a maturer time. In 1466 Mantegna went, at the invitation of the Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga, to the court of Mantua, and there he remained till his death, as painter-in-ordinary at a salary of £30 a year—with the exception of two years spent in painting for Pope Innocent VIII. at Rome. Many of Mantegna's frescoes at Mantua are now obliterated; but some are preserved in the Camera degli Sposi in the Ducal Palace, and in spite of restorations, exhibit some of the master's characteristics in perfection. For the palace of St. Sebastiano at Mantua, he painted in tempera on canvas the "Triumph of Cæsar," now at Hampton Court. Although much defaced, this large composition still proclaims the genius of the master who "loved to resuscitate the ancient world, and render it to the living eye in all its detail, and with all its human interest." The sketch by Rubens in our Gallery, No. 278, was made from a portion of Mantegna's cartoons. In a similar style is the master's "Triumph of Scipio," No. 902, completed shortly before his death. At Rome (1488-1490) he decorated the chapel of the Belvedere, now demolished.

Though in the service of princes, Mantegna knew his worth, and was wont to say that "Ludovico might be proud of having in him something that no other prince in Italy could boast of." He liked, too, to live in the grand style of his age. It appears that he spent habitually more money than he could afford, and after his death his sons had to sell the pictures in his studio for the payment of his creditors. Still more was he a child of his age—the age of the revival [Pg 238]of classical learning—in his love for the antique. He spent much of his money in forming a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, and the forced sale of its chief ornament, a bust of Faustina, is said to have broken his heart. "He was the friend of students, eagerly absorbing the knowledge brought to light by antiquarian research; and thus independently of his high value as a painter, he embodies for us in art that sincere passion for the ancient world which was the dominating intellectual impulse of his age." With Mantegna, classical antiques were not merely the foibles of a collector, but the models of his art. He was "always of opinion," says Vasari, "that good antique statues were more perfect, and displayed more beauty in the different parts, than is exhibited by nature." Of some of his works what Vasari adds is no doubt true—that they recall the idea of stone rather than of living flesh. But Mantegna studied nature closely too; for, as Goethe said of his pictures, "the study of the antique gives form, and nature adds appropriate movement and the health of life." Mantegna died at Mantua and was buried in a chapel of the Church of Sant' Andrea. The expenses incurred by him in founding and decorating this family chapel had added seriously to his embarrassments. "Over his grave was placed a bronze bust, most noble in modelling and perfect in execution. The broad forehead, with its deeply cloven furrows, the stern and piercing eyes, the large lips compressed with nervous energy, the massive nose, the strength of jaw and chin, and the superb clusters of the hair escaping from a laurel-wreath upon the royal head, are such as realise for us our notion of a Roman in the days of the republic. Mantegna's own genius has inspired this masterpiece, which tradition assigns to the medallist Sperando Maglioli. Whoever wrought it must have felt the incubation of the mighty painter's spirit, and have striven to express in bronze the character of his uncompromising art" (Symonds: The Renaissance in Italy, iii. 203). A plaster cast from this bust hangs on one of the staircases in our Gallery. Mantegna's second son, Francesco, who in his father's later years had assisted in his studio, afterwards practised independently. See Nos. 639, 1106, 1381.

"One of the choicest pictures in the National Gallery," exquisite alike in sentiment, in drawing, and in purity of colour. "Being in an admirable state of preservation, it enables us to become acquainted with all the characteristics of Mantegna's style, and above all to enjoy the refinement in his rendering of the human forms, the accuracy in his drawing, the conscientiousness in the rendering of the smallest details" (Richter). For the latter point notice especially the herbage in the foreground. Mantegna, says Mr. Ruskin, is "the greatest leaf-painter of Lombardy," and the "exquisite outlines" here show "the symmetry and precision of his design" (Catalogue of Educational Series, p. 52). The draperies also[Pg 239] are "of extraordinary beauty in design and colour. The rose-coloured dress of the Virgin is most delicately heightened with gold, and the draperies of the two saints are of materials shot with changing colours of exquisite harmonies" (Poynter). Very sweet is the expression of mingled humility and tenderness in the mother of the Divine Child. On her right stands St. John the Baptist, the great preacher of repentance; on her left Mary Magdalen, the woman who repented. The Baptist bears a cross and on the scroll attached to it are written the words (in Latin), "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." The Magdalen carries the vase of ointment—the symbol at once of her conversion and her love ("She brought an alabaster box of ointment, and began to wash his feet with tears.... And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven"). "Mantegna combines with the most inexhaustible imagination and invention and power, which include the whole range of art, from the most playful fantasy to the profoundest and most passionate tragedy, a skill of workmanship so minutely and marvellously delicate as to defy imitation. Look at the refinement with which the drapery is drawn, the wonderful delicacy of handling with which the gold-lights are laid on, the beautiful and loving spirit which has presided over the execution of the foliage in the background, and indeed of every detail in the picture, and you will begin to have an understanding of what I mean by workmanship as such, and how an artist proceeds whose hand has been thoroughly trained, and who is truly in love with his art" (Poynter's Lectures on Art, p. 127).

275. VIRGIN AND CHILD, ST. JOHN AND AN ANGEL.

A beautiful and characteristic work.[129] "At first glance you may think the picture a mere piece of affectation. Well—yes, [Pg 240]Botticelli is affected in the way that all men of his century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force of imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about"—just as he likes also dancing motion and waved drapery (see 1034) (Mornings in Florence, iii. 59). The picture is characteristic also of two faculties which Botticelli acquired from his early training as a goldsmith: first, his use of gold as a means of enriching the light (as here in the Madonna's hair); and, secondly, the "incomparable invention and delicacy" with which he treated all accessory details and ornaments (as here in the scarves and dresses). But chiefly is the picture characteristic of his "sentiment of ineffable melancholy, of which it is hard to penetrate the sense, and impossible to escape the spell." It may help one in understanding the spirit of such pictures to remember that in Botticelli there met in perfect poise the tenderness of Christian feeling with the grace of the classical Renaissance. He was "a Greek reanimate. The first Greeks were distinguished from the barbarians by their simple humanity; the second Greeks—these Florentine Greeks reanimate—are human more strongly, more deeply, leaping from the Byzantine death at the call of Christ, 'Loose him, and let him go.' And there is upon them at once the joy of resurrection and the solemnity of the grave"[130] (Ariadne Florentina, § 161; and Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii.).

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276. TWO APOSTLES.

These solemn heads seem to breathe the very spirit of the master; but the history of the painting forbids the supposition that we have here the handiwork, or even the direct influence of Giotto. It is a fragment from one of the wall-paintings in the chapel of St. John the Baptist in the church of S. Maria del Carmine at Florence. The frescoes were not executed till 1350, some years after the death of Giotto. The subject of the composition to which our fragment belongs was the burial of the Baptist. The history of these frescoes is typical of that of many a vicissitude, and recalls the idea suggested in one of Browning's Dramatic Lyrics, in which the soul of the painter watches the gradual decay and dispersal of his life's work:—

This and two portions from other paintings of the series, now in the institution at Liverpool, were saved from the fire[Pg 242] which destroyed this chapel in 1771, and became the property of Mr. Thomas Patch, the engraver. They were brought to England by Mr. Townley. This fragment was subsequently in the collection of the Right Hon. C. Greville, from whom it passed into the possession of Mr. Rogers, and at the sale of his pictures in 1856 was purchased for the National Gallery. Some other fragments are preserved in the Cappella dell' Ammannati, in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and one is in the town gallery at Pavia.

277. THE GOOD SAMARITAN.

The wounded Jew, who had fallen among thieves, is beneath the shadow of a great rock. The Levite is behind, engaged in sanctimonious prayer. The good Samaritan is busy in good works. He has brought out his flask and is raising the Jew to place him on his mule. The picture is of additional interest as having been a favourite with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it once belonged, and who is said to have kept it always in his studio. It was afterwards in the collection of Samuel Rogers.

278. THE TRIUMPH OF JULIUS CÆSAR.

One of the fruits of Rubens's visit to Italy. This picture was in Rubens's possession at his death, and is described in the inventory as "Three cloathes pasted upon bord, beinge the Triumph of Julius Cæsar, after Andrew Mantegna, not full made." Mantegna's procession (somewhat similar to the Triumph of Scipio, No. 902) was painted for the Duke of Mantua, and is now at Hampton Court.

Any one who cares to see by a single illustration what "classic purity of style" means, should compare Mantegna's original with this transcript by Rubens. "The Flemish painter strives to add richness to the scene by Bacchanalian riot and the sensuality of imperial Rome. His elephants twist their trunks, and trumpet to the din of cymbals; negroes feed the flaming candelabra with scattered frankincense; the white oxen of Clitumnus are loaded with gaudy flowers, and the dancing maidens are dishevelled Mænads. But the rhythmic[Pg 243] procession of Mantegna, modulated to the sound of flutes and soft recorders, carries our imagination back to the best days and strength of Rome. His priests and generals, captives and choric women, are as little Greek as they are modern. In them awakes to a new life the spirit-quelling energy of the Republic. The painter's severe taste keeps out of sight the insolence and orgies of the Empire; he conceives Rome as Shakespeare did in Coriolanus"[131] (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 200).

279. THE HORRORS OF WAR.

"Mars, leaving the temple of Janus[132] open, is held back by Venus, while Europe bewails the inevitable miseries of war; but he is drawn on by the Fury Alecto, who is preceded by Plague and Famine; the figure on the ground with the broken lute represents Concord overthrown. Mars and the two female figures behind him are said to be the portraits of Rubens and his two wives" (Official Catalogue).

This is a sketch of the large picture painted by Rubens in 1637 for his friend Sustermans, and now in the Pitti palace at Genoa. This sketch, with the preceding one, was in the collection of Mr. Rogers, where Ruskin saw it, as recorded in the following extract from his autobiography, in which he describes "a lesson given to me by George Richmond at one of Mr. Rogers's breakfasts (the old man used to ask me, finding me always reverent to him, joyful in his pictures, and sometimes amusing, as an object of curiosity to his guests), date uncertain, but probably in 1842":—

Until that year, Rubens had remained the type of colour power to me, and Titian's flesh tints of little worth! But that morning, as I was getting talkative over the wild Rubens's sketch (War or Discord, or Victory or the Furies, I forget what), Richmond said, pointing to the Veronese beneath it, "Why are you not looking at this—so much greater in manner?" "Greater—how?" I asked, in surprise; "it [Pg 244]seems to me quite tame beside the Rubens." "That may be," said Richmond, "but the Veronese is true, the other wildly conventional." "In what way true?" I asked, still not understanding. "Well," said Richmond, "compare the pure shadows on the flesh in Veronese, and its clear edge, with Rubens's ochre and vermilion, and outline of asphalt" (Praeterita, ii. 181).

280. THE MADONNA OF THE POMEGRANATE.

A prophetic sense of the Saviour's sufferings is signified by the symbol of the pomegranate—

This picture, which is signed by the painter, probably dates from 1485-88.

281. ST. JEROME READING.

Basaiti—born in Friuli; according to some writers, of Greek parents—was assistant to Alvise Vivarini. He was one of the early Venetian painters in oils. His works when well preserved are (says Sir F. Burton) brilliant in colour, and display great ability in the general management of the accessories, especially in the landscape backgrounds, which, according to Zanetti, he contrived to unite with his figures more skilfully than his contemporaries.

The scenery, says Gilbert (Cadore, p. 42), is that of Serravalle in Titian's country—Serravalle, "the true gate of the hills," with walls and towers rising steeply on the hill-side. The way in which the old masters thus consigned their saints and anchorites to the hill-country is very typical of the mediæval view of landscape. "The idea of retirement from[Pg 245] the world for the sake of self-mortification ... gave to all mountain solitude at once a sanctity and a terror, in the mediæval mind, which were altogether different from anything that it had possessed in the un-Christian periods.... Just in so much as it appeared necessary for the noblest men to retire to the hill-recesses before their missions could be accomplished, or their spirit perfected, in so far did the daily world seem by comparison to be pronounced profane and dangerous; and to those who loved that world and its work, the mountains were thus voiceful with perpetual rebuke.... And thousands of hearts, which might otherwise have felt that there was loveliness in the wild landscape, shrank from it in dread, because they knew that the monk retired to it for penance, and the hermit for contemplation" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xiv. § 10).

282. THE GLORIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN.

Formerly ascribed in the Official Catalogue to Lo Spagna (for whom see under 1032); by other critics attributed to Giovanni Battista of Faenza, called Bertucci (the monkey), an artist who borrowed both from the Umbrian School and from Lorenzo Costa. The similarity between this picture and No. 629, by the latter artist, especially in the playing angels at the foot of the throne, is remarkable (see Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 52). Works by Bertucci are to be seen in the picture gallery of Faenza.

The little angels are very pretty. Notice the three peering out from under the Virgin's robe. On the marble platform below one angel plays a white-headed pipe; the other, a six-stringed rebec, which is very accurately represented.

283. VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

Benozzo Gozzoli was the favourite pupil of the "angelical painter," Fra Angelico. From him Benozzo borrowed the devotion in his pictures, the bent of his own mind being altogether different. It must be remembered that "in nearly all the great periods of art the choice of subject has not been left to the painter; ... and his own personal feelings are ascertainable only by watching, in the themes assigned to him, what are the points in which he seems to take most pleasure. Thus in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects with which Benozzo[Pg 246] Gozzoli decorated the cloisters of Pisa, it is easy to see that love of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape, and glittering ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements of religious feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age instilled into him in such measure as to form a very lovely and noble mind, though still one of the second order" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 8). The earlier works of Benozzo are entirely in Fra Angelico's manner. His later style (of which an example may be seen in No. 591) presents the greatest contrast to that master; for Benozzo is "the first of all the Florentine painters who seem to have been smitten with the beauty of the natural world and its various appearances. His later pictures overflow with the delighted sense of this beauty. He was the first to create rich landscape backgrounds, with cities, villas, and trees, rivers, and richly-cultivated valleys, bold rocks and hills. He displays the richest fancy for architectural forms,—open porticoes, elegant arcades, and balconies. In the representation of the human figure, we find gaiety and whim, feeling and dignity, in the happiest combination" (Layard). Like other painters of the time Benozzo began his career as a worker in metal, and his name is found amongst the artificers who assisted Ghiberti in making the celebrated gates for the Baptistery at Florence. He next entered the school of Fra Angelico, accompanying his master to Rome and Orvieto. In 1459 he was employed to decorate the walls of the small chapel in the Medici, now Riccardi Palace, and here he first gave rein to his own fancies. Copies from these frescoes are included in the Arundel Society's collection, as well as from those in the church of S. Agostino at S. Gimignano, where Benozzo was next employed. The chief work of his life was, however, the painting of the Campo Santo at Pisa. This occupied him from 1469-1485. Twenty-one of the frescoes were by his own hand. They are much injured; for "when any dignitary of Pisa was to be buried, they peeled off some Benozzo Gozzoli and put up a nice new tablet to the new defunct" (Praeterita, vol. ii. ch. vi., where Ruskin gives a charming account of happy days spent in copying Benozzo's work). These frescoes are remarkable for their wealth of fancy and picturesque detail. The Pisans themselves were so well pleased that they presented the painter in 1478 with a tomb, that his body might repose amidst the great works of his life. He died at Pisa twenty years later.

This was a picture painted very much to order. The figure of the Virgin was specially directed—so it appears from the original contract, dated 1461, still in existence—to be made similar in mode, form, and ornaments to one by Fra Angelico, now in the Florentine Academy, and it was also stipulated that "the said Benozzo shall at his own cost diligently gild the said panel throughout, both as regards figures and ornaments." The prices paid for such com[Pg 247]missions in those days may be judged from the fact that in the case of his great frescoes at Pisa, Benozzo contracted to paint three a year for 10 ducats each (= say £100). As for Benozzo's own personal feelings, it is easy to see with what pleasure he put in the pretty flowers in the foreground for St. Francis, and the sweet-faced angels behind the throne, and with what gusto he shot the gold in their draperies. The figure on our extreme left is St. Zenobius. His embroidered cope is very rich. The details of needlework in the picture will well repay careful study. Compared with all this, the kneeling St. Jerome and St. Francis and the other saints appear somewhat perfunctory. Notice, too, the bright goldfinches on the alabaster steps, introduced, we may suppose, in honour of

284. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Bartolommeo Vivarini of Murano was the younger brother of Antonio (see 768), with whom he began to work in partnership in 1450—as is shown by the inscription on the great altar-piece by the two brothers, now in the Pinacoteca of Bologna. Bartolommeo appears to have studied at Padua, and the influence of Squarcione is manifest in the painter's striving after correctness of form. "The ornate character of his altar-pieces, with gold heightening, garlands of fruit and flowers and fluttering fillets, is also borrowed from the Paduans, and lends festal pomp and solemnity to the whole."

Of Bartolommeo Vivarini it is recorded that he painted (in 1473) the first oil picture that was exhibited in Venice. This one, however, is in tempera. "The figures in Bartolommeo's pictures are still hard in outline,—thin (except the Madonna's throat, which always in Venice, is strong as a pillar), and much marked in sinew and bone (studied from life, mind you, not by dissection); exquisitely delicate and careful in pure colour;—in character portraits of holy men and women, such as then were. There is no idealism here whatever. Monks and nuns had indeed faces and mien like these saints, when they desired to have the saints painted for them" (Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 6).

[Pg 248]

285. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Francesco is one of the best masters in the earlier style of the Veronese School. He was the son of Domenico Morone (1211), the friend and fellow-worker of Girolamo dai Libri (748) and the master of Morando (735). His works are rarely to be seen out of Verona, but the present picture is characteristic. At Verona, his best work in fresco is to be seen in the decoration of the sacristry of S. Maria in Organo, described by Vasari. Among his altar-pieces, one in the same church and another in S. Bernardino are specially noteworthy. "There is," says Sir F. Burton, "something peculiarly winning in the type chosen for the Madonna by this painter. The small, round, delicately-featured head, slightly thrown back, so that the eyes are cast down towards the worshipper, conveys a mingled impression of sweetness and dignity. The finish of his easel pictures is remarkable; the eye is delighted by the intricate variegation of costly stuffs, where numerous tints broken together resemble what nature has wrought on the wings of some moths and butterflies. Such broken surfaces give additional value to the masses of whole colour where these more sparingly appear." "That the artist himself was of a harmless, lovable nature is evident from his will which we still possess, and Vasari's judgment is to the same effect when he calls him 'so good a man, so religious and so orderly that no word which was not a praiseworthy one was ever known to proceed from his mouth'" (Richter). Vasari adds that he was "buried in the church of San Domenico beside his father, and was borne to his grave clothed as he had desired to be, in the vestments of a monk of San Francesco."

"A youthful production, in which glowing colour, delicately balanced, is combined with fine drawing and powerful modelling. Characteristic are the regular oval of the Madonna's head and the look of simplicity and charm which breathes in the features" (Dr. Richter in Art Journal, Feb. 1895).

286. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

The only signed picture by this painter still in existence. He was a native of Cremona and worked there: he and his brother pleased the Cremonese so much by painting in the Town Hall that the artists were given an exemption from taxes. But he may be classed as a Venetian, for he was an imitator of Giovanni Bellini. This picture at once recalls Bellini's No. 280, and is in fact a copy of a Madonna by that painter in the Chiesa degli Scalzi at Venice.

[Pg 249]

287. LUDOVICO MARTINENGO.

The Martinengo family seems to have patronised this painter, as the Senator Count Martinengo, of Venice, possesses as an heirloom a small picture by the master which is signed "Bartolommeo mezzo Veneziano e mezzo Cremonese." The present picture (dated 1530) is signed "Bartolom. Venetus," so that he was perhaps a Cremonese by birth and a Venetian by artistic training, being probably a pupil of Giovanni Bellini (see Morelli's Italian Works in German Galleries, p. 138).

A portrait of a young man, at the age of twenty-six (as the inscription tells us), in the costume of the Campagnia della Calza (the guild of the stocking).

288. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, MICHAEL AND RAPHAEL.

Pietro Vannucci, a native of Castello della Pieve, was called Perugino, from the town of which he afterwards became a citizen. His earliest master was probably Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and he is known to have also worked under Piero della Francesca. Afterwards he went to Florence, where, it is said, he studied with Leonardo da Vinci under the sculptor Verrocchio. There is, however, no trace of any such discipleship in his works, which, on the contrary, show an untouched development of native Umbrian art, so that Perugino becomes the typical representative of what Ruskin calls the "purist ideal." It is probable that his first visit to Florence was not paid till he was already established in independent practice. "He there remained," says Vasari, "for many months without even a bed to lie on, and miserably took his sleep upon a chest; but, turning night into day, and labouring without intermission, he devoted himself most fervently to the study of his profession." And in time he became himself a famous master, with Raphael for his pupil, and "he attained to such a height of reputation that his works were dispersed, not only through Florence and all over [Pg 250]Italy, but in France, Spain, and other countries." He was himself too of a roving disposition, and he multiplied his engagements beyond his power of fulfilling them. In 1475 he received his first public commission at Perugia, but the frescoes then painted for the Palazzo Communale have perished. In 1480 he was employed by the Pope Sixtus IV., together with Signorelli and Botticelli, to cover the walls of the Sixtine Chapel with frescoes. Of the four allotted to Perugino (which occupied him in part for six years) three were afterwards destroyed to make room for Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment"; the fourth, the "Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter," remains. Perugino's subsequent movements are not easy to follow,[134] and we can only here allude to some of his most famous works. In 1494 he was at Venice, and in the same year painted his very beautiful altar-piece in S. Agostino at Cremona. In 1495 he contracted to paint for the monks of Cassino the noble Assumption now at Lyons. In 1496 he painted for the Cathedral of Perugia, the famous "Sposalizio," now at Caen. To the same period in his career belongs the picture now before us, painted for the Certosa of Pavia. Down to about 1493, Perugino's easel pictures were executed in tempera (see 181); he then adopted the new oil medium, which he used to such splendid effect in richness of colour. In 1499 he was at Perugia, engaged upon the beautiful frescoes in the Hall of the Bankers (Collegio del Cambio). He was afterwards in Florence, but in 1505 returned to Perugia, where in 1507 he painted the altar-piece, No. 1075 in our gallery. In his later years he erected a large studio in which several scholars were employed to execute commissions from his designs, and the works of this period show considerable inequality of execution, as well as repetition of design, and some falling off in richness of colouring. According to Vasari's gossip Perugino was very careful of his money—as one who had seen such hard times might well be; would only paint for cash down, and on all his wanderings carried his money box with him. "When it is fair weather," he used to say, "a man must build his house, that he may be under shelter when he most needs it." It was not, however, till middle life that he did literally build himself a house. At the same time he married a very beautiful girl, and is said to have had so much pleasure in seeing her wear becoming head-dresses that he would spend hours together in arranging that part of her toilet with his own hands. There is a tradition that she was the model for the angel who accompanies Tobias in our picture. The master was still painting in his 77th year, and was engaged on a fresco at Frontignano (now in this gallery, No. 1441), when he was carried off by the plague. The most famous of his pupils was Raphael; among the rest, the most accomplished were Giovanni lo Spagna (1032), and Giannicola Manni (1194).

Perugino's work is well represented in the National Gallery, and its several characteristics are pointed out under the pictures themselves [Pg 251](cf. especially 181 and 1075). He was, as we have said, the typical representative of the purist ideal. His technical supremacy set the seal of perfection upon pietistic art, and the masterpiece before us is unique for its combination of warmth of colour, with the expression of religious fervour. "What this artist seems to have aimed at, was to create for the soul, amid the pomps and passions of this world, a resting-place of contemplation tenanted by saintly and seraphic beings." Of his life as reflected in his work, Ruskin gives this summary: "A sound craftsman and workman to the very heart's core. A noble, gracious, and quiet labourer from youth to death,—never weary, never impatient, never untender, never untrue. Not Tintoret in power, not Raphael in flexibility, not Holbein in veracity, not Luini in love,—their gathered gifts he has, in balanced and fruitful measure, fit to be the guide, and impulse, and father of all" (Ariadne Florentina, § 72). But Perugino, like the times in which he lived, presents a study in contradictions. This idealist painted his portrait in the Sala del Cambio; it is an unsurpassed piece of realism, and the hard, unsympathetic features do not belie, but rather win credence for Vasari's tales about his sordid soul. He never deviated in his art from the pietistic path he had chosen; but according to Vasari[135] (whose statements on this point are supported by some other evidence), he was himself an unbeliever, and on his death-bed rejected the last sacraments. In his art he is essentially a quietist. He is not successful when he represents action or movement. His ideal is of quiet rapture, and sacred peace. But the criminal records of Florence prove that he was not over-scrupulous to keep his hands from violence, and in the civil courts he pursued Michael Angelo with equal indiscretion and ill-success for defamation of character. His pictures reflect the landscape, but not the fortunes, of his native country: that the quietism of Perugino "should have been fashionable in Perugia, while the Baglioni were tearing each other to pieces, and the troops of the Vitelli and the Borgia were trampling upon Umbria, is one of the most striking paradoxes of an age rich in dramatic contradictions" (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 218).

One of the most valuable pictures in the Gallery alike for its own beauty and for its interest in the history of art. For Perugino is the final representative of the old superstitious art, just as Michael Angelo and Raphael (in his later manners) were the first representatives of the modern scientific and anatomical art; the epithet bestowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, goffo nell' arte (dunce, or blockhead, in art), shows how trenchant the separation is between these two forms of artists. One may notice, then, in this picture as a perfect [Pg 252]example of the earlier art: First, that everything in it is dainty and delightful, and all that it attempts is accomplished. Michael Angelo, dashing off his impetuous thoughts, left much of his work half done (see 790); Perugino worked steadily in the old ways and indeed repeated ideas with so little reflection that, according to Vasari, he was blamed for doing the same thing over and over again. But everything is finished, even to the gilding of single hairs. Notice also the beautiful painting of the fish.[136] Secondly, it is a work in the school of colour, as distinguished from the school of light and shade. "Clear, calm, placid, perpetual vision, far and near; endless perspicuity of space, unfatigued veracity of eternal light, perfectly accurate delineation of every leaf on the trees and every flower in the fields" (notice especially in the foreground the "blue flower fit for paradise" of the central compartment). "There is no darkness, no wrong. Every colour is lovely, and every space is light. The world, the universe, is divine; all sadness is a part of harmony; and all gloom a part of peace." In connection with the lovely blue in the picture (which was painted in 1494-98 for the Certosa of Pavia), one may remember the story told of an earlier picture, how the prior of the convent for which Perugino was painting doled out to him the costly colour of ultramarine, and how Perugino, by constantly washing his brushes, obtained a surreptitious hoard of the colour, which he ultimately restored to shame the prior for his suspicions. Thirdly, in its rendering of landscape, the picture is characteristic of the "purism" of older art as compared with the later "naturalism." "The religious painters impress on their landscape perfect symmetry and order, such as may seem, consistent with the spiritual nature they would represent. The trees grow straight, equally branched on each side, and of slight and feathery frame. The mountains stand up unscathed; the waters are always waveless, the skies always calm."[137] Notice also that the sentiment of the whole picture [Pg 253]is like its landscape; there is no striving, nor crying, no convulsive action; it is all one "pure passage of intense feeling and heavenly light, holy and undefiled, glorious with the changeless passion of eternity—sanctified with shadeless peace." Notice lastly, how in this, as in many sacred compositions, "a living symmetry, the balance of harmonious opposites, is one of the profoundest sources of their power. The Madonna of Perugino in the National Gallery, with the angel Michael on one side and Raphael on the other, is as beautiful an example as you can have" (Elements of Drawing, p. 258). The subject of the right-hand compartment is Raphael and Tobias (for which see 781); that of the left-hand one is "the orderer of Christian warfare, Michael the Archangel; not Milton's 'with hostile brow and visage all inflamed'; not even Milton's in kingly treading of the hills of Paradise; not Raphael's with expanded wings and brandished spear; but Perugino's with his triple crest of traceless plume unshaken in heaven, his hand fallen on his crossleted sword, the truth-girdle binding his undinted armour; God has put his power upon him, resistless radiance is on his limbs; no lines are there of earthly strength, no trace on the divine features of earthly anger; trustful and thoughtful, fearless, but full of love, incapable except of the repose of eternal conquest, vessel and instrument of Omnipotence, filled like a cloud with the victor light, the dust of principalities and powers beneath his feet, the murmur of hell against him heard by his spiritual ear like the winding of a shell on the far-off sea-shore." He is thus armed as the orderer of Christian warfare against evil; in his other character, as lord of souls, he has the scales which hang on a tree by his side (Ariadne Florentina, pp. 40, 265, 266; On the Old Road, i. § 529; Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. § 4; sec. ii. ch. v. § 20.)

[Pg 254]

289. "THE NIGHT WATCH."

This is a copy, on a greatly reduced scale, of the famous picture by Rembrandt (painted in 1642), now in the State-Museum at Amsterdam. It is of interest as showing the pristine condition of its great original, which in the earlier part of the eighteenth century was maltreated on all four sides, and thereby shorn of some of its figures in order to suit the dimensions of a room to which it was at that time removed. The picture had so darkened by time or neglect, that it came to be called "The Night Watch." The real subject is the march out of a company of the Amsterdam Musketeers from their Headquarters' Hall, under the command of their captain, Frans Banning Cocq, who is seen advancing in the centre and giving orders to his lieutenant. The principal figures are all portraits, and the names were written on the back of the picture. Our copy was painted for Cocq himself, and after many vicissitudes reached England at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

290. A MAN'S PORTRAIT (dated 1432).

A portrait of a friend of the artist, for it is inscribed "Leal Souvenir"—and a true recollection it obviously is, and was the more acceptable, one likes to think, for being so. "It is not the untrue imaginary Picture of a man and his work that I want, ... but the actual natural Likeness, true as the face itself, nay, truer in a sense, Which the Artist, if there is one, might help to give, and the Botcher never can" (Carlyle, Friedrich).

291. PORTRAIT OF A GIRL.

Lucas Sunder (or possibly Müller), called Cranach from his native place, was one of the chief of the German painters,—after Dürer, the most famous artist of his day. He was the close friend of Martin Luther, whose features he several times represented. He may indeed be called the painter of the German Reformation, and in his later[Pg 255] works the reformed doctrines receive symbolical illustration. The influences of the Renaissance were also at work in his art, as may be seen in his classical subjects. He was fond also of drawing birds and animals, and he often depicted hunting scenes. These he rendered with a realism of effect which won the admiration of his princely employers. It was, however, as a portrait-painter that he was chiefly employed. His engravings were also very numerous. In the lower left-hand corner of the picture before us, a crowned serpent will be noticed. This was the arms granted to him in 1508 by the Elector of Saxony, and it superseded his initials on all his pictures after that date. Of Cranach's earlier years, little is known. In 1504 he was established at Wittenburg as court-painter to Frederick the Wise, a post which he occupied under the next two Electors as well. He was a man of importance at Wittenburg, for he was twice mayor of the town, and carried on there, besides large art workshops, a book-printing business and an apothecary's shop. He was also employed in diplomatic missions, and when the Elector Frederick the Magnanimous was in captivity at Augsburg, Cranach was instrumental in procuring his release from the Emperor Charles V., whose portrait had in earlier years been taken by our painter.

"His female portraits have a sort of naïve grace that renders them very pleasing. There is one in the National Gallery, of a young girl in elaborate costume, which is entirely characteristic" (Bryan's Dictionary of Painters).

292. MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN.

This picture is expressly ascribed by Vasari to Antonio alone. On the other hand, Albertini, an earlier authority (1510), ascribes it to Piero, the younger brother of Antonio. It is known that many pictures were the joint production of both brothers—Antonio furnishing the design, and Piero putting it into colour. "In the 'St. Sebastian,'" says Sir F. Burton, "we probably have a work so produced; the severe and strenuous drawing of the elder brother, the sculptor and toreuta by profession, is visible throughout; whether he shared in the painting, and if he did, to what extent, may remain an open question."

Antonio Pollajuolo (the "poulterer,"—so called from his grandfather's trade) is an interesting man from two points of view: first, as an instance of the union of the arts in old times; for he was a working goldsmith and engraver as well as a sculptor and painter. He took to painting comparatively late in life, desiring, says Vasari, "for his labour a more enduring memory" than belongs to works of the goldsmith's art; "and his brother Piero being a painter, he joined himself to him for the purpose of learning the modes of proceeding in painting. He acquired a knowledge in the course of a few[Pg 256] months and became an excellent master." He became, indeed, an excellent draughtsman, but "neither harmony of colours nor grace was the strong point of this master" (Morelli's Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 351). In 1484 Antonio was invited to Rome by Pope Innocent VIII., and executed some important monumental works in St. Peter's. His brother died in 1496; Antonio, two years later. The two brothers were buried in S. Pietro in Vincoli, where busts of them may be seen. Antonio is interesting, in the second place, for the developments he introduced into Italian painting. He was one of the first of the Florentines to adopt an oil medium, and the first (says Vasari) who had recourse to the dissection of the dead subject. To him, therefore, Ruskin attributes a baleful influence. "The virtual beginner of artistic anatomy in Italy was a man called 'the poulterer'—Pollajuolo, a man of immense power, but on whom the curse of the Italian mind in this age was set at its deepest. See the horrible picture of St. Sebastian by him in our National Gallery." He was the beginner of those anatomical studies, continues Ruskin, which, pursued and established by later masters, "polluted their work with the science of the sepulchre, and degraded it with presumptuous and paltry technical skill. Foreshorten your Christ, and paint Him, if you can, half-putrefied—that is the scientific art of the Renaissance" (Ariadne Florentina, Appendix IV.).

How popular this "scientific art" was in its day may be seen from the following enthusiastic account which Vasari gives of this picture:—

A remarkable and admirably executed work, with numerous horses, many undraped figures, and singularly beautiful foreshortenings. This picture likewise contains the portrait of St. Sebastian himself, taken from the life—from the face of Gino di Ludovico Capponi, that is. The painting has been more extolled than any other ever executed by Antonio. He has evidently copied nature in this work to the utmost of his power, as we perceive more particularly in one of the archers, who, bending towards the earth, and resting his weapon against his breast, is employing all the force of a strong arm to prepare it for action; the veins are swelling, the muscles strained, and the man holds his breath as he applies all his strength to the effort. Nor is this the only figure executed with care; all the others are likewise well done, and in the diversity of their attitudes give clear proof of the artist's ability and of the labour bestowed by him on his work; all which was fully acknowledged by Antonio Pucci, who gave him three hundred scudi for the picture, declaring at the same time that he was barely paying him for the colours. This work was completed in the year 1475.

The dominant motive in the picture is, it will be seen, interest in the mechanism of the human body; notice especi[Pg 257]ally the muscles of the executioners' legs and their efforts in stretching their bows. There are, however, other points worthy of notice. "The work is not less remarkable for the extent and variety of the landscape, and for the sense of aerial, as distinct from mere linear, perspective. Instead of standing up like a wall behind the figures it appears to recede to the horizon, as in nature. The study of the remains of classical art also is betrayed by the introduction of one of the Roman monumental arches in the background. The groups of soldiers and horses introduced at different distances further attest the variety of the designers' interests" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, 1894, p. 77).

293. VIRGIN AND CHILD: STS. JEROME AND DOMINIC.

Filippo Lippi, the younger (called "Filippino" to distinguish him from his father), was the son of Fra Filippo Lippi (see 666), and the nun, Lucrezia Buti. In his will, Filippino left an annual provision of corn, wine, oil, and other necessaries to his beloved mother Lucrezia, daughter of Francesco Buti. There is perhaps no other case in art-history of father and son attaining such nearly equal excellence as did the two Lippis. Owing to his father's death when Filippino was still a boy, the latter became the pupil of Botticelli, and so good a pupil was he that the critics are often in doubt, as explained in the footnote, to which master to ascribe pictures.[138] The genius of Filippino seems to have been the more gentle, that of Botticelli the more impetuous. The grace and charm of Filippino are nowhere better shown than in the "Vision of St. Bernard," in the church of the Badia at Florence—a [Pg 258]work executed when he was about 23. A copy of it is in the Arundel Society's collection. The pictures in our Gallery which are indubitably by Filippino (namely, this picture and 927), show the same quiet beauty. Filippino was also employed upon important frescoes—in the Branacci Chapel, in Sta Maria Novella, and (at Rome) in Sta Maria Sopra Minerva; in these works he shows great skill in composition, appropriate action, and refined feeling. Filippino lived a busy and a blameless life; and the peace and beauty of his pictures were a reflection of his character. "Having been ever courteous, obliging, and friendly, Filippino was lamented," says Vasari, "by all who had known him, but more particularly by the youth of Florence, his native city; and when his funeral procession was passing through the streets, the shops were closed, as is done for the most part at the funerals of princes only."

This picture is identified by the arms of the Rucellai family below, as the one described by Vasari as "executed in the church of San Pancrazio for the chapel of the Rucellai family." After the suppression of the church, it was removed to the Palazzo Rucellai until it was purchased for the National Gallery.

294. THE FAMILY OF DARIUS.

This picture—"the most precious Paul Veronese," says Ruskin, "in the world"—is, according to another critic, "in itself a school of art, where every quality of the master is seen in perfection—his stately male figures, his beautiful women, his noble dog, and even his favourite monkey, his splendid architecture, gem-like colour, tones of gold and silver, sparkling and crisp touch, marvellous facility of hand and unrivalled power of composition."[139] The glowing colour [Pg 259]is what strikes one first; and next the dignity, life, and ease of the principal persons represented. It is a splendid example too of what the historical pictures of the old masters were. The scene represented is that of the Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great, surrounded by his generals, receiving the submission of the family of the defeated Persian King Darius; but in his treatment of the scene, Veronese makes it a piece of contemporary Venetian life.

"It is a constant law that the greatest men, whether poets or historians, live entirely in their own age.... Dante paints Italy in the thirteenth century; Chaucer, England in the fourteenth; Masaccio, Florence in the fifteenth; Tintoret, Venice in the sixteenth;—all of them utterly regardless of anachronism and minor error of every kind, but getting always vital truth out of the vital present.... Tintoret and Shakespeare paint, both of them, simply Venetian and English nature as they saw it in their time, down to the root; and it does for all time; but as for any care to cast themselves into the particular ways and tones of thought or custom of past time in their historical work, you will find it in neither of them, nor in any other perfectly great man that I know of" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. vii. §§ 19, 20).

[Pg 260]

Thus here Veronese simply paints a group of living Venetians of his time,[140] dog,[141] monkey and all. Alexander, in red armour, is pointing to his friend Hephaestion, who stands a little behind on his left, and whom the captives had at first mistaken for the king. The queen-mother implores his pardon, but Alexander tells her that she has not erred, for that Hephaestion is another Alexander. The principal figures representing these different characters are, however, all contemporary portraits of the Pisani family,[142] it is said, for whom the picture was painted, and in choosing this scene of Alexander in one of his best moments Veronese was expressing his ideal of Venetian nobility and refinement. "The greatest portrait painters," says Ruskin,—"Titian, Veronese, Velazquez, and Raphael,—introduce the most trenchant, clear, and complete backgrounds. Indeed, the first three so rejoiced in quantity of accessories, that, when engaged on important portraits, they would paint large historical pictures merely by way of illustration or introduction. The priceless Veronese, 'The Triumph of Alexander,' was painted only to introduce portraits of the Pisani; and chiefly to set off to the best advantage the face of one fair girl" (Academy Notes, 1857, p. 37). So too the dresses to which the picture owes so much of its splendour, are the Venetian dresses of the period. It may be interesting to remark that something of the magnificence in the picture itself attaches also to the circumstances of its painting. Veronese having been detained by some accident at the Pisani Villa at Este, painted this work there, and left it behind him, sending word that he had left wherewithal to defray the expense of his entertainment. As the Pisani family ultimately [Pg 261]sold it to the National Gallery in 1857 for £13,650, Veronese's words were decidedly made good. It may be interesting to add that the negotiations for its purchase extended over nearly four years. Vast sums had been offered for the picture in former centuries, and within the previous thirty years sovereigns, public bodies, and individuals had all been competing for it.

Some of the fame of the picture is due to its splendid preservation. Rumohr speaks of it as "perhaps the only existing criterion by which to estimate the original colouring of Paul Veronese." "The lakes, for instance, in the crimson cuirass and dress of Alexander, which form such a magnificent feature in the composition, are," says Sir Edward Poynter, "as fresh as when first painted, as, indeed, is the whole picture." James Smetham, in one of his eloquent letters, refers to this work in 1858, in illustration of the enduring qualities of a painter's "flying touches"—touches "destined to live in hours and moments when you have fled beyond all moments into the unembarrassed calm of eternity":—

Paul Veronese, three hundred years ago, painted that bright Alexander, with his handsome, flushed Venetian face, and that glowing uniform of the Venetian general which he wears; and before him, on their knees, he set those golden ladies, who are pleading in pink and violet; and there he is, and there are they, in our National Gallery; he, flushed and handsome—they, golden and suppliant as ever. It takes an oldish man to remember the comet of 1811. Who remembers Paul Veronese, nine generations since? But not a tint of his thoughts is unfixed, they beam along the walls as fresh as ever. Saint Nicholas stoops to the Angelic Coronation (26), and the solemn fiddling of the Marriage at Cana is heard along the silent galleries of the Louvre. ("Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter")—yes, and will be so when you and I have cleaned our last palette, and "in the darkness over us, the four-handed mole shall scrape."

205. OUR SAVIOUR AND THE VIRGIN.

Metsys—whose name appears also in the forms Matsys, Massys, and Messys—was the first of the great Antwerp painters and the last who remained faithful to the traditions of the early Flemish school. The gold background here recalls the earliest Flemish pictures in the Gallery. "He retained," says Sir F. Burton, "the technical method introduced by the Van Eycks, but with a softer and broader handling, and with a wonderfully subtle modelling which gave perfect relief and[Pg 262] rounding without dark shadows." Among the most important monuments of his skill are the large altar-pieces in the public galleries of Brussels and Antwerp respectively. There are in other galleries pictures similar to the two figures here before us. Metsys was also fond of depicting merchants or money-changers counting their gains—a subject imitated by Marinus van Romerswael (see 944). Metsys was a native of Antwerp, and a person of consequence in his native town. A romantic legend was formerly associated with his name. He was, it is said, a locksmith, but became a painter to obtain the consent of his wife's father to his marriage. Hence the inscription—connubalis amor de mulcibre fecit Apellem. But this story, it now appears, belongs to another Metsys, of Louvain. Our painter was twice married. Portraits of himself and his second wife are in the Uffizi at Florence.

These figures are remarkable for their serenity and dignity. Characteristic also is the care lavished on the jewellery and edgings. The figure of our Saviour somewhat resembles the "Salvator Mundi" of Antonella da Messina (673)—the Italian painter who introduced the Flemish influence to his country.

296. THE VIRGIN ADORING THE INFANT CHRIST.

The authorship of this picture and of No. 781, which must be by the same hand, is one of the unsolved problems of art criticism. It has at different times been ascribed to Domenico Ghirlandajo, to Antonio Pollajuolo, to the school of Piero Pollajuolo, to Verrocchio, and to an unknown master in the school of the last-mentioned painter. Sir F. Burton said, "If not by Verrocchio, it must be the work of one of his most distinguished pupils." Sir Edward Poynter says, "This picture has all the characteristics of Andrea del Verrocchio's best work, and is probably by that painter; but the small number of works that can with certainty be ascribed to him renders the attribution uncertain." Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488) was the sculptor of the celebrated equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, than which, says Ruskin, "I do not believe that there is a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. I, § 22). As a painter Verrocchio was for a time the master of Leonardo da Vinci, who painted the figure of an angel in Verrocchio's "Baptism of Christ" (in the Florentine Academy). "This figure," says Vasari (ii. 255), "was so much superior to the other parts of the picture that, perceiving this, Verrocchio resolved never again to take pencil in hand." Whether this be so or not, Verrocchio left an enduring mark[Pg 263] on the art of his time. "He delighted to paint the putto—the infant boy who is just beginning to rejoice in the use of his limbs—and with such a charm did he invest his creations of this kind, whether in sculpture or in painting, that," says Dr. Meyer, "it is not too much to say that he was the creator of that child-type which is so universal in the Italian art of the Cinque-cento." "Verrocchio," says E. Müntz, "is the plastic artist, deeply enamoured of form, delighting in hollowing it out, in fining it down; he has none of the literary temperament of a Donatello, a Mantegna, masters who in order to give expression to the passions that stir them, to realise their ideal, need a vast theatre, numerous actors, dramatic subjects. There is no mise-en-scène, no searching after recondite ideas, with Verrocchio. Most suggestive in spirit, he sowed more than he reaped, and produced more pupils than masterpieces. All there is of feminine, one might almost say effeminate, in Leonardo's art, the delicacy, the morbidezza, the suavity, appear, though often merely in embryo, in the work of Verrocchio" (Leonardo da Vinci, i. 23, 25). The one undoubted picture by Verrocchio is "The Baptism" above referred to. In the St. George's Museum at Sheffield there is a "Madonna Adoring" which has a marked affinity (especially in the Virgin's expression and attitude, and in her peculiar head-dress) to our picture. Ruskin, who purchased it in Venice from the Manfrini collection, ascribed it unhesitatingly to Verrocchio, and called it "a picture of extreme value, which teaches all I want my pupils to learn of art." For an excellent reproduction of it, and for a full discussion both of it and of our picture, the reader should consult Mr. W. White's Principles of Art as illustrated in the Ruskin Museum (pp. 62-83). The angel on the left of this picture resembles the angel in the "Baptism," and the drawing of a head in the Uffizi at Florence by Verrocchio is a study for an angel. Dr. Richter, however, thinks the picture must be ascribed to a pupil of Verrocchio only, for "the artist of the Colleoni monument could not have been guilty of the abnormal extension given to the lower part of the Virgin's body. What should we have to say of the proportions of this figure if she were to rise from her seat?" (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 33). Morelli, on the other hand, on the strength of various technical details, ascribes the picture to Pollajuolo (Italian Masters in German Galleries, pp. 353-355).

This picture, whatever may be its authorship, is certainly one of the most beautiful examples of Florentine art in the second half of the fifteenth century. Of a very individual and fascinating type are the faces of the two angels; their sweet and childlike loveliness will haunt the memory of any visitor who has once studied them. Mr. Monkhouse suggests that they may represent some member of the Medici family: "It is at all events evident that the originals of these beautiful children, however elevated by the refinement of the artist,[Pg 264] belonged to no common stock. Nor can there be any doubt that this extremely elegant type, dainty to a degree unknown before, has a close affinity to the ideal of Leonardo da Vinci." The angels' hands in our picture are also very beautiful, though there is a touch of awkward affectation in the disjointed bend of the little finger in the angel on the left. The spectator will notice further the beautiful embroidery, and the jewelled brooches worn both by this angel and by the Madonna. The child holds a raspberry in one hand, some seeds of which he puts to his lips. The expression of the mother is very beautiful in its serene happiness of worship. Her head-dress is peculiar. "The light golden hair is entirely off the forehead, with but little showing, and is formed into a kind of pad, enclosed in an ornamental veil of thin material, which being tied round upon the top of the head, lightly forms a triangular curved peak upon the forehead, and hangs down gracefully on either shoulder." The entire picture is, as Kugler says, "a work of the most attractive character, from its careful finish, its rich and transparent colour, and its great beauty of expression."

297. THE NATIVITY.

Girolamo Romani was a native of Brescia and the son of a painter; his family belonged originally to the small town of Romano, in the province of Bergamo: hence his name, "Romanino." Like Moretto (whose rival he was), he was little known outside the district of Brescia; but he studied at Venice, where he took Giorgione for his pattern. His best works are remarkable for a brilliant golden colouring, which is unfortunately not conspicuous in this picture. It pervades the fine altar-piece of the "Madonna Enthroned" in S. Francesco at Brescia. Another splendid altar-piece is to be seen in the museum at Padua. Among Romanino's frescoes may be mentioned the lively scenes he executed for the Castle of Malpaga. Copies of these are in the Arundel Society's collection.

Of this altar-piece—painted in 1525 for the church of St. Alessandro at Brescia—Mr. Pater gives the following description: "Alessandro, patron of the church, one of the many youthful patrician converts Italy reveres from the ranks of the Roman army, stands on one side, with ample crimson banner superbly furled about his lustrous black armour; and on the[Pg 265] other—St. Jerome, Romanino's own namesake—neither more nor less than the familiar, self-tormenting anchorite.... But the loveliest subjects are in the corners above—Gaudioso, Bishop of Brescia, above St. Jerome; above Alessandro, St. Filippo Benizzi, meek founder of the order of Servites to which that church at Brescia belonged, with his lily, and in the right hand a book, and what a book!... If you wish to see what can be made of the leaves, the vellum covers of a book, observe that in St. Philip's hands. The metre? the contents? you ask: What may they be? and whence did it come?—Out of embalmed sacristy, or antique coffin of some early Brescian martyr, or, through that bright space of blue Italian sky, from the hands of an angel, like his Annunciation lily, or the book received in the Apocalypse by John the Divine? It is one of those old saints, Gaudioso (at home in every church of Brescia), who looks out with full face from the opposite corner of the altar-piece, from a background which, though it might be the new heaven over a new earth, is in truth only the proper, breathable air of Italy. As we see him here, Saint Gaudioso is one of the more exquisite treasures of our National Gallery. It was thus that, at the magic touch of Romanino's art, the dim, early, hunted-down Brescian church of the primitive centuries, crushed into the dust, it might seem, was 'brought to her king,' out of those old dark crypts, 'in raiment of needlework'—the delicate, richly-folded, pontifical white vestments, the mitre and staff and gloves, and rich jewelled cope, blue or green.[143] The face, of remarkable beauty, after a type which all feel, though it is actually rare in art, is probably a portrait of some distinguished churchman of Romanino's own day: a second Gaudioso, perhaps, setting that later Brescian church to rights after the terrible French occupation in the painter's own time, as his saintly predecessor, the Gaudioso of the earlier century here commemorated, had done after the invasion of the Goths. The eloquent eyes are open upon some glorious vision. 'He hath made us kings and priests!' they seem to say for him, as the clean, sensitive lips might do so eloquently. Beauty and holiness had 'kissed each other,' as in Borgognone's imperial deacons at the Certosa. At the [Pg 266]Renaissance the world might seem to have parted them again. But here certainly, once more, Catholicism and the Renaissance, religion and culture, holiness and beauty, might seem reconciled, by one who had conceived neither after any feeble way, in a gifted person. Here at least, by the skill of Romanino's hand, the obscure martyr of the crypts shines as a saint of the later Renaissance, with a sanctity of which the elegant world itself would hardly escape the fascination, and which reminds one how the great Apostle St. Paul has made courtesy part of the content of the Divine charity itself. A Rubens in Italy!—so Romanino has been called. In this gracious presence we might think that, like Rubens also, he had been a courtier" ("Art Notes in North Italy" in New Review, November 1890).

298. THE TWO ST. CATHERINES.

Ambrogio Borgognone, called also Ambrogio da Fossano, the latter being the name of a town in Piedmont, was born at Milan. "It may have been Ambrogio's grandfather or great-grandfather who left the little Piedmontese town to settle at Milan; one of his ancestors had probably lived some time in Flanders (then called Borgogna by the Italians) and had thus received the surname of Borgognone. Ambrogio, who holds the same central place in the Milanese School of painting as Perugino in that of Perugia, and Francia in that of Bologna, was, according to my view, a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa the elder, and the real master of Bernardino Luini, the Raphael of the Milanese school. He remains in all his works a thorough Lombard" (Morelli's German Galleries, p. 419). The tenderness of feeling in this "Perugino of the Lombard School" is very marked. "The presentment of divine or holy personages, in calm serenity or in resigned suffering, accorded best," says Burton, "with his temperament. Even his colouring partakes of the pervading sentiment; the grey pallor of his heads is only modified, now and then, by the reddened eyelids of sorrow. In the Accademia at Pavia is a small picture, representing Christ bearing his cross, and followed by some Carthusian Brothers, which in simple pathos and deep religious meaning is perhaps without its equal in art." Ambrogio was distinguished as an architect no less than as a painter, and was employed on the façade of the Certosa of Pavia—a view of which building figures in the background of a picture by Ambrogio in our gallery (1410).

For St. Catherine of Alexandria, see under 693; for St. Catherine of Siena, under 249. Each of them was proclaimed the spouse of Christ for the love they bore him.[Pg 267] And Borgognone here places them on either side of the Madonna's throne. "Their names are inscribed on the haloes which surround their heads. The Madonna—an exquisite example of the earlier and purer Lombard type—sits enthroned on a raised seat, which may be compared with that of the Blenheim Madonna and of many other Virgins in our collection. The Child, erect on her knees and short-coated after the earlier wont, is in the very act of placing the ring of His mystic wedding on the timorous hand of St. Catherine of Alexandria. The Saint herself, as the earlier and more famous of the two, stands at the right hand of Our Lady. In her left she grasps the palm of martyrdom. As Princess of Egypt the meek and beautiful lady wears a regal crown. Her long wavy hair, of the type which we usually regard as Leonardesque, but which Leonardo really acquired in Lombardy, is characteristic of this saint, even in pictures of other schools (cf. the Umbrian, No. 646). At her feet lies the wheel, with its conventional hooked spikes, which was the instrument of her torture. On the Madonna's left stands St. Catherine of Siena in her Dominican robes. Her face is pure saintliness—a marvel of beauty; her left hand holds the ascetic white lily of the Dominican order; her right the Madonna takes with a gentle, and one might almost say consolatory gesture. Our Lady seems to comfort her for her less favoured position; and if you look close you will see that the infant Saviour holds in His left hand a second ring, which He extends with childish grace towards the Nun of Siena" (Grant Allen in Pall Mall Magazine, June-December 1895, p. 66).

299. PORTRAIT OF AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN.

In examples of the Brescian, as of the Veronese School, the National Gallery is very rich. "The dialect of the Brescians is very like that of their neighbours of Bergamo, but not so harsh and rugged (see 1203): the character of the people, too, is more lively and frank, more given to show and swagger (Bresciani spacca-cantoni). The Brescians, wedged in between the Veronese and Bergamese, unite, to some extent, the manly energy of the latter with the greater vivacity and pliancy of the former" (Morelli). The foundation of the Brescian School was laid by Vincenzo Foppa (see 729), whose pupil Il Moretto was. It is characteristic of the wide dispersion of the art gift in Italy that this Alessandro Bonvicino, nicknamed "Il Moretto,"—one of the[Pg 268] greatest of portrait painters,—should have belonged entirely to a provincial city. He was born and educated at Brescia, where his father was a merchant; and with the exception of a very few pictures, he painted only for his native town and the province of Brescia, and it is there that nearly the whole work of his life is still to be found. Indeed he was little known beyond the frontiers of the Brescian district, and it is only during the last half century or so that his reputation has arisen. Moretto never studied in Venice; his development and genius are native, and he rivalled Titian himself in the stateliness and dignity of his figures. His altar-pieces are distinguished further by much gravity of feeling and sincerity of unostentatious religious feeling. The picture in our own gallery (625) is a good example. Others are to be found in the churches of his native town and in some foreign galleries. Among the best are the "Coronation of the Virgin" in SS. Nazzaro e Celso, Brescia; "St. Margaret" in S. Francesco, Brescia; "The Feast of the Pharisee," S. Maria della Pietà, Venice; "Madonna and Child," Städel Institute, Frankfort; and "S. Giustina," Belvedere, Vienna. His nickname of "the Blackamoor" is particularly inappropriate to his style, which is distinguished for its silvery tones, "a cool, tender, and harmonious scale of colour which has a peculiar charm, and is entirely his own" (Layard, ii. 577). This harmony of colour, which became characteristic of the Brescian School, may be observed also in his rival, Romanino. Moretto is distinguished not more for his religious subjects than for his portraits, of which we possess two very beautiful specimens in the picture now before us, and in No. 1025. He was the master of another great portrait-painter, Moroni of Bergamo (see 697), and works of the two are often confused. In addition to the charm of his harmonious colouring, Moretto's portraits are remarkable for the dignity he imparts to his subjects. "Moretto," says Morelli, "shows himself the higher artist of the two; his conception of a subject and his drawing are nobler and more elegant than those of his matter-of-fact scholar; but these intellectual qualities, which are not perceptible to every eye, do not always suffice to distinguish his weaker works from Moroni's best. In such cases the only means we have of determining the authorship is an exact and minute examination. The shape and expression of the hand, for instance, are very different in Moroni from what they are in Moretto. The hands of the latter, with pointed fingers, suggestive of the academy, are never so true to nature as those which Moroni can make when he chooses in drawing from life. Moretto's flesh-colours, too, have a delicate silver tone, while Moroni's, with their earth-like tints, are more realistic" (German Galleries, pp. 47-50, 169-171, 396-403).[144]

This painter is conspicuous, says Lanzi (History of Painting [Pg 269]in Italy, Bohn's edition 1847, ii. 181), for his "skill in imitating every kind of velvet, satin, or other cloth, either of gold or silver." His portraits are remarkable, as is noticed under 1025, for their poetic insight. He is not content with producing an obvious likeness in the flesh; he strives at portraying or suggesting some spiritual idea in all his sitters. These characteristics are conspicuous in the present picture. Thus notice, first, the splendid brocades. Then secondly, how the painter tells you not only that this was what the sitter looked like, but what was his character. It is clearly the portrait of some one who combined with an important position the tastes of a dilettante, and who had an aspiring soul. On his cap is a label inscribed ιου λιαν ποθω, which being literally interpreted means "Alas, I desire too much!"—an inscription which accords with the yearning upward gaze and the pose selected by the painter. But the motto has also a punning reference. Reading the two first words as one, it becomes ιουλιαν ποθω, "I desire Julia," or with a further pun on the last word, "Julia Potho." We thus obtain a clue to the identity of the sitter. The Potho or Pozzo family was well known at the time in Brescia. Francesco dal Pozzo, 3rd Marquis of Ponderano (born 1494), had as his first-born a daughter Julia. She became the wife of Giacomo Gromo, Signor di Ternengo, who was a man of official status in Biella in 1539, having to do with the fiscal arrangements of the district. This may be indicated in our picture by the two coins of bronze and gold, and the die or seal. The sandalled foot on the table (an antique lamp?) may indicate his love of antiquities. "It is to be hoped, if our picture be a portrait of Monsignor Giacomo Gromo di Ternengo, that he had not long to wait before he became the devoted husband of Julia Potho, for whom he so yearned, and whose favour he wore in his hat." (W. Fred Dickes in Athenæum, June 3 and Aug. 26, 1893).[145]

[Pg 270]

300. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Some miles north of Venice, in the Friuli, rises the town of Conegliano, which, from its isolated and castled hill, overlooks the plain of Treviso. Cima, whose real name was Giovanni Battista, takes his title in art-history from the "cima," or castled "height," of his native place—a picturesque feature which he introduced, wherever it was at all possible, into his pictures. We see these towers of Conegliano in the present picture; and a window is opened in the large composition, No. 816, in order to give us a glimpse of a similar height. In his love of his native landscape is one of the principal charms of Cima's work. "Morning is his favourite time—morning among the hills; and then and there the painter enjoyed more happiness than any twilight gondola could give him. In our National Gallery are two examples of the Conegliano scenery, but the brilliant daylight that so distinguishes Cima is strangely absent" (Gilbert's Landscape in Art, p. 329). One of his best works is the "St. John the Baptist" in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto, Venice. "He is here painting," says Ruskin, "his name-saint; the whole picture full of peace and intense faith and hope, and deep joy in light of sky and fruit and flower and weed of earth. The picture was painted for the church of Our Lady of the Garden, and it is full of simple flowers, and has the wild strawberry of Cima's native mountains gleaming through the grass.... He has given us the oak, the fig, the beautiful 'Erba della Madonna' on the wall, precisely such a bunch of it as may be seen growing at this day on the marble steps of that very church; ivy, and other creepers, and a strawberry plant in the foreground, with a blossom, and a berry just set, and one half-ripe, and one ripe, all patiently and innocently painted from the real thing, and therefore most divine.... His own Alps are in the distance, and he shall teach us how to paint wild flowers, and how to think of them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 9; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. x. § 5; Oxford Lectures on Art, § 150; Catalogue of the Educational Series, p. 27). The charming landscape and fine colour[Pg 271] of Cima are accompanied by earnestness of religious feeling, and a sense of peace and quiet, unmixed with any ascetism. "The painter," says Ruskin, of another of his pictures, "does not desire the excitement of rapid movement, nor even the passion of beautiful light. But he hates darkness as he does death. He paints noble human creatures simply in clear daylight; not in rapture, nor yet in agony. The unexciting colour will not at first delight you; but its charm will never fail, and you will find that you never return to it but with a sense of relief and of peace.... Cima is not supreme in any artistic quality, but good and praiseworthy in all" (Lectures on Landscape, § 60; Guide to the Academy at Venice, p. 14). Cima is usually reckoned among the disciples of Giovanni Bellini, and is believed at one time to have superintended the workshop of that master.

In the background, on the right, are the towers of Conegliano; on the left, the neighbouring castle of Colalto. There is something very pretty in the way in which the earlier Venetian masters placed their Holy Families in their own fields and amongst their own mountains (compare e.g. the Madonna in the Meadow, No. 599), thus imagining the Madonna and her child not as a far-away sanctity in the sky, but as an actual presence nigh unto them, at their very doors.[146] "There has probably not been an innocent cottage-home throughout the length and breadth of Europe during the whole period of vital Christianity, in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women; and every brightest and loftiest achievement of the arts and strength of manhood has been the fulfilment of the assured prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden, 'He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name'" (Fors Clavigera, 1874, p. 105).

479. THE SUN RISING IN A MIST.

For the circumstances under which this picture by Turner and the "Dido Building Carthage" (498) hang not in the Turner Gallery but beside the Claudes, see under 12.

This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, and belongs therefore to Turner's first period, which was [Pg 272]distinguished by "subdued colour and perpetual reference to precedent in composition." This effect of sunrise in a mist was a favourite one with Dutch painters, and Turner, when he went to the sea-shore, painted it in the Dutch manner. A time was to come when he would paint the sun rising no longer in a mist. Yet from the first, the bent of his own mind was visible in his work. He paints no such ideal futilities as are pointed out above in Claude's picture, but fishermen engaged in their daily toil. One of his father's best friends was a fishmonger, whom he often visited: "which gives us a friendly turn of mind towards herring-fishing, whaling, Calais poissardes, and many other of our choicest subjects in afterlife." He was the painter not of "pastoral indolence or classic pride, but of the labour of men, by sea and land" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix.).

498. DIDO BUILDING CARTHAGE.

From the technical point of view this is not one of Turner's best pictures. It was exhibited in 1815, and belongs therefore to his first period, when he had still not completely exorcised "the brown demon." The picture, says Ruskin, "is quite unworthy of Turner as a colourist," "his eye for colour unaccountably fails him,"[147] and "the foreground is heavy and evidently paint, if we compare it with genuine passages of Claude's sunshine" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 45, sec. ii. ch. i. § 13, ch. ii. § 18).

But there is a noble idea in the picture. Dido, Queen of Carthage, surrounded by her people, and with plans and papers about her, is superintending the building of the city which was to become the great maritime power of the ancient world. "The principal object in the foreground (on the left) is a group of children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as expressive of the ruling passion which was to be the source of future greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is seen,—it has nothing to do with [Pg 273]the technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the intellect as much as the elaborate realisations of colour. Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. sec. i. ch. vii. § 2).

564. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SCENES FROM THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS.

Margaritone, famous in his time (like so many of his successors) for painting, sculpture, and architecture alike, was a native of Arezzo, and was "the last of the Italian artists who painted entirely after the Greek (or Byzantine) manner," from which Cimabue and Giotto were the first to depart.[148] He died at the age of seventy-seven, "afflicted and disgusted (says Vasari) that he had lived to see the changes by which all honours were transferred to new artists." This picture being, according to the critics, the most important and characteristic picture of the artist still remaining, should, therefore, be carefully studied by those who are interested in tracing the history of art. Of the Greek manner, in which art was for so many centuries encased, one may notice, first, that there was no attempt to depict things like life. Art, as the phrase goes, was "symbolic," not "representative." Certain definite symbols, certain definite attitudes, were understood to mean certain things. Just as in earlier Greek painting white flesh, for instance, was taken to denote a woman, black or red flesh a man, so here such and such attitudes were accepted as meaning that the figure in question was the Virgin, and such and such other attitudes that it was the Christ. Secondly, these symbols were all expressive of various dogmas of the Church—of creeds and formulas peculiar to one sect rather than of spiritual truths common to all Christianity.

Both characteristics may be traced in almost every line of this picture. For instance, the humanity of Christ is not yet [Pg 274]even hinted at, his divinity alone being insisted upon. Thus the young God is here represented in the form of a man-child; erect, with the assumed dignity of an adult, as he raises his hand to bless the faithful. With his left hand he holds the roll in which are written the names of the faithful saved: it is as a judge that he comes into the world. The Virgin again is here shown as elect of God to be the mother of God: not as the mother of Jesus, the mother of man's highest humanity. She wears on her head the fleur-de-lys coronet, symbol of purity; and the glory, or aureole, around her represents the acrostic symbol of the fish, the Greek word for fish containing the initials of the several Greek words meaning "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." Outside this "Vesica" (or "fish glory"), in the four corners, are four Jewish symbols (Ezekiel i. 10), adopted as emblems of the four Evangelists—the Angel (St. Matthew), the Ox (St. Luke), the Lion (St. Mark), and the Eagle (St. John). So again, in the scenes on either side of the central piece we see the same gloomy theology, in which the world is thought of solely as a place made hideous with evils, where saints are boiled by pagans, women slain by seducers, children devoured by dragons. By help of such pictured deeds of hell, men were taught by the early Church to "loathe this base world and think of heaven's bliss." The first subject (on the spectator's left) represents the birth of Christ in a cattle-shed; the second St. John the Evangelist, calm midst the cauldron of seething oil, the martyr's uplifted hand expressing the precept, "Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." The third subject depicts in a rude symbolic way incidents in the life of St. Catherine—her beheading, her soul's reception by angels, and the burial of her body by two angels on Mount Sinai. The fourth subject shows St. Nicolas appearing suddenly to some sailors, whom he exhorts to throw overboard a vase given by the devil. In the fifth is St. John resuscitating the body of Drusiana, a matron who had lived in his house previous to his departure, and whose bier he had chanced to meet on his return to Ephesus. In the next subject St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order, is shown in the act of throwing himself into a thicket of briars and nettles, as he rushes from his cave to rid himself of the recollection of a beautiful woman he had once met in Rome, and whose image now tempts him to leave his chosen solitude. In the seventh, St. Nicolas[Pg 275] liberates three innocent men; and in the eighth is represented St. Margaret, patron saint of women in childbirth, whom the devil in the form of a dragon confronts to terrify into abnegation of her Christian faith. Unable to persuade her, he devours her, but bursts in the midst, and by power of the Cross she emerges unhurt. It is interesting to observe that the two consecutive acts are here shown as co-existent: a thing frequently done, as we have seen, in early art. Finally, another characteristic feature is the introduction of the "grotesque" in the animals that support the throne as a relief from the strained seriousness of the rest of the picture (A. H. Macmurdo in Century Guild Hobby Horse, i. 21-28).

The picture, signed by the painter, was an altar-front in the church of Santa Margherita at Arezzo. It is painted in tempera on linen cloth attached to wood, and even in Vasari's day its preservation was deemed remarkable. "It comprises," he says, "many small figures, of better manner than those of larger size, designed with more grace and finished with greater delicacy; and this work deserves consideration, not only because the little figures are so carefully done that they look like miniatures, but also for the extraordinary fact that a picture on canvas should have continued in such good preservation during 300 years" (i. 89).

565. THE MADONNA AND CHILD.

Giovanni Cenni, called Cimabue, has been called the "Father of Modern Painting." He imitated the Byzantine style, says Vasari, but "improved the art and relieved it greatly from its uncouth manner." He did not entirely free himself from the dismal formalism of his predecessors, but he infused new life into the old traditional types. A contemporary of his was Niccola Pisano, whose work in the allied art of sculpture shows a more marked advance, and who perhaps really gave the new impulse which art received at this period—an impulse carried on in the field of painting by Cimabue's pupil, Giotto. Niccola Pisano, says Ruskin, "is the Master of Naturalism in Italy,—therefore elsewhere: of Naturalism and all that follows" (Val d'Arno, § 16). Well-authenticated pictures by Cimabue are the Madonna panel with angels in the Academy at Florence (formerly in the church of SS. Trinita), and the colossal Madonna still in the Rucellai chapel in S. Maria Novella. The latter is the picture of which the well-known story, referred to below, is told. Our picture, which is also mentioned by Vasari, was[Pg 276] originally attached to a pilaster in the choir of S. Croce.[149] Cimabue also executed some of the frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi: and at the time of his death was occupied on the mosaics in the tribune of the Duomo at Pisa. Copies of Cimabue's frescoes may be seen in the Arundel Society's Collection.

The changes which Cimabue introduced into the art of painting were twofold. In the first place, his pictures show an increase of pictorial skill. This picture has suffered much from time. Thus in the Madonna's face, which was originally laid in green and painted over thinly, time and restorations have removed this over-painting, and left the green exposed (see also Duccio's 566). The green and purple of her dress also have changed into a dusky tone; but even so, the advance in pictorial skill may be seen in the shading of the colours, and the attempt to represent the light and dark masses of the drapery, whereas in earlier pictures the painters had been content with flat tints. But the advance made by Cimabue was even more in spirit than in technical skill. He combined the contemplation of the South with the action of the North. He gave the populace of his day something to look at—and something to love. "Is she not beautiful," asks a critic before this picture, "in simplicity and solemn majesty? Is she not a real mother with a half sad and foreboding wistful look that goes straight to the heart?" Cimabue's Madonna is still a Mater Dolorosa—"our Lady of Pain," but there is an attempt alike in her and in the child, and in the attendant angels, to substitute for the conventional image of an ideal personage the representation of real humanity. It was this change that explains the story told of one of Cimabue's works, that it was carried in glad procession, with the sound of trumpets, from his house to the church, and that the place was ever afterwards called "Borgo Allegro" (the joyful quarter)—a name which it bears to this day. "This delight was not merely in the revelation of an art they had not known how to practise; it was delight in the revelation of a Madonna whom they had not known how to love" (Mornings in Florence, ii. 48). In telling this story, Vasari adds that "they had not seen anything better"; the rudeness and quaintness which are all that at first sight are now discernible would then, it must be remembered, have been unseen. We may recall the poet's protest against those who,

[Pg 277]

566. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Duccio, the son of Buoninsegna, did much the same for the Sienese School as Cimabue and Giotto did for the Florentine. He was the first, that is to say, who, forsaking partly the conventional manner of the Byzantine School, endeavoured to give some resemblance to nature, and in religious subjects to bring down heaven to earth. "He retained the ancient formulas, destroying, however, their formalism by the inspiration of new life." The development of Sienese art under his influence was parallel to, yet distinct from, that in Florence. "His feeling is quite distinct; his pure, sweet, transparent colouring is his own; his type of beauty more graceful and more classical, and he loved more gentle curves, more oval faces and longer limbs. In these things he followed his own temperament, and by so doing determined the characteristics of the Sienese School" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 17). In 1285 Duccio was commissioned to paint a large Madonna for the church of S. Maria Novella at Florence. In 1308 he began the execution of his Maestà for the cathedral of Siena, of which some portions are now in the transept and others in the Opera del Duomo. The revelation that Duccio made of the new power of art was received, as was Cimabue's, with rapturous applause, and a portion of the famous picture just referred to was in 1310 carried in procession on a beautiful day in June to the Cathedral amidst the ringing of bells and the sounding of trumpets; the magistrates, clergy, and religious orders escorting it, followed by a multitude of citizens with their wives and families, praying as they went: the shops were closed and alms distributed to the poor. For that masterpiece Duccio received 16 soldi (8d.) the working day, paid to him in monthly instalments. The city, however, found him his materials, which, owing to the quantity of gold used (see 1139), raised the whole cost to 3000 gold florins. Works by Duccio are a speciality of the National Gallery, which has four of them to show, 566, 1139, 1140, and 1330. The present picture is the most important, and best illustrates the new departure made by Duccio.

The young Christ, for instance, instead of being depicted in the act of priestly benediction (as in 564), is shown as a true babe, drawing aside the veil that hides his Mother's face. In this little incident one may thus see the tendency which was to lead to the representation of the Mother and Child as a Holy Family (the spectator must have "charity of imagina[Pg 278]tion" to ignore the green hue of the Madonna's face, for reasons stated under 565). "A conception like this of the Infant Saviour is not met with, so far as I know, in the whole range of Byzantine art from the fifth century onwards. The relation of the Child to his mother, as here represented, the gesture of childlike love, contrasting with the expression of melancholy in her face, which, perhaps, constitutes the principal charm of the picture—is an innovation. This motive does not occur in the work of Niccola Pisano, the great sculptor who had executed a famous work in the cathedral of Siena some twenty years previously. We find it, however, in contemporary Gothic sculpture of France; a very characteristic example is in the South Kensington Museum, a charming little ivory of the Madonna standing with the Child in her arms" (Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 18). Above are seen the prophets, headed by David their king, while on either side St. Catherine[150] and St Dominic adore the vision of the mother of God. The Byzantine influence, on the other hand, may be seen in the Greek type of feature and long, slender fingers.

567. CHRIST ON THE CROSS.

A ghastly and conventional work by one of the early Sienese painters—a pupil of Duccio.

568. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

Giotto di Bondone—great alike as a painter, a sculptor, and an architect—was the son of a shepherd in the country near Florence. One day when he was drawing a ram of his father's flock with a stone [Pg 279]upon a smooth piece of rock, Cimabue (see 565) happened to be passing by, and, seeing the lad's natural bent, carried him off to be a painter. Cimabue taught him all he knew, and in time the pupil eclipsed his master. Dante mentions this as an instance of the vanity of Fame: "Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, but now Giotto has the cry." But another poet holds

That Cimabue smiled upon the lad At the first stroke which passed what he could do, Or else his Virgin's smile had never had Such sweetness in't. All great men who foreknew Their heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad.

Mrs. Browning: Casa Guidi Windows.

The earliest examples of his work extant are the frescoes forming the lower range in the Upper Church at Assisi. His frescoes of the virtues in the Lower Church are believed to belong to a later period. So great was his fame that in 1298 he was sent for to do some work for the Pope. It was for him that Giotto sent as his testimonial the famous circle drawn with a brush, without compasses. "You may judge my masterhood of craft," Giotto tells us, "by seeing that I can draw a circle unerringly." (Hence the saying, "rounder than the O of Giotto.") After a short time in Rome, Giotto returned to Florence and painted the chapel of the Podestà, or Bargello, of Florence, which was rescued from destruction in 1841. Some of Giotto's work in it was restored. Here is his famous portrait of Dante (traced previous to restoration and published by the Arundel Society). To a later period belong his frescoes in the church of Santa Croce. In 1303 Giotto was called to decorate the walls of the chapel of the Annunziata dell' Arena at Padua. This he did with a series of compositions which are the greatest monument of his genius. It was during the execution of this work that Dante visited Padua, being entertained by his friend the painter. "Thus went Giotto, a serene labourer, throughout the length and breadth of Italy. He engaged himself in other tasks at Ferrara, Verona, and Ravenna, and at last at Avignon, where he became acquainted with Petrarch. Then passed rapidly through Florence and Orvieto on his way to Naples, where he received the kindest welcome from the good King Robert. The King, ever partial to men of mind and genius, took especial delight in Giotto's society; and Giotto (says Vasari), who had ever his repartee ready, held him fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue. Returning to Florence, Giotto was appointed chief master of the works of the Duomo then in progress. He designed the Campanile, modelled the bas-relief for the base of the building, and sculptured two of them with his own hand. He died full of honour and at the zenith of his strength. He was buried in the cathedral, at the angle nearest his campanile; and thus the tower, which is the chief grace of his native city, may be regarded as his own sepulchral monument." Only those who have[Pg 280] seen Giotto's wall paintings at Assisi, Padua, and Florence can form any true conception of his greatness. It is pointed out below in what respects his work was remarkable and important for his time. It has also an abiding value in itself. "In nine cases out of ten," says Ruskin, "the first expression of an idea is the most valuable: the idea may afterwards be polished and softened, and made more attractive to the general eye; but the first expression of it has a freshness and brightness, like the flash of a native crystal compared to the lustre of glass that has been melted and cut. Giotto was not, indeed, one of the most accomplished painters, but he was one of the greatest men who ever lived. He was the first master of his time, in architecture as well as in painting; he was the friend of Dante, and the undisputed interpreter of religious truth, by means of painting, over the whole of Italy. The works of such a man may not be the best to set before children in order to teach them drawing; but they assuredly should be studied with the greatest care by all who are interested in the history of the human mind" (Giotto and his Works in Padua). Copies of many of his works are in the Arundel Society's Collection.

It was Cimabue who first attempted to represent action as well as contemplation. Giotto went farther, and represented the action of daily life. "Cimabue magnified the Maid; and Florence rejoiced in her Queen. But it was left for Giotto to make the queenship better beloved, in its sweet humiliation." This picture is not by the master himself, but it is characteristic—in its greater naturalness and resemblance to human life—of Giotto's work. Cimabue's picture (565) is felt in a moment to be archaic beside it. Giotto is thus the first painter of domestic life—the "reconciler of the domestic with the monastic ideal, of household wisdom, labour of love, toil upon earth according to the law of Heaven, with revelation in cave or island, with the endurance of desolate and loveless days, with the repose of folded hands that wait Heaven's time." The corresponding development in the direction of greater naturalness which Giotto—himself a country lad brought up amongst the hills and fields—introduced in the art of landscape painting cannot, unfortunately, be illustrated from the National Gallery (see on this point Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, ch. iii.). But a third development—the introduction, namely, of portraiture—is well seen in the Heads of St. John and St. Paul (276), a work in which Giotto's influence is very marked. There is no longer a mere adoption of conventional types: these apostles are individual portraits. "Before Cimabue, no beautiful rendering of human form was possible; and the rude or formal types of the Lombard and[Pg 281] Byzantine, though they would serve in the tumult of the chase, or as the recognised symbols of creed, could not represent personal and domestic character. Faces with goggling eyes and rigid lips might be endured, with ready help of imagination, for gods, angels, saints, or hunters—or for anybody else in scenes of recognised legend; but would not serve for pleasant portraiture of one's own self, or of the incidents of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue did not venture to leave the sphere of conventionally reverenced dignity. He still painted—though beautifully—only the Madonna, and the St. Joseph, and the Christ. These he made living—Florence asked no more: and 'Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo.' But Giotto came from the field; and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And he painted the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ,—yes, by all means, if you choose to call them so, but essentially,—Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its cap—'ora ha Giotto il grido' (now Giotto has the cry)." A fourth development which the art of painting owes to Giotto may be well seen in this picture. Notice the pretty passages of colour, as, for instance, in the dresses of the angels. "The Greeks had painted anything anyhow,—gods black, horses red, lips and cheeks white; and when the Etruscan vase expanded into a Cimabue picture, or a Tafi mosaic, still—except that the Madonna was to have a blue dress, and everything else as much gold on it as could be managed—there was very little advance in notions of colour. Suddenly Giotto threw aside all the glitter, and all the conventionalism; and declared that he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white, and angels, when he dreamed of them, rosy. And he simply founded the schools of colour in Italy" (Mornings in Florence, pt. ii.).

569. AN ALTAR-PIECE.

"From the time of Giotto to the end of the 14th century Orcagna stands quite pre-eminent even among the many excellent artists of that time. In sculpture he was a pupil of Andrea Pisano; in painting, though indirectly, a disciple of Giotto. Few artists have practised with such success so many branches of the arts. Orcagna was not only a painter and a sculptor, but also a worker in mosaic, an architect and a poet. His importance in the history of Italian art rests not merely on his numerous and beautiful productions, but also on his widespread[Pg 282] influence, transmitted to his successors through a large and carefully trained school of pupils. In style as a painter Orcagna comes midway between Giotto and Fra Angelico; he combined the dramatic force and realistic vigour of the earlier painting with the pure brilliant colour and refined unearthly beauty of Fra Angelico. His large fresco paintings are works of extreme decorative beauty and splendour, composed with careful reference to their architectural surroundings" (Middleton). His real name was Andrea di Cione, but he was called by his contemporaries Orcagna, a corruption of Arcagnuolo, the Archangel. "An intense solemnity and energy in the sublimest groups of his figures, fading away as he touches inferior subjects, indicates that his home was among the archangels, and his rank among the first of the sons of men" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 8). Orcagna's father was a goldsmith, and the result of his early training in the use of the precious metals may be traced in the extreme delicacy and refined detail of his principal works in sculpture. He used to note his union of the arts by signing his pictures "the work of ... sculptor," and his sculptures "the work of ... painter." As a sculptor and architect, the principal work of Orcagna is the church of Or San Michele at Florence. The great marble tabernacle is "one of the most important and beautiful works of art which even Italy possesses." Vasari also attributes to his design the Loggia dei Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria, but this attribution cannot be upheld. As a painter, the chief works of Orcagna are the frescoes in the Strozzi chapel in S. Maria Novella. The "Paradise" is the finest of these compositions—a work full both of grace and of majesty. These frescoes were executed in 1350. In 1357 Orcagna painted the altar-piece in the same chapel, and of about the same date is the altar-piece now before us. The grand frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa ascribed by Vasari to Orcagna are now attributed to other hands.

"In San Piero Maggiore," says Vasari in his life of Orcagna, "he executed a rather large picture, the 'Coronation of the Virgin.'" This is the picture now before us. The principal portion is numbered 569. The other nine pictures (570-578) were originally portions of the same magnificent piece of decoration. A model of the church for which it was painted is held by St. Peter (among the saints adoring on the spectator's left). This altar-piece, though a handsome piece of church furniture, is not so favourable a specimen of the master's power as are the works referred to above. Nevertheless these panels are full of varied interest.

A certain quaint uncouthness should not blind us to Orcagna's wealth of expressive detail. Thus, "in the sensitive cast of the Mother's countenance, and in the refined pose of her figure,[Pg 283] there is a rare degree of eloquence, such as silently bespeaks a modesty which would shun, a humility which would disallow, any sort of self-adornment. Her Lord, to whose will she submits herself, is no less monumental in dignity of combined power and tenderness. And in the celestial band below, in the maidens that play and sing at the Mother's feet, despite their quaint little almond eyes, there is a naïveté of expression, a simplicity and animation unequalled at so early a date. In particular she who, singing behind the harpist, generously spends her soul in impassioned songs, while others, agreeable to nature's truth, are singing regardless of their song, interested only in what is around. Again, in that dual company of holy men and women sitting about the throne, reverence stills every feature, and a saintly singleness of purpose keeps each eye as they look in loving adoration on Him whose dying bought their soul's salvation, or as they lean towards Her whose human heart petitioned them to Paradise" (A. H. Macmurdo in Century Guild Hobby Horse, ii. 34). In the Hobby Horse (a different publication, No. 1, 1893), a musical expert calls attention to the instruments shown by Orcagna. Thus "in the central compartment note the portative organ, at that time in familiar use, with its gimlet-shaped keys all of one light colour, and apparently, even in that early date, chromatic in disposition. Five large drone pipes may be recognised, from their being out of scale with the melody pipes. The second instrument in the angelic band is the mediæval harp, the comb holding the wrest, or tuning, pins being held here in an animal's mouth. A third angel is furnished with a cither, also a favourite mediæval instrument. It is ornamented in ebony and ivory, and has a plectrum guard inserted in the belly, as in a modern mandoline. The fourth angel has a viol of a clumsy form; it took another 200 years to arrive at the graceful outline of the violin. The fifth has a psaltery. One angel has a bagpipe; the chaunter or melody pipe has eight holes, the same number the highland bagpipe has now." Variations of these instruments may be noted in the subordinate pictures (A. J. Hipkins). An expert in another art calls attention to the beauty of the patterns on the dresses of the central figures, on the ground upon which the angels kneel and stand, and also on the stuff hung at the back of the throne (Sydney Vacher: Italian Ornaments from brocades and stuffs found in pictures in the National Gallery).

[Pg 284]

570-2. THE TRINITY, WITH ANGELS ADORING.

Orcagna (part of the altar-piece, 569).

One may notice here one of Orcagna's limitations. "He was unable to draw the nude. On this inability followed a coldness to the value of flowing lines, and to the power of unity in composition; neither could he indicate motion or buoyancy in flying or floating figures" (On the Old Road, i. § 78). Compare especially the flying angels in the two little pictures 571 and 572, with such figures as those by Botticelli (1034), and it will be seen at once how inferior Orcagna's knowledge was.

573-5. THE NATIVITY, ADORATION, AND RESURRECTION.

Orcagna (part of the altar-piece, 569).

These panels are very rude and "conventional": nothing can be more absurd, for instance, than the sleeping sheep and shepherds at the top of the Nativity; but they are interesting, if only by comparison with later pictures of the same subjects. Such a comparison shows how constant the traditional ways of representing these events were, and how individual choice was shown in beautifying the traditions. From this point of view the Nativity is specially interesting. "This beautiful little picture," says Mr. Hodgson, R.A., "is a good example of the simplest and most perfectly symbolical treatment of the subject. In design and composition the painter has thought only how to convey the story with the utmost clearness and simplicity. It is what it was intended to be, a Scripture story made visible to those who could not read. Naturalism, i.e. the actual representation of the aspect of nature, is not thought of, no more at least than was necessary to make the meaning of the painted symbol equivalent to that of the word: rock for rock, ox for ox, and ass for ass. The degree of naturalism aimed at in such scenes can be tested pretty accurately by the treatment of the nimbus. A flat circular expanse of gold inserted into a picture must necessarily be destructive of all illusion—it is treated as a symbol, a thing non-existent, but as a necessary traditional observance. When naturalism was aimed at, the nimbus was looked upon as an actual existing corona of golden light which[Pg 285] the saint carried about with him, and it was drawn in perspective, according to the turn of his head" (Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 39). Turn next to the Nativity by Piero della Francesca (908)—a picture painted 100 years later. The symbolism is already mixed up with some conscious striving after objects beautiful in themselves. To a generation later still belongs Botticelli's "Nativity" (1034). It is full, as we shall see, of doctrinal symbolism, but it strikes the imagination also by the pomp and pageantry of the angelic host, and appeals to the senses by its flowing lines and gorgeous colourings. Yet in all these pictures of the Nativity there are certain fixed elements. One feature never absent is the introduction of the ox and the ass, suggested by a text from Habakkuk, iii. 4, "He shall lie down between the ox and the ass." A second point is that Joseph "sits apart, apparently weary or in meditation. Great care seems to have been taken to suggest that he in a certain sense held aloof, and was no participator in the interest of the scene; it was feared, perhaps, that were he to exhibit joy and surprise, it might convey the idea of paternity; he is always a mere impassive spectator." The scene of the Nativity is in the earliest pictures always represented as a cavern; a grotto at Bethlehem is to this day revered as the actual spot. In Margaritone's picture (564) we have a bare cave in the rock. In Orcagna's the cave remains, but a wooden portico or shed is added to shelter the Virgin and her Child. Next the cave disappears altogether, but the shed remains (e.g. 908, 1034).

The Adoration of the Magi (574) was a favourite subject with the Italian painters, for the three kings and their attendants gave them an excuse for the most elaborate and picturesque detail. In the picture before us Orcagna was restricted by the size and shape of the panel; but even making the necessary allowances on this score, we see that we have here a relatively simple treatment of the theme. Orcagna finds room, however, for "a perfect menagerie. There are the sheep, with a howling dog above; and below, an evil, badger-like dog, evidently much ashamed of himself and his deeds, is sneaking along into a hole in the rock. As for the amiable ox sitting upon his haunches, with his tail turned round like a cat's, and the shy ass, showing the whites of his eye: are they not delightful beauties?" (The Beasts of the National Gallery, by Sophia Beale, in Good Words, July 1895). For the rest,[Pg 286] Orcagna's "Adoration" is limited to the necessary characters. By way of contrast, look at Filippino Lippi's (1033), in which some seventy figures are introduced, and the whole picture is alive with gay colours and picturesque incident. Other representations of the same subject in our Gallery are by Fra Angelico (582), Foppa (729), Dossi (640), Peruzzi (167), and Veronese (268). A study of similarities and differences in these various examples will disclose an immense number of coincidences. The type survives, but each feature is the subject of elaborate variations.

576. THE THREE MARIES AT THE SEPULCHRE.

Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome stand beside the vacant tomb (Mark xvi. 1); on the opposite side are two angels: "he is risen, he is not here, behold the place where they laid him." This subject, common with the earliest painters, is afterwards seldom met with.

577. THE ASCENSION.

This was a subject in which Giotto made a new departure. None of the Byzantine or earliest Italian painters ventured to introduce the entire figure of Christ in this scene. They showed the feet only, concealing the body; according to the text, "a cloud received Him out of their sight." This form of representation may be seen in some manuscripts in the British Museum. In the Arena at Padua, Giotto broke away from this tradition and introduced the entire figure of Christ; succeeding also in conveying the idea of ascending motion very skilfully. Orcagna's picture is modelled on the new type fixed by Giotto.

578. THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

The descent of the Holy Spirit is represented above; and below, the multitude confounded, every man hearing his own language.

[Pg 287]

579. THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

In the centre is John the Baptist, baptizing Christ; on the left St. Peter, on the right St. Paul. In the pictures for the predella (the step on the top of the altar, thus forming the base of the altar-piece) is a saint at either end; and then, on the left, (1) the angel announcing the Baptist's birth, (2) his birth, (3) his death, (4) Herod's feast, and (5) Herodias with John the Baptist's head in a charger. The picture must have been the work of an inferior scholar; but it is interesting to notice that this attempt to tell a consecutive story in his picture, as in an epic poem, instead of a fastening on some one turning-point in it, as in a drama, is characteristic of early art (see under 1188). Notice further in the central picture "how designedly the fish in the water are arranged: not in groups, as chance might rule in the actual stream, but in ordered procession. All great artists ... have shown this especial delight in ordering the relations of self-set details" (A. H. Macmurdo in Century Guild Hobby Horse, i. 71).

579a. PARTS OF AN ALTAR-PIECE.

These three panels formed the cuspidi of the Baptism of Christ (579). In the centre is the Almighty, on the left the Virgin, on the right Isaiah, holding a scroll with the words (in Latin), "Behold a virgin shall conceive."

580, 580a and b. THE ASCENSION OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST.

Jacopo Landini (Florentine: about 1310-1390).

Jacopo Landini was born at Prato Vecchio, in the Casentino; whence his common designation, Jacopo da Casentino. This picture was formerly in the Church of St. John at the painter's native place. He was a pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, and the master of Spinello Aretino.

Another of the altar-pieces (cf. 579, above), which aimed at giving the whole story of some subject, and thus recall the time when sacred pictures were (as it has been put) a kind of "Scripture Graphic." In the predella pictures (580b) are, on[Pg 288] the left, (1) St. John distributing alms and baptizing, (2) his vision of Revelation in the island of Patmos, (3) his escape from the cauldron of boiling oil; and then, as the subject of the principal picture, his ascension to heaven, for, "according to the Greek legend, St. John died without pain or change, and immediately rose again in bodily form and ascended into heaven to rejoin Christ and the Virgin." In the central picture, Mr. Gilbert finds "a glimpse of true landscape feeling in the brown platform of rock, carefully gradated in aerial perspective, in the colouring, coarse though it be, and especially in the long dark sea-line beyond" (Landscape in Art, p. 184). In the other small pictures and in the pilasters are various saints, and immediately over the central picture are (1) the gates of hell cast down, (2) Christ risen from the dead, (3) the donor of the picture and his family, being presented by the two St. Johns. Of the cuspidi, or upper pictures (580a), the centre piece is a symbolic representation of the Trinity (seen best on a large scale in 727); at the sides are the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation, divided as explained under 1139.

581. A GROUP OF SAINTS.

Spinello di Luca Spinelli is commonly called Spinello Aretino, from Arezzo, his native town. As is the case with most of the early Tuscan painters, he is seen to greater advantage in his frescoes than in his panel pictures. Some fragments of frescoes by him are in our Gallery (1216). Important frescoes may be seen in the sacristy of S. Miniato above Florence (the life of St. Benedict); in the Campo Santo at Pisa (the histories of SS. Efeso and Potito); and in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena (scenes in the life of Pope Alexander III.). Spinello "represents the spirit of Giotto at the close of the fourteenth century better than any other painter of the time." He belonged to a family of goldsmiths. It is interesting to note on an altar-piece executed by him for Monte Oliveto (now in the Gallery of Siena), that the names of the carver and gilder of the frame are inscribed as conspicuously as that of Spinello the painter of the picture. He was the pupil of Jacopo di Casentino.

Certainly not an adequate, and perhaps not an authentic, specimen of the master. The saints are St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and St. James the Greater.

[Pg 289]

582. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

For the subject see notes on No. 574. Angelico's picture is remarkable for the picturesque and sparkling costumes. "The art of Angelico," says Ruskin, "both as a colourist and a draughtsman, is consummate; so perfect and beautiful, that his work may be recognised at any distance by the rainbow play and brilliancy of it. However closely it may be surrounded by other works of the same school, glowing with enamel and gold, Angelico's may be told from them at a glance, like so many pieces of opal lying among common marbles" (Stones of Venice, vol. i. app. 15).

683. THE ROUT OF SAN ROMANO.

This painter was originally brought up as a goldsmith, and was one of the assistants of Lorenzo Ghiberti in preparing the first pair of the celebrated gates of the Baptistery. It is doubtful with whom he learnt to paint. He introduced new enthusiasms and interests into the art, as explained below in the notes on this picture. The majority of his works have perished. He was employed principally in Florence, where frescoes by him may be seen in one of the cloisters of S. Maria Novella. At Padua he also executed some works which are said by Vasari to have been greatly admired by Andrea Mantegna. Other works by him are referred to below. The present picture is, however, the most attractive of his extant productions. He seems to have been a man of original character, and Vasari's life of him is very good reading. The biographer's statement about his poverty seems to be exaggerated, for documents exist showing that he lived in a house which he had purchased.

A picture of great interest in itself, both from a technical and from a moral point of view, and also deserving of note in the history of painting. (1) It shows the beginning of scientific "perspective" (i.e. the science of representing the form and dimensions of things as they really look, instead of as we conceive them by touch or measurement to be); the painter is pleased with the new discovery, and sets himself, as it were, the hardest problem in perspective he can find. Note the "foreshortening" of the figure on the ground (objects are said to be "foreshortened" when viewed so that we see their[Pg 290] breadth, and not their length—for example, the leg of Titian's Ganymede in No. 32). So devoted was Paolo to his science that he became (says Vasari) more needy than famous. His wife used to complain to her friends that he sat up all night studying, and that the only answer she ever got to her remonstrances was, "What a delightful thing is this perspective!" The sculptor Donatello is also said to have remonstrated with our painter: "Ah, Paolo, with this perspective of thine, thou art leaving the substance for the shadow." Paolo was fond, too, of geometry, which he read with Manetti. He had another and a softer passion: he was so fond of birds that he was called Paul of the Birds ("Uccelli"—his family name being Paolo di Dono), and he had numbers of painted birds, cats, and dogs in his house, being too poor to keep the living creatures. (2) This picture is remarkable, secondly, as the earliest Italian work in the Gallery containing portraits, and the first which endeavours to represent a contemporary event.

Our picture has hitherto been supposed to represent the battle of Sant' Egidio (1417) in which Carlo Malatesta and his nephew Galeazzo were taken prisoners by Braccio di Montone, lord of Perugia. Other battle-pieces belonging to the same series are in the Uffizi and the Louvre respectively; and it has been shown by Mr. Herbert P. Horne (Monthly Review, October, 1901) that these are the three pictures of the "Rout of San Romano," painted by Uccello for the palace of Cosimo de' Medici, as described in an inventory of 1492. The principal figure is Niccolo Maurucci da Tolentino, the leader of the Florentine forces, directing the attack against the Sienese at San Romano in 1432. "He is represented on horseback fully armed, except for his helmet, with the baton of command in his right hand. He wears on his head a rich cappuccio, or head-dress, of gold and purple damask; while his bascinet, covered with purple velvet, is carried by his helmet-bearer, who rides by his side [the 'young Malatesta' of previous descriptions]. Above the figure of Tolentino waves his standard powdered with his impress, the 'groppo di Salomone,' a knot of curious and intricate form, in a white field." The impress may be seen again, as Mr. Horne points out, in the memorial portrait of Tolentino by Andrea del Castagno in the Cathedral of Florence.

From the moral point of view, we may see in this picture, says Ruskin, what a gentleman's view of war is, as distinguished from a boor's, with mean passion and low fury on every face.[Pg 291] "Look at the young Malatesta,[151] riding into the battle of Sant' Egidio. His uncle Carlo, the leader of the army, a grave man of about sixty, has just given orders for the knights to close: two have pushed forward with lowered lances, and the mêlée has begun only a few yards in front; but the young knight, riding at his uncle's side, has not put his helmet on, nor intends doing so yet. Erect he sits, and quiet, waiting for his captain's order to charge; calm as if he were at a hawking party, only more grave; his golden hair wreathed about his proud white brow, as about a statue's" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii. § 9). Another point to notice is the type this picture affords of "the neglect of the perfectness of the earth's beauty, by reason of the passions of men. The armies meet on a country road beside a hedge of wild roses; the tender red flowers tossing above their helmets, and glowing between the lowered lances." In like manner, adds Ruskin, in the Middle Ages, when men lived for safety in walled cities, "the whole of Nature only shone for man between the tossing of helmet-crests; and sometimes I cannot but think of the trees of the earth as capable of a kind of sorrow, in that imperfect life of theirs, as they opened their innocent leaves in the warm spring-time, in vain for men; and all along the dells of England her beeches cast their dappled shade only where the outlaw drew his bow, and the king rode his careless chase" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. vi. ch. i. § 6).

585. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

This picture has been dethroned by Sir Edward Poynter from the high estate which it occupied in the catalogues of former directors, wherein it figured as a portrait by Piero della Francesca (see 665) of Isotta di Rimini, the wife of Sigismondo Malatesta. Our portrait "bears little resemblance," says the official catalogue, "to the well-known medallion portraits of that lady by Matteo de' Pasti." It is, says Dr. Richter, "an indifferent production, inferior to the master in outline, as well as in the execution of the ornamental parts. It may have been done by any forgotten painter of the time" [Pg 292](Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 17). "The curious stippled execution has little or nothing in common with the subtle technique of Piero" (Claude Phillips in the Academy, September 28, 1889). It is, however, interesting for its study of fashions of the time. Notice the high forehead and the sleeves and ornaments of the lady's gown.

586. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

This picture was formerly ascribed to Fra Filippo Lippi. It is now given to Macchiavelli, who was a pupil of Benozzo Gozzoli, and perhaps also of Lippi. A signed altar-piece by this painter is in the Museo Civico at Pisa; another is in the Louvre; and a third is in the National Gallery of Ireland. The latter is "a picture of singular interest," says the catalogue, "proving this master to have been one of the first of his time; full of delicacy and refinement of feeling, and the heads beautifully drawn."

Madonna and her babe, Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood Lilies and vestments and white faces.

Browning: Fra Lippo Lippi.

A characteristic production of a school which, "orderly and obedient itself, understood the law of order in all things, which is the chief distinction between art and rudeness. And the first aim of every great painter is to express clearly his obedience to the law of Kosmos, Order, or Symmetry" (Fors Clavigera, 1876, p. 292). The four angel-faces on one side of the Madonna are matched by four on the other; the bishop and black monk on one side-compartment, by the saint and black nun on the other. Similarly at the foot of the throne the two angels are arranged symmetrically, one facing one way, the other the other. "You will at first be pained by the decision of line, and, in the children at least, uncomeliness of feature, which are characteristic, the first, of purely descended Etruscan work; the second, of the Florentine School headed afterwards by Donatello. But it is absolutely necessary, for right progress in knowledge, that you begin by observing and tracing decisive lines; and that you consider dignity and simplicity of expression more than beauty of feature" (Fors Clavigera, 1875, p. 308).

[Pg 293]

589. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Combined with Lippi's realism of representation, "there is also an unusually mystic spiritualism of conception. Nearly all the Madonnas, even of the most strictly devotional schools, themselves support the child, either on their knees or in their arms. But here the Christ is miraculously borne by an angel" (Fors Clavigera, 1875, p. 308).

590. A PIETÀ.

This unattractive painter was born in Bologna, and became a pupil in the school of Squarcione at Padua. His work shows also the influence of Cosimo Tura at Florence.

It is interesting to compare the various representations of the Dead Christ, or Pietà, which may be seen in the National Gallery. The subject, it may first be noted, was treated in very different ways. "Convention did not early harden down into fixity of composition or crystallise into rigid forms. A certain plasticity of imagination was permitted from the beginning; a certain indefiniteness of nomenclature and scope remained habitual to the end" (Grant Allen: see also Mrs. Jameson's History of our Lord, ii. 226). Sometimes the subject of the "Pietà" is the Mater Dolorosa, weeping over the body of the dead Saviour, and attended by saints (266, 1427) or angels (180). At other times the dead Saviour is supported by angels only (22, 219, 602), or, as in this picture, by saints. Sometimes the dead figure is represented lying at full length (22, 180); at other times it is a half-figure showing above a tomb or ledge (219, 266, 602, 590, 1427). Still more interesting is a comparison between these pictures for the illustration it gives of the different sentiment of different painters or schools. The picture before us is hard and dry; that of Crivelli (602) is full of tenderness. With some painters it is the physical horror, the bodily distortion that appeals to them in this subject. With others it is the pity and the sorrow (as, pre-eminently, in Francia's, 180).

[Pg 294]

591. THE RAPE OF HELEN.

The earliest picture in the Gallery which was painted for domestic pleasure, not religious service. One of the earliest also in which a classical subject is attempted. It probably formed the end of a coffer or cassone,[152] such as were often given for wedding presents, and was no doubt a commission to the artist for that purpose. Hence the choice of subject (which has been variously given as the Rape of Helen and the Rape of the Venetian Brides), and the (surely intentional) comic extravagance of the drawing: the bridegroom takes giant's strides in lover's eagerness, and the ships scud along with love to speed them. The ludicrous unreality of the rocks and trees, contrasted with the beautifully painted flowers of the foreground, is very characteristic of the art of the time (cf. 283 and 582). Rocks, trees, and water are all purely "conventional" still; and "the most satisfactory work of the period is that which most resembles missal painting, that is to say, which is fullest of beautiful flowers and animals scattered among the landscape, in the old independent way, like the birds upon a screen. The landscape of Benozzo Gozzoli is exquisitely rich in incident of this kind" (Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, ch. iii.).

592. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

This picture, with its immense retinue of followers, is "full of [Pg 295]life and swarms with incident and expression, from the dignified gravity of St. Joseph to the fantastic humour of the dwarf. No two figures are alike, except perhaps the two shepherds who are approaching from the right, and they are different from all the rest" (Monkhouse).

593. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Lorenzo di Andrea Credi has been called by Morelli the Carlo Dolci of the fifteenth century. His pictures are sweet and gentle, but lack force or inspiration. His colouring tends towards crudeness; his careful execution and finish are remarkable. "He was a very careful and laborious workman, distilling his own oils and grinding his own colours; and when he was working he would suffer no movement to be made," says Vasari, "that would cause dust to settle on his pictures." What Vasari adds about him may be partly seen in this and the companion picture (648), with their bright colouring and pretty distances: "His works were finished with so much delicacy that every other painting looks but just sketched and left incomplete as compared with those from his hand." Lorenzo was the son and grandson of goldsmiths, and was placed when quite a child under the tuition of Verocchio (296), and was still working under him at the age of twenty-one, content with the modest salary of one florin (about £2) a month. Like his master, he was a sculptor as well as a painter, and Verocchio in his will requested that Lorenzo might finish his famous statue (at Venice) of Bartolommeo Colleoni. (The Venetians, however, gave it to Alessandro Leopardo to finish.) Lorenzo was one of the few men who lived through the Renaissance without swerving from the religious traditions of earlier art, and even without being much influenced by his fellow-pupils—though in his grave and sweet Madonnas there is yet a suspicion of the sidelong look, half sweet, half sinister, and of the long, oval face, which distinguish Leonardo. He was a disciple of Savonarola, and burnt his share of pictures in the famous bonfire. "His will bears witness to his contrition. After having assured the future of his old woman-servant, to whom he left his bedding and an annuity in kind; after having made certain donations to his niece and to the daughter of a friend, a goldsmith; he directed that the rest of his fortune should go to the brotherhood of the indigent poor, and that his obsequies should be as simple as possible" (Müntz: Leonardo da Vinci, i. 29). Lorenzo is not represented so well in the National Gallery as in the Louvre and[Pg 296] at Florence. His "Nativity" in the Florentine Academy is perhaps his best work. Lorenzo's range was limited, and "Holy Conversations" or "Madonnas" were his most frequent subjects. A peculiarity of them is the large head and somewhat puffy and clumsy forms he gives to the Infant Christ.

594. THE "HOLY MONEY-DESPISERS."

This picture is the earliest in the Gallery (with the exception of the Greek portraits, see 1260)—not in order of time, but in order of artistic development. It is a genuine Byzantine picture, an example, therefore, of the art which prevailed in Italy from the sixth century down to about 1250, and the influence of which survived even when the Italian painters had developed an art of their own. The Byzantine style of painting is distinguished by its conventionality and its constancy. It was the recognised thing that such and such a subject should be treated in such and such a way and no other. There is a Byzantine Manual of Painting in a manuscript of the eleventh century in which instructions are given not only as to the subjects to be represented, but as to the costume, age, and lineaments of the characters. An art of this kind was naturally unchanging. This picture is probably only 200 years old, but if it had been painted 800 years ago, or if it had been ordered only the other day from the monks of Mount Athos, little difference of style would be perceptible. It is signed in Greek "The hand of Emmanouel, the priest, son of John," a painter living in Venice about the year 1660.

The picture is conventional in its choice of subject—the saints Cosmas and Damian being one of the subjects recognised in Byzantine art. They were martyrs of the fourth century—patron saints of medicine, which they practised without fees—hence their title, the "holy money-despisers." They are here receiving the Divine blessing. The picture is conventional also in its treatment. Thus the attitude of the hand is the recognised symbol whereby to express that a figure is speaking. So, too, the background is formed by a golden plain, which is meant to represent the air or the sky. The dark blue semicircle surrounding the bust of our Saviour, above the two heads of the saints, has more or less the form of the horizon, and is meant to represent the heaven in which Christ dwells (Richter's Italian Art, etc., pp. 5-7).

[Pg 297]

595. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

One of the many pictures in the Gallery from which the so-called "æsthetic" or "high art" gowns of the present day have been copied. Formerly ascribed to Battista Zelotti, a disciple of Paul Veronese.

596. THE ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST.

This painter was a fellow-countryman and pupil of Melozzo of Forli, who studied under Piero della Francesca, and to that extent Marco is a member of the Umbrian School. Like his master, Marco studied geometry and perspective. He was skilful in perspective, "but he scarcely ever ridded himself of a certain dryness and hardness, and his draperies are in general angular in the folds, cutting up instead of indicating the forms beneath" (Burton). His pictures abound in Forli.

This picture, originally of a semicircular shape, was the lunette of an altar-piece, painted in 1506 for the Cathedral of Forli, and now in the Gallery of that town. To the spectator's right is San Mercuriale, first bishop of Forli, holding the Guelphic banner of the church; on the left, San Valeriano with the standard of Forli.

597. "ST. VINCENTIUS FERRER."

Cossa was a contemporary of Cosimo Tura (772), with whom he exhibits close affinities of style. "But while Tura was fantastic, and inclined to the lavish use of decoration, Cossa, with severer views of his art, sought to give dignity and grandeur to his figures, and kept ornamentation within its proper bounds" (Official Catalogue). "It may be added that Cossa, though 'severer' in one sense, viz. that he saw more clearly and kept more strictly within the true limits of fine art, had more amenity than Tura; his decorative instinct was more refined, his sense of grace less crude. He was also a sweeter, finer, colourist" (Monkhouse). Cossa worked at Ferrara with other artists for Duke Borso, and among other works he executed some of the frescoes for the Schifanoia Palace. These have been copied by the Arundel Society. In 1470 Cossa removed to Bologna, where his best works are to be seen. The finest of them is the "Virgin and Child with St. Petronius" in the Pinacoteca—"a work of singular grandeur."

[Pg 298]

"Our beautiful panel is, for its size, as characteristic and fine a specimen of the master as exists. The painting throughout is of fine quality, the modelling and expression of the head admirable, the colour strong and fine, but soft withal, and the abundant detail executed with great skill and patience, but kept in due subordination. The strange background, with its fantastic erections, half architecture half rock, is of less beauty, but equally characteristic of the artist" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 167). The picture, once ascribed to Marco Zoppo, has been now recognised as the central panel of an altar-piece by Cossa, of which the wings are in the Brera at Milan, and the predella is in the Picture Gallery of the Vatican. The Dominican represented has at various times been supposed to be St. Dominic himself, St. Vincentius Ferrer, and St. Hyacinth. The predella pictures are of scenes in the life of St. Hyacinth, who therefore is probably the subject of our panel also. He was a member of the Dominican Order (whose habit he wears), a Pole by birth, and a missionary in Russia. St. Vincentius Ferrer was a Spaniard of Valencia, who in 1374, at the age of 17, entered the Dominican Order, died in 1419, and was canonised in 1455.

598. ST. FRANCIS WITH THE "STIGMATA."

St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan Order of monks (the Black Friars), was the great apostle of Works, whilst St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order (White Friars), was the great apostle of Faith. It was the teaching of these two orders that gave the impetus to the church building, from which grew the art revival at Florence in the thirteenth century. "The gospel of works, according to St. Francis, lay in three things. You must work without money, and be poor. You must work without pleasure, and be chaste. You must work according to orders, and be obedient." And so truly did he in his own works exemplify the life of Christ, that, according to the legend of the time, he received also in his own person the wounds (or "stigmata") of the Crucified One—here visible on his hands. ("Take my yoke upon you"; or "Take up the cross and follow me.") "His reception of the 'stigmata' is, perhaps, a marvellous instance of the power of imagination over physical conditions; perhaps an equally marvellous instance of the swift change of metaphor into tradition; but assuredly, and beyond dispute, one of the most influential, significant, and instructive traditions possessed by the Church of Christ."

[Pg 299]

The saint is here represented in glory; choirs of singing angels encompass him; for now "the wounds of his Master are his inheritance, the cross—sign not of triumph, but of trial, is his reward" (Mornings in Florence, i. 8, 13; iii. 64). Inscribed on the picture below are some lines from a Latin hymn to St. Francis, exhorting others to follow him, and to advance as he did the standards of their king ("Let those who depart out of Egypt follow him, and be united to him, in whom the standards of the King come forth for us in clear light").

The floating angels recall those by Botticelli, but the pupil's work is not here so good: these angels seem after all to be standing, Botticelli's to be indeed floating in thin air. Lippi, too, learnt no doubt from him the goldsmith's work, seen here in the indented background to the picture.

599. THE MADONNA OF THE MEADOW.

A very charming little picture, marred only by a certain insipidity in the expression of the Madonna—which contrasts markedly alike with the pathetic type of Bellini's early Madonnas (e.g. No. 288), and with the more stately type which he afterwards adopted (as in the altar-piece in the Academy at Venice). "The landscape is altogether interesting, and will well repay a long examination. The incident of the bird and the serpent should not be missed, and the Eastern sheep with the long ears and its stately attendant in the white burnous should be noted as an attempt to give some Oriental character to the scene" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 220). "The exquisite opaline purity of its daylight, the delicacy and finish of every detail, the walls and towers of the little town serene in the rays of morning, and the mountain ranges, pure and lovely in definition—all these graces make the picture one of the joys of art" (Gilbert's Landscape in Art, p. 330).

This picture has at different times been given several different attributions, of which the most cautious was "School of Bellini." In earlier editions of the Official Catalogue it was ascribed to Basaiti (see 281); but now (1898) to Bellini. Sir Edward Poynter refers in support of this alteration to the close resemblance of the present picture to a signed work by[Pg 300] Bellini in the Giovanelli Palace at Venice, and, as regards the background, to No. 812 in our gallery. Sir Walter Armstrong (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 24) draws attention to the similarity in the baby's hands here and in 224, and would ascribe both pictures to Catena. The correct settlement of disputed points of attribution like this is highly important for the history of painting, but meanwhile the very fact of such disputes has a useful significance, as showing what is meant by the old "schools" of painting. Individual peculiarities are only discovered by minutest examinations; but beneath such differences there are in each school similarities of treatment and conception which come from common traditions and common teaching, and which cause critics of equal intelligence to attribute the same pictures to different masters of the school.

600. THE BLIND BEGGAR.

Josef Laurens Dyckmans, a pupil of Wappers, was for some time Professor of the Academy of Painting at Antwerp.

"A blind old man is standing in the sunshine by a church door: before him is a young girl, who is holding out her hand for alms to the passers-by; an old lady coming from the church is feeling in her pocket for a sou; some other figures are seen in the porch at their devotions before a crucifix. Painted at Antwerp, signed J. Dyckmans, 1853" (Official Catalogue). "The picture is painted in a tone of colour exceedingly low, but the whole is worked to an extreme finish; the heads in fact are elaborated with a care such as Denner's pictures show. In these days of light and glowing harmonies the eye is at once struck with the abstinence from colour which the artist has made a cardinal principle in the execution of his work" (Art Journal, July 1864). This picture was presented by Miss Jane Clark, who paid 900 guineas for it.

602. A "PIETÀ."

Crivelli is one of the most individual of painters, and no collection is so rich in his works as the National Gallery. He was a native of[Pg 301] Venice, and his work shows marked affinities with the school of Padua. Of his life, little is known except that in, or shortly before, the year 1468 he settled at Ascoli in the Marches of Ancona. In that neighbourhood he seems to have spent the rest of his life, in the employment mainly of various religious fraternities. He thus lived somewhat outside the artistic world of his time, a fact which serves to explain the rather conservative character of his art. Thus he adhered to the tempera medium. He adhered also to the Byzantine traditions of the old Venetian School with its fondness for the "ancona," or altar-piece consisting of many single figures each in its separate compartment, and for gilt and silvered ornaments in high relief. There is, too, a vein of affectation in his pictures which contrasts strongly with the naturalistic tendency in contemporary Venetian art. Owing to a little touch of vanity in the painter we are able to date many of his pictures. For it is known that he was knighted in 1490, and so proud was "Sir Charles" of his new honour that he signed all subsequent pictures "Carlo Crivelli, Knight." No. 724 is probably the first he finished after the reception of the coveted honour. His love of accessories, and especially of fruit, will strike every visitor; and so also will the brilliance of his colouring and the unerring, if somewhat harsh, exactness of his outlines. For tender pathos the present picture is remarkable. His range was, as we shall see, somewhat limited. He seldom attempted compositions on any large scale, and his subject pictures are few: No. 739 is one of the best of them. He excelled rather in single figures, and in these we find expressed, "in quaint combination, morose asceticism, passionate and demonstrative grief, verging on caricature, occasional grandeur of conception and presentment, knightly dignity, feminine sweetness and tenderness mingled with demure and far-fetched grace" (Sir F. Burton). Up to the end of the eighteenth century Crivelli's works were still to be found in their original places, in the churches and convents of Eastern Italy, where they attracted little attention. The suppression of the convents after the age of the Revolution brought them into notice, and English collectors purchased them in large numbers. In recent years this appreciation has steadily increased. The large altar-piece, 788, was bought in 1868 for £3360. At the Dudley sale in 1892, the altar-piece, now in the Berlin Museum, fetched £7350.

This little picture is part of an altar-piece formerly in a church at Monte Fiore, near Fermo: other portions are at Brussels. The picture is signed, but not dated; the piece of red watered silk which hangs over the edge of the tomb is characteristic of Crivelli's earlier period. Its prettily pathetic sentiment and brilliant tone make it one of the painter's most attractive works. For some remarks on the subject, see under 590.

[Pg 302]

621. THE HORSE FAIR.

Mdlle. Rosalie Bonheur, usually called Rosa Bonheur, the most vigorous and spirited of French animal painters, was born at Bordeaux. Her parents had a sharp struggle for existence. Her mother taught music; her father—Raymond Bonheur—drawing. He was a painter of some ability, and all the children inherited an artistic bent. When the family removed to Paris, Rosa's precocious talents rapidly developed. They lived next door to a tavern which was a house of call for diligences and market-waggons, and there she found inexhaustible material for animal studies. Her brother, Auguste, became an animal and landscape painter of repute; another brother, Isidore, an animal sculptor; her sister, Juliette, who married M. Peyrol, was also a well-known painter. In the Salon of 1848 the whole family exhibited. From the common purse, when they were children, a goat was bought for a model, which they used to carry up to their humble studio. Another place of study with Rosa Bonheur was the Abattoir du Roule, "where, with characteristic fortitude, she not only controlled her natural repugnance to scenes of slaughter, but overcame all the disgust which attended the 'brutalité grossière' of the people employed there. Even at this early period she studied not only the outward aspects and anatomical construction of the creatures she painted, but their passions and tempers. Among the friends to whom she always referred with grateful pleasure as helpful in these days was Paul Delaroche, who called at the humble family quarters on a sixth floor, and was not sparing in his admiration." Rosa had first been apprenticed to a dressmaker, but her love of art impelled her to give up this occupation, and she succeeded in contributing to the family exchequer by the sale of copies made in the Louvre. In 1841, when only 19, she exhibited two pictures in the Salon. Her mother died in 1833, and in 1845 her father married again; from that time forward she lived an independent life. Her famous "Labourage Nivernais," now in the Luxembourg, was painted in 1848. This greatly increased her reputation, and she was able to secure for her father the post of director of the Women's Painting School, established by the Government in Paris. His death in the following year affected her greatly, and she did not exhibit again until 1853, when "The Horse Fair," Le Marché aux Chevaux, appeared. Through engravings and photographs this work made the name of Rosa Bonheur famous throughout the world. She visited Spain and Scotland, and painted pictures of both those countries. Her permanent residence was an estate at By in the forest of Fontainebleau, which she purchased in 1855. There ten years later she was personally invested by the Emperor of the French with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, an honour confirmed in later years by President Carnot. A still higher compliment was paid her in 1870-1871, when her studio and residence[Pg 303] were spared from any intrusion, by the special order of Prince Frederick Charles. For many years she regularly attended horse fairs both in France—such as she has here depicted—and abroad, adopting as a rule men's costume in order to carry out her studies and purchases without attracting attention. Mr. Frith relates how when he and Sir John Millais went to lunch with her in 1858, they were met at the station by a carriage, the coachman appearing to be a French Abbé. "The driver wore a black broad-brimmed hat and black cloak, long white hair with a cheery rosy face. It was Rosa Bonheur, who lives at her château with a lady companion, and others in the form of boars, lions, and deer, who serve as models." Gambart, who was of the party, "repeated to her some words of praise given by Landseer to a picture of hers, then exhibiting in London. Her eyes filled with tears as she listened." "When one sees this young artist," wrote a journalist in 1852, "small of stature and of delicate appearance, standing by a huge canvas, he would be tempted to think that her powers had not attained the full height of their ambition; but when he comes to make note of the straight, resolute lines of the artist's features, her full square forehead, her thick hair, cut as short as that of a man, and her dark, quick flashing eyes, he ceases to fear. He then realises that it is not reckless audacity which impels her forward in her work, but a greatness of soul and a consciousness of her strength." "Few artistic careers," says her brother-in-law, "have been more active, more brilliant, or more characterised by simple and quiet dignity, or perhaps, on the whole, more happy. Having known during her youngest days the terrible inconvenience of poverty, Rosa Bonheur raised herself, by her talent alone, to a position of independence and fortune. She was privileged to enjoy at the same time the charms of fame and the sweets of obscurity." She never abandoned the retired habits of life she loved, and she was able to continue her studies to the end.

"The magnificent stallions with their powerful forms pass before us at a trot, kicking up the dust under their feet. Full of life and movement, and thoroughly imbued with realism, but of a beautiful and noble realism. The composition is admirable, and brings out finely the energy and spirit of the horse. The scene represents the horses as having just reached the market, and as being in the act of falling back to re-form for their proper places. The fine trees in the background of the picture, under which, upon a rising ground, the dealers and buyers take up their position, are obscured on the left by the haze, and by the clouds of dust raised by the trotting horses; in the background, too, at the extreme left, is seen the small dome of the Salpêtrière. The Marché aux Chevaux of Paris was at that time situate in the Boulevard l'Hôpital,[Pg 304] not far from the Orleans railway; but in consequence of changes, the market has lost the picturesque aspect it wore in 1853. One looks in vain now for the large trees which then shadowed it, and the bold earth, covered in places by short dusty grass and broken up by the trampling of the horses.... A mingling of art and truth is very obvious in 'The Horse Fair.' The irregular order of the horses, their different movements bringing into play all their muscles; the different spots of their coats, so disposed as to set off one another, and furnishing at the same time a charming variety to the eye; the powerful dappled Perche horses, which pass in the foreground and constitute the centre of the picture, with the groups of black[154] and white horses which rear themselves up on their hind feet—all this shows a profoundly skilful arrangement, and results in a grand and harmonious ensemble. Yet the first impression which this picture gives is that of a scene taken from the life, and of intense realism. The freedom and breadth of the execution are equal to the beauty of the composition. The vigorous touch, and the powerful drawing also help to give this picture a spirited character and masculine vigour in perfect harmony with the subject it represents" (René Peyrol in the Art Annual on Rosa Bonheur). Ruskin, while bearing his testimony to the artist's power, calls attention to "one stern fact concerning art" which here detracts from her full success. "No painter of animals ever yet was entirely great, who shrank from painting the human face; and Mdlle. Bonheur does shrink from it.... In the 'Horse Fair,' the human faces are nearly all dexterously, but disagreeably, hidden, and the one clearly shown has not the slightest character. Mdlle. Bonheur may rely upon this, that if she cannot paint a man's face, she can neither paint a horse's, a dog's, nor a bull's. There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and [Pg 305]claims the fellowship of the creature, if not of the soul.[155] I assure Mdlle. Bonheur, strange as the words may sound to her, after what she has been told by huntsmen and racers, she has never painted a horse yet. She has only painted trotting bodies of horses" (Academy Notes, etc. 1858, p. 32).

The original of this famous composition—probably the best-known and most popular animal picture of our epoch—was exhibited in the Salon in 1853. The painter had been engaged on it for a long time, and had made innumerable studies for it. She used to call it "her Parthenon Frieze." It was sold to Mr. Gambart, the picture-dealer, who brought it to England. It made a great sensation in London, and afterwards went on a provincial tour. It then travelled to America where it was sold, and is now in the New York Museum. Rosa Bonheur painted for Gambart two repetitions of it on a smaller scale. One of these, the picture before us, was bought by Mr. Jacob Bell, who bequeathed it to the nation in 1859. It was the first work by a living foreign painter to be admitted to the Gallery.

623. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

Girolamo, the son and pupil of Piermaria Pennachi, was born at Treviso. He painted at Venice, Genoa, Trent, Faenza, and Bologna, at which latter place several of his frescoes and paintings remain. Between the years 1535 and 1538 he returned to Venice and became intimate with Titian, Sansovino, and Aretino. "In 1542," says Vasari, "he repaired to England, where he was so favoured by certain of his friends, who recommended him to the king (Henry VIII.), that he was at once appointed to the service of that monarch. Presenting himself to the English sovereign accordingly, Girolamo was employed, not as painter, but as engineer, and having given proofs of his ability in various edifices, copied from such as he had seen in Tuscany and other parts of Italy, the king admired them greatly. Nay, furthermore, his majesty rewarded the master with large gifts, and ordained him a stipend of four hundred crowns a year, giving him at the same time opportunity and permission to erect an honourable abode for him[Pg 306]self, the cost of which was borne by the king." Girolamo had, however, to erect also some bastions at Boulogne, and there "he was struck by a cannon-ball, which came with such violence that it cut him in two as he sat on his horse. And so were his life and all the honours of this world extinguished together, all his greatness departing in a moment." His works are now scarce. No. 218 in this gallery may be the copy made by Girolamo from Peruzzi's drawing, No. 167.

This picture, formerly the altar-piece of the Boccaferri chapel in S. Domenico at Bologna, is signed by the painter and is mentioned by Vasari (iii. 287) as "the best of his works: it represents the Madonna with numerous saints (Joseph, James, and Paul), and contains the portrait of the person by whom the painter was commissioned to execute the work." Girolamo, who, as we have seen, was a man of travel, "did not remain faithful to the tradition of art as professed at Venice and Treviso, and might be called rather a forerunner of the eclectic schools.... The head of St. Paul is apparently copied from Raphael's picture of St. Cecilia in Bologna. In the types of other figures, in the colouring and in the landscape, we perceive the influence of Dosso Dossi and of Garofalo" (Richter's Italian Art, etc. p. 87).

624. THE INFANCY OF JUPITER.

Giulio Pippi, called "the Roman," was born at Rome, and was Raphael's favourite pupil; to him Raphael bequeathed his implements and works of art. But the master could not also bequeath his spirit, and in Giulio's works (such as 643 and 644, which, however, are now attributed to a pupil), though "the archæology is admirable, the movements of the actors are affected and forced, and the whole result is a grievous example of the mannerism already beginning to prevail" (Woltmann and Woermann: History of Painting, ii. 562). "Raphael worked out the mine of his own thought so thoroughly, so completely exhausted the motives of his invention, and carried his style to such perfection, that he left nothing unused for his followers.... In the Roman manner the dramatic element was conspicuous; and to carry dramatic painting beyond the limits of good style in art is unfortunately easy.... For all the higher purposes of genuine art, inspiration passed from his pupils as colour fades from Eastern clouds at sunset, suddenly" (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 359).... "Giulio Romano alone, by dint of robust energy and lurid fire of fancy flickering amid the smoke of his coarser nature, achieved a triumph. His Palazzo del Te at Mantua may be cited as the most perfect production of the[Pg 307] epoch, combining, as it does, all forms of antique decoration and construction with the vivid individuality of genius" (Symonds, ii. 319; iii. 360). It was in 1523 that Giulio entered the service of Federigo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and besides executing a very large number of works in oil and fresco, he was distinguished as an architect and rebuilt nearly the whole town.[156] Vasari made his acquaintance there, and admired his works so much that Giulio deserved, he said, to see a statue of himself erected at every corner of the city. During his earlier period at Rome, Giulio was entrusted with the completion of the frescoes of the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican. Among his best oil-pictures are the "Martyrdom of St. Stephen" in the church of that saint at Genoa, and a "Holy Family" in the Dresden Gallery.

An illustration of the classic myth of the infancy of Jupiter, who was born in Crete and hidden by his mother, Rhea, in order to save him from his father Saturn ("all-devouring Time"), who used to devour his sons as soon as they were born, from fear of the prophecy that one of them would dethrone him. In the background are the Curetes "who, as the story is, erst drowned in Crete that infant cry of Jove, when the young band about the babe in rapid dance, arms in hand to measured tread, beat brass on brass, that Saturn might not get him to consign to his devouring jaws" (Lucretius, Munro's translation, ii. 629). This picture has been much admired by artists. Samuel Palmer, the friend of William Blake, wrote of it: "By the bye, if you want to see a picture bound by a splendid imagination upon the fine, firm, old philosophy, do go and look at the Julio Romano (Nursing of Jupiter) in the National Gallery. That is precisely the picture Blake would have revelled in. I think I hear him say, 'As fine as possible, Sir! It is not permitted to man to do better!'" (Memoir of Anne Gilchrist, p. 59). Elsewhere Palmer proposed to a friend as a compact test of taste the question: "Do I love the Julio Romano in the National Gallery?" (Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, p. 250). Another distinguished artist, John Linnell, was also a great [Pg 308]admirer of the picture. He strongly urged its purchase for the National Gallery, declaring it to be "full of beauty and without any alloy" (Story's Life of Linnell, ii. 123).

625. AN ALTAR-PIECE.

The principal figure is St. Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444). He was one of the most celebrated preachers of his time: hence the words on the open book which he is represented as holding in his left hand, "Father, I have manifested thy name to men." The Gospel which he preached was "Salvation through Jesus Christ": hence the circle in his right hand with the Latin monogram "I.H.S." (Jesus the Saviour of mankind). He came of a noble family, but the secret of his power was his determination to live amongst the poor ones of the earth: hence at his feet are mitres inscribed with the names of the three cities of which he refused the bishoprics. The attendant saints are Sts. Jerome, Joseph, Francis (to whose order Bernardino belonged), and Nicholas of Bari. Above is a vision of the only crown to which St. Bernardino aspired—the company of the saints, the Virgin and Child, St. Catherine, and St. Clara. Into the pervading expression of simple and humble piety the artist has put, perhaps, something of his own character; for he was a man of great personal piety, and he is said to have always prepared himself (like Fra Angelico before him) by prayer and fasting for any important work of sacred art. Something, too, of this ascetic ideal may be seen in the attenuated figures of his saints.

"In those who already know Moretto, this altar-piece will," says Mr. Pater, "awake many a reminiscence of his art at its best. The three white mitres, for instance, grandly painted towards the centre of the picture, at the feet of St. Bernardino, may remind one of the great white mitre which, in the genial picture of St. Nicholas, in the Miracoli at Brescia, one of the children, who as delightfully unconventional acolytes accompany their beloved patron into the presence of the Madonna, carries along so willingly, laughing almost, with pleasure and pride, at his part in so great a function. In the altar-piece at the National Gallery those white mitres form the keynote from which the pale, cloistral splendours of the whole picture radiate. You see what a wealth of enjoyable colour Moretto,[Pg 309] for one, can bring out of monkish habits in themselves sad enough, and receive a new lesson in the artistic value of reserve" ("Art Notes in North Italy," in New Review, November 1890).

626. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

This portrait was formerly ascribed in the Official Catalogue to Masaccio. The wish was perhaps father to the thought, for Masaccio is a very important person in the development of art (being the leader of the scientific movement in Florentine painting, and also "the first man," says Ruskin, "who entirely broke through the conventionality of his time and painted pure landscape"), and is not otherwise represented in the National Gallery. Mr. Wornum (the late Keeper) ascribed the portrait to Filippino Lippi; it is now ascribed to Botticelli, who was also distinguished in portrait-painting, which in his time was becoming increasingly fashionable. "The waving lines in the falling hair, and the drawing of the mouth, seem to leave no doubt that Botticelli alone is the author of this impressive, yet simple and unpretentious, likeness of an unknown Florentine" (Richter: Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 24).

627, 628. WATERFALLS.

Jacob van Ruysdael is usually accounted the greatest of the Dutch landscape painters. He often painted wild scenery, but it is perhaps in the quiet, and as it were uneventful pictures from the neighbourhood of Haarlem, that he charms us most. "At each moment in the country around Haarlem," says M. Michel, "the name of Ruysdael occurs to one with a recollection of some picture of his. One can follow his course and even find the very place where he must have sat." "Of all the Dutch painters," says Fromentin, "Ruysdael is the one who has the noblest resemblance to his country. He has its spaciousness, its sadness, its somewhat gloomy placidity, its monotonous and tranquil charm." But though in this way a product of the soil, Ruysdael's genius is essentially human and individual. His means of expression were the simplest. His touch is crisp and spirited, his workmanship thorough and conscientious; but he had no adventitious aids to attraction. There is, however, continues Fromentin, something in his works which compels respect. "It is the conviction created by them that they are the outcome of a great man who has something to[Pg 310] say. The cause of his superiority to others is to be found in this, that there is behind the painter a man who thinks, behind each of his pictures an idea. In studying a picture by Ruysdael we become interested also in the personality of the painter. We find ourselves asking questions. Had he joys, as he certainly had bitterness? Did destiny give him occasion to love other things than clouds, and from what did he suffer most, if he did suffer, from the torment of painting well or of living? All these questions remain without answer, and yet posterity is interested in them. Would it occur to you to ask as much about Berchem, Karel Dujardin, Wouwerman, Goyen, Terburg, Metsu, Peter de Hoogh himself? All these brilliant or charming painters painted, and that seems to suffice. Ruysdael painted, but he also lived, and that is why it matters so much to know how he lived. I know only three or four men in the Dutch school whose personality is thus interesting—Rembrandt, Ruysdael, Paul Potter, and possibly Cuyp, which is already more than is enough to classify them" (Les Maitres d'Autrefois, Hollande, ch. vii. See also M. Emile Michel's article in the Revue des deux Mondes for 1888). What we find pre-eminently in Ruysdael is a mind in harmony with nature in her simplest and most sombre moods. "The grey vapour that overspreads his skies seldom admits a fleeting gleam of sunshine to pass through" (Burton). Ruysdael is remarkable also for a certain solemn love of solitude, and this love of nature in itself, undisturbed by the incidents of daily life, distinguishes him from most of his contemporaries, and accounts, perhaps, for his popularity in more modern times. Goethe, who admired Ruysdael greatly, calls special attention to the painter's success in "representing the Past in the Present," and in suggesting to the spectator that "the works of nature live and last longer than the works of men"("Ruysdael als Dichter").

The sense of isolation perceptible in his pictures is in keeping also with what we know of his life. He was born at Haarlem, the son of a picture-dealer and frame-maker, but became a citizen of Amsterdam. His father intended him for the medical profession, but he probably received instruction in painting from his uncle, Salomon van Ruysdael (1439). He remained unmarried in order, it is said, to promote the comfort of his aged father. He belonged to the sect of the Mennonites, who enjoined on their disciples strict separation from the world. In Ruysdael's case the world also separated itself from him. His talents were ignored by the great public of his day; and in 1681 he was admitted into the town's almshouse at Haarlem, where he died in the following year. His landscapes are now eagerly sought after and command high prices. His views are mostly taken from the northern provinces of the Netherlands; the Norwegian scenery which he introduced in many of his later works being studied probably from sketches by Van Everdingen. But it is probable, though (as a writer in the Quarterly Review observes) no direct evidence in confirmation has yet been found, "that Ruysdael went to Norway either with or without Everdingen, and for a time steeped himself in the spirit of the wild[Pg 311] landscape. The large number of works of the waterfall class that we possess show that he was deeply impressed by the artistic and ethical qualities of the landscape. Severe, remote, and melancholy, these Norwegian solitudes appealed to the mind of this most solitary of artists, in whose art, as Goethe said, the poetry of loneliness has found an eternal expression."

Waterfalls are a speciality with the painter (the name Ruysdael appropriately signifies foaming water). "Ordinary running or falling water may be sufficiently rendered, by observing careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little white over it, as we see done with judgment and taste by Ruysdael" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 2). "Ruysdael's painting of falling water," adds Ruskin (ibid. §21), "is generally agreeable; more than agreeable it can hardly be considered. There appears no exertion of mind in any of his works; nor are they calculated to produce either harm or good by their feeble influence. They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame." It is interesting to compare this damningly faint praise from Ruskin with the words of another critic. "Where is the traveller," asks M. Charles Blanc, "familiar with the impressive beauties of mountainous countries, who cannot find them in the pictures of Ruysdael? At the foot of those steep rocks how the water falls, foams, and writhes round the ruins it has brought down! It dashes forward from the right, from the left, and from the background of the picture towards the gulf which draws it in; it rushes down, I was going to say, with a hollow noise, for in fact one imagines one can almost hear it. We see it gliding down the slippery rocks, dashing against the rough bark of the trees, and gushing down the rugged bottom of the ravine. We fancy we feel the cold and humid spray falling on our faces.... But such is the power of genius, that after having seen in all its magnificent reality the spectacle which the artist has reproduced on a piece of canvas some few inches in magnitude, nature seems to us less grand and less startling than the work of Ruysdael."

629. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Lorenzo Costa was a pupil of Cosimo Tura, at Ferrara, but was soon drawn away to Bologna, where he worked with Francia. The friendship of these two men is a good instance of the unity between[Pg 312] the different arts in the Middle Ages. Thus the workshop of Francia at Bologna consisted of two stories. In the upper story, pictures were painted under the supervision of Costa; whilst in the lower, gold and silver works were executed, and coins stamped, under the direction of Francia. Costa remained for twenty-three years at Bologna, where many of his principal works still exist. The altar-piece in the church of S. Giovanni in Monte is the most remarkable. In 1509, invited by the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga, whose wife was Isabella d'Este, Costa fixed his abode in Mantua, where he remained till his death. He depicted their court in an allegorical composition, now in the Louvre. "Costa's style," says Sir F. Burton, "varied during his long career. His earlier works bear signs of his filiation to Tura and Cossa. In later productions we may trace more of the amenity of Umbrian art, and finally the influence of his own pupil Francia. His best merits are a gentle gravity and a sense of colour. Want of force mars what is meant for grace."

This picture (which is signed, and dated 1505) should be compared with the Perugino in the next room (288), for Lorenzo Costa has been called "the Perugino of Ferrara," and works of his are in many galleries wrongly attributed to Perugino. Every one will feel that there is a grace and a sweetness here which recalls Perugino. Lorenzo, too, has Perugino's fondness for a "purist" landscape (see 288); and note the curious device, peculiar to the Ferrarese School, by which he introduces it. The Madonna's throne is constructed in two parts, so that between the base and the upper part a vacant space is left, through which we look into the open air ("Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool"). One of Costa's weaknesses may be observed in the figures of the standing saints. "His figures are seldom planted firmly on the ground—a fault which he shared with Francia. The ill-understood folds of their garments obscure the form, and trail upon the ground in meaningless tags. This insensibility on the part of Costa to one of the noblest means of expression in art is remarkable, inasmuch as the works of Francesco Cossa might have set him an example of draperies carefully studied, true to fact, and often grandly disposed" (Burton).

630. MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS.

A picture of historical interest, as being the earliest in the Gallery of the Paduan School. Gregorio, the Sclavonian (i.e.[Pg 313] Dalmatian), though not, one must think, a very good artist, was proud of his master, and this picture is signed (on the little card below the throne) "the work of Schiavone, the pupil of Squarcione." That master's style was distinguished by its sculpturesque quality; and in the works of a somewhat clumsy pupil like Gregorio ("this Dalmatian clodhopper," Morelli calls him) one sees this tendency carried to excess; the outline of the Madonna's face here, and still more in 904, is quite grotesquely sharp. Another characteristic of the school is exemplified in both Gregorio's pictures—the choice, namely, of antique embellishments, of bas-reliefs, and festoons of fruit, in the accessories. Thus note here the bas-relief behind the Madonna's chair, and in 904 the festoons of fruit upon the arch.

631. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

By one of Bellini's pupils and imitators. Observe the rich dress of a Byzantine stuff embroidered with strange animals, such as one sees in the old mosaics at Venice. The lady wears too a long gold chain, as the Venetian women do to this day.

632, 633. TWO SAINTS.

Girolamo—a relation probably of Francesco Rizo, also of Santa Croce (a village near Bergamo)—was one of the weaker followers of Giovanni Bellini. Morelli mentions, as a sign by which Girolamo's pictures, which are frequently met with in North Italian galleries, may often be recognised, that "he introduced a parrot whenever the subject he was treating would allow it, just as Paolo Farinato used to put a snail into his paintings as a sort of mark."

These two panels were formerly the doors of an altar-piece.

634. THE MADONNA OF THE GOLDFINCH.

The Madonna here wears a graver expression than is common with Cima. There is the usual hilly background, with the ruins of a Roman temple introduced on the left.

[Pg 314]

635. THE "REPOSE."

The subject of this radiantly beautiful picture is the familiar "Repose" of the Holy Family during their flight into Egypt; "perfect serenity and repose" are the keynote of the composition. The introduction of St. John the Baptist, and St. Catherine[157] embracing the Holy Child, and in the distance the angel appearing to the shepherds, serve as the sign-manuals to mark the sacred subject. For the rest it is a simple domestic scene, laid amongst the hills of Titian's country, near Ceneda, on the way to Cadore:—

To this Ceneda scenery I would assign those charming mixtures of woodland and plain,—those sweeping intermingling lines of hill, here broken by a jutting rock, sinking there into the sudden depth of bosky shades,—which are another characteristic of Titian's landscape. The play of light and shade over such a country, throwing out now this, now that, of the billowy ranges as they alternately smiled in sunshine, or frowned in shadow; now printing off a tower or a crag, dark against a far-off flitting gleam, now touching into brightness a cottage or a castle; he specially delighted to record.... It must have been from the village of Caverzano, and within an easy walk from Belluno, that he took the mountain forms, and noted the sublime effect upon them of evening light, introduced in the "Madonna and St. Catherine." The lines of hill and mountain are identical with a record in my sketch-book, and the sharp-pointed hill, almost lost in the rays, is one of the most familiar features in the neighbourhood of Belluno (Gilbert: Cadore, pp. 36, 59).

Mr. Gilbert makes another interesting remark, which may be verified in this picture with its flocks of sheep, as well as in 270, with its farm buildings:

Another characteristic of Titian's landscape, and new in his time, is his perception of its domestic charm—the sweetness of a home landscape. A cottage, a farm, a mill, take the place with him of the temples, towers, and lordly palaces of town-bred painters.... Honest travellers on a country track, or sleeping in the shade; the [Pg 315]peasant going forth to labour, or returning with his tools; the high-roofed, quaintly gabled farm, with its nondescript surroundings, and all set snugly on the bosky knoll ... these are his favourite subjects. But they never would have been so to a thorough Venetian. They show us the man of the hills—the breezy, happy hills: the man of many pleasant memories, upon the sward, beside the brook, under the bending boughs: the man who carried no city apprehensions, or city squeamishness to country places, but was at home anywhere under the broad heaven (ibid. p. 60).

The colour-scheme of this masterpiece is worth noting. It is in keeping with the effect of coolness and repose aimed at in the composition. "The dominant chord is composed by the cerulean blues of the heaven and of the Virgin's dress, the deep luscious greens of the landscape and the peculiar pale citron hue, relieved with a crimson girdle, of the robe worn by St. Catherine. With this exception there is not a trace of red in the picture. Contrary to almost universal usage, it might almost be said to orthodoxy, the entire draperies of the Virgin are of one intense blue. Her veil-like headgear is of a brownish-gray, while the St. Catherine wears a golden-brown scarf, continuing the glories of her elaborately dressed hair. The audacity of the colour-scheme is only equalled by its success; no calculated effort at anything unusual being apparent" (Claude Phillips: The Later Work of Titian, p. 10).

This picture, which is signed TICIAN, was formerly in the Sacristy of the Escurial; it has the Escurial mark on the back. A "Madonna with St. Catherine" by Titian is mentioned in a letter of 1530 written by Giacomo Malatesta to Federigo Gonzaga at Mantua. The reference is supposed by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to be to the "Vierge au Lupin" of the Louvre; but it may be to our picture (see Phillips: The Earlier Work of Titian, p. 82 n.).

636. "PORTRAIT OF A POET."

This picture was long ascribed to Titian; then for many years to Palma (of whom, therefore, some notice is here retained); now it has been restored by the officials to Titian. Others believe it to be the work of Giorgione (see below).

Jacopo Palma, the elder (II Vecchio), is one of the most illustrious of the "post-Bellinian School" of painters at Venice. But he was[Pg 316] born near Bergamo and "could never entirely lay aside his mountain nature in his works" (see Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 13-18, 24-31, for the best account of Palma's place in art history). He was especially great in the Holy Families, called by the Italians "Sante Conversazioni," in which the figures of sacred story are grouped together in restful attitudes and enframed with blue mountain landscapes. He painted so many of these compositions that Ruskin says—somewhat too sweepingly—that he painted "no profane subject of importance" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 17). He was also a magnificent painter of female and fancy portraits—a branch of art in which he rivals even Titian. Palma's works are sometimes divided into three manners—the Bellinesque, the Giorgionesque, and the blonde. Among the most famous of his productions are the "Adoration of the Shepherds," in the Louvre; the "Jacob and Rachel," at Dresden; and the altar-piece in St. Sebastiano at Vicenza—"his finest and most perfect work," according to Morelli. His "St. Barbara," in S. Maria Formosa at Venice, is also celebrated. The so-called "Bella da Tiziano," at Rome, and the "Three Sisters," at Dresden, are among the best-known of his portraits.

This fine portrait was formerly supposed to represent Ariosto (1474-1533), who was acquainted with Titian and commemorates him as one "who honours Cadore not less than Sebastiano del Piombo and Raphael honour Venice and Urbino." But the portrait bears little resemblance to the poet as he is known to us by authenticated likenesses. The title "Portrait of a Poet" is based partly on the character of the face, partly on the bush of laurel in the background. The evidence for the ascription to Palma is by no means conclusive (see Notes and Queries, Dec. 28, 1889). Mr. W. Fred Dickes has suggested—ingeniously, if not convincingly—that the portrait is of the famous "Liberator of Italy," Prospero Colonna (1464-1523), painted in 1500, when he was living in temporary retirement as a lay brother in a Benedictine monastery. Prospero is described as "tall in person, ruddy in countenance; his eyes were black, his beard reddish, and the locks of his hair of a chestnut character." The laurel would be appropriate to a victorious captain, no less than to a poet. Mr. Dickes ascribes the portrait to Giorgione (see Magazine of Art, March and April 1893). This ascription is accepted by Mr. Herbert Cook. "The conception is characteristic of Giorgione—the pensive charm, the feeling of reserve, the touch of fanciful imagination in the decorative accessories, but, above all, the extreme refinement.... Where can the like be found in Palma, or even[Pg 317] Titian? Titian is more virile in his conception, less lyrical, less fanciful; Palma, infinitely less subtle in characterisation" (Giorgione, p. 84).

637. DAPHNIS AND CHLOE.

Paris Bordone, one of the most splendid colourists of the Venetian School, was born of a noble family of Treviso. "He was taken," says Vasari, "at the age of eight to certain of his mother's kindred in Venice, where, having studied grammar and become an excellent musician, he was sent to Titian." With him he remained for a few years, and afterwards "set himself to imitate the manner of Giorgione to the utmost of his power." "Though Venetian in his education, he took a path peculiar to himself, and it is only a very inexperienced eye that can mistake him for Giorgione or Titian. He is remarkable for a delicate rosy colour in his flesh, and for the purple, crimson, and shot tints of his draperies, which are usually in small and crumpled folds" (Kugler). His most famous work—the large picture in the Venetian Academy of "The Fisherman presenting the Ring of St. Mark to the Doge"—is a masterpiece of gorgeous colouring. "The moment you come before the picture you say, 'What a piece of colour!' To Paris the Duke, the Senate, and the miracle are all merely vehicles for flashes of scarlet and gold on marble and silk" (Ruskin's Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 17). He painted sacred subjects, mythology, and portraits. In all alike he found occasion for the same brilliant display of flesh-tints and stuffs. Visitors to the Italian lakes will find a Holy Family by Bordone at Lovere, in the Accademia Tadini, which is another of his masterpieces. There are some fine portraits by him at Hampton Court, and No. 674 in our Gallery is a very characteristic example. Chloe in the picture before us belongs to the same type. "The ideal of beauty for women in Italy during the sixteenth century was—perhaps because so difficult of attainment!—extreme blondness. Palma seems to have had no other aim than to fill his canvases with expanses of fair flesh and yellow hair. Paris Bordone succeeded Palma as the fashionable beauty-painter, and continued the tradition" (Mary Logan: Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 28). The fame of Bordone led to his being invited to France by Francis II. in 1558-1559 to paint the ladies of the Court. He was knighted by the king. He also visited Augsburg to execute commissions for the merchant princes of that city. "He lives quietly in his own house," says Vasari, "working only at the request of princes, or others of his friends, avoiding all rivalry and those vain ambitions which do but disturb the repose of man."

Daphnis and Chloe, a shepherd and shepherdess, whose life and love were a favourite Greek story, are about to be crowned by Cupid with a wreath of myrtle.

[Pg 318]

638. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

For more important pictures by this master, see 179 and 180. The saint with the palm-branch here will be recognised in one of the angels in 180.

639. "NOLI ME TANGERE!"

Francesco was the pupil and assistant of his father Andrea, whose style is very obvious in this and the two companion pictures (1106, 1381). Francesco completed some work which Andrea had left unfinished.

(For the subject see 270.) The three little pictures by Francesco (639, 1106, 1381) are all noticeable for their dainty detail, often selected for symbolic meaning. Thus, notice here the vine with purple grapes supported on a dead tree which hangs over the figure of Christ—an emblem of life and death. The vine is the most ancient of all symbols of Christ and his Church, being founded on His own words: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." On the other side a bird is seen defending its nest against a snake which has crept up the tree; on the left is a beehive.

640. ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

Giovanni di Lutero, who adopted the name of Dosso Dossi, was the greatest colourist of the Ferrarese School. "His masterpiece is the great altar picture formerly in the Church of S. Andrea at Ferrara, but now in the public gallery of that city, and one of the principal art treasures of Italy. This sumptuous work, notwithstanding the irreparable injuries it had sustained from injudicious restorations and repaints, is still a perfect blaze of colour" (Kugler). The little picture before us gives an inadequate impression of the painter's powers. No. 1234 is more characteristic. For Dossi's real bent lay towards portraiture and romantic subjects. Portraits by him of the Dukes of Ferrara and of other personages are in the public gallery at Modena. Of his subject-pictures the "Circe" of the Borghese Gallery at Rome is the most sumptuous. The records of Dossi's career are scanty; but his works "point strongly to two widely different currents of influence, the one Venetian, the other Ferrarese." He is supposed[Pg 319] to have been for some years at Venice, but to have studied first under the Ferrarese Lorenzo Costa at Bologna. "His education in art, the main characteristics of his style, and his long residence at Ferrara, where he was attached to the court, and where he chiefly worked, entitle him to a place in the Ferrarese School.... His colouring is much admired, and justly, for its force, brilliancy, and novel harmonies: but it would be a mistake to class it with that of the great Venetian masters who had a profounder knowledge and a purer ideal of colour" (Burton). Dossi's romantic genius was no doubt fostered by his friendship with Ariosto, who celebrated Dosso and his brother Battista in somewhat exaggerated terms, naming them in the same breath with Leonardo, Mantegna, Bellini, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian. "The name of Dosso," says Vasari ill-naturedly, "had then obtained greater fame from the pen of Messer Ludovico than from all the pencils and colours consumed by himself in the whole course of his life." Dosso was highly favoured, he adds, by Duke Alphonso, of Ferrara, "first because of his abilities in art, and next on account of his excellent qualities as a man and the pleasantness of his manners, which were advantages always highly acceptable to the Duke" (iii. 256). There are many pictures by Dosso in private collections in England. The exhibition of the Ferrarese School at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1894 included thirteen of them. He is well represented at Hampton Court. "His works," says Mary Logan in an interesting appreciation of the painter, "are distinguished from all Venetian paintings by effects of light in dreamland rather than in the everyday world (and have in them) ... a fascinating touch of the bizarre" (Kyrle Society's Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court). Many pictures passing under other names have been restored to Dosso by Morelli (see his Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries, pp. 214-219).

641. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY.

A picture chiefly remarkable, like 169, for its accessories. Notice the ornamental sculpture, the paintings in imitation of bronze relievo, and the modelled plaster work on the walls.

642. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

It is interesting to compare this with other versions of the subject in the Gallery—e.g. 76, 726, 1417. What we may call the necessary component parts of the picture are all present—the angel with cup and cross, the sleeping apostles, a crowd[Pg 320] with torches approaching. But Garofalo's picture seems cold and unimaginative as compared with Correggio's, Bellini's, or Mantegna's.

643. THE CAPTURE OF CARTHAGENA.

This and the companion picture, 644, formerly ascribed to Giulio Romano, are now ascribed to Rinaldo of Mantua, one of the scholars whom Giulio formed when at work in that city. Rinaldo is mentioned by Vasari as the ablest painter that Mantua ever produced, and as having been "prematurely removed from the world by death."

In the upper compartment is represented the capture of New Carthage by the Roman general, Publius Cornelius Scipio, B.C. 210. He distinguished himself on that occasion by the generosity with which he treated the Spanish hostages kept there by the Carthaginians. This is the subject of the lower compartment. Among the hostages was a girl—hardly represented here as in the story, "so beautiful that all eyes turned upon her"—whom Scipio protected from indignity and formally betrothed to her own lover, who is here advancing to touch the great man's hand, and when they brought thank-offerings to Scipio, he ordered them, as we see here, to be removed again: "accept them from me," he said, "as the girl's dowry" (Livy, xxvi. ch. 50).

644. THE RAPE OF THE SABINES.

Romulus, the founder of Rome—so the story goes—had collected a motley crew of men about him, and demanded women from the neighbouring states wherewith to people his kingdom. And when they refused, he determined to take them by stratagem. He appointed a day for a splendid sacrifice, with public games and shows, and the neighbouring Sabines flocked with their wives and daughters to see the sight. He himself presided, sitting among his nobles, clothed in purple. As a signal for the assault, he was to rise, gather up his robe, and fold it about him. Many of the people wore swords that day, and kept their eyes upon him, watching for the signal, which was no sooner given than they drew them,[Pg 321] and, rushing on with a shout, seized the daughters of the Sabines, but quietly suffered the men to escape. This is the subject of the upper compartment of this picture. But afterwards the Sabines fought the Romans in order to recover their daughters. The battle was long and fierce, until the Sabine women threw themselves between the combatants and induced them to ratify the accomplished union with terms of friendship and alliance. This is the subject of the lower compartment—the intervention of the Sabine women in the right-hand part, the reconciliation in the left.

645. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Mariotto Albertinelli, a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, was the friend and assistant of the painter-monk, Fra Bartolommeo (see 1694). He himself, being of an impatient character, "was so offended with certain criticisms of his work," says Vasari, "that he gave up painting and turned publican."

This picture is often now attributed to a later painter—Sogliani, 1492-1544.

646. ST. CATHARINE.

This, and the companion picture (647), formerly deposited in the South Kensington Museum, were at the time of their purchase (in 1860) from the Beauconsin Collection "ascribed to Ridolfo Ghirlandajo."

647. ST. URSULA.

The emblem of her martyrdom, an arrow, is in her right hand.

648. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

A pretty landscape background, with a ruin, and the angel appearing to the shepherds in the distance—the whole charmingly harmonious in its blue-grays. "A pure and simple-minded[Pg 322] man, Lorenzo delighted in pure, bright, and simple landscapes, in which one reads something of the gentle Angelico's feeling. Nature with Credi, as with the saint of Fiesole, must show no stain, no trouble, no severity, no sign of the transient. Far be it from him to introduce the jagged ranges that Leonardo reared upon his far, mysterious horizons. No, he must have all that is green and blue, and cheerful" (Gilbert's Landscape in Art, p. 225). With regard to the landscape backgrounds of the Italian painters, Mr. Mackail, in a letter to F. T. Palgrave (Journals and Memories, p. 256), raises the question "whether landscape painting has not lost as well as gained by being elevated from the background into the substance of a picture; whether, that is, the moral or human interest that is essential to all great art can exist in pure landscape painting without putting a greater strain on it than it will bear. Take, for instance, the landscape backgrounds of Lorenzo di Credi's pictures in the National Gallery, or of the great Perugino triptych. Have they not a moral or spiritual quality, as they stand in their place in the picture, that they can only have through this elusive (if one may say so) treatment?"

649. PORTRAIT OF A BOY.

Angelo di Cosimo, called Il Bronzino, was born in a suburb of Florence, of poor parents; he became a popular artist, "nor have we any one in our day," says Vasari, "who is more ingenious, varied, fanciful, and spirited in the jesting kind of verse." He was also good at a more serious kind of verse; amongst other things he wrote sonnets on Benvenuto Cellini's "Perseus," of which Cellini says, "they spoke so generously of my performance, in that fine style of his which is most exquisite, that this alone repaid me somewhat for the pain of my long troubles." Vasari was a great friend of his, and speaks in the warmest terms of his generosity and kindness. He was the favourite pupil of Pontormo, some of whose works, left unfinished, he completed. His portraits, if sometimes hard and cold, are often excellent, and form a gallery of great interest to the historian of Florence. In his frescoes and allegories, he belongs to the period of decline. His "Descent of Christ into Hell," in the Uffizi, is among the most celebrated of his works. "Want of thought and feeling, combined with the presumptuous treatment of colossal and imaginative subjects, renders his compositions inexpressibly chilling" (Symonds, iii. 365). Ruskin cites him as an instance of the "base grotesque of men who, having no true imagination, are apt, more than others, to try by startling[Pg 323] realism to enforce the monstrosity that has no terror in itself" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. viii. § 8).

This charming portrait was formerly attributed to Pontormo. Sir Edward Poynter, following Frizzoni, has transferred it to Bronzino. (See Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, p. 267.)

650. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

"In the rich costume of the sixteenth century," says the Official Catalogue,—and the picture therein resembles most portraits of the time. For it is a remarkable thing how much great art depends on gay and dainty gowns. Note first, in going round these rooms, how fondly all the best painters enjoy dress patterns. "It doesn't matter what school they belong to—Fra Angelico, Perugino, John Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret, Veronese, Leonardo da Vinci—no matter how they differ in other respects, all of them like dress patterns; and what is more, the nobler the painter is, the surer he is to do his patterns well." Then note, as following from this fact, how much of the splendour of the pictures that we most admire depends on splendour of dress. "True nobleness of dress is a necessity to any nation which wishes to possess living art, concerned with portraiture of human nature. No good historical painting ever yet existed, or ever can exist, where the dresses of the people of the time are not beautiful; and had it not been for the lovely and fantastic dressing of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, neither French nor Florentine nor Venetian art could have risen to anything like the rank it reached" (see, e.g., under 294). And with regard to this nobleness of dress, it may be observed lastly how "the best dressing was never the costliest; and its effect depended much more on its beautiful and, in early times, modest arrangement, and on the simple and lovely manner of its colour, than on gorgeousness of clasp or embroidery" (Cambridge Inaugural Address, p. 11; A joy for ever, § 54).

651. AN ALLEGORY: "ALL IS VANITY."

Venus, crowned as Queen of Life, yet with the apple of discord in her hand, turns her head to kiss Cupid, whose[Pg 324] wings are coloured in Delight, but behind whom is the gaunt figure of Jealousy, tearing her hair. Folly, with one foot in manacles, and the other treading on a thorn, is preparing to throw a handful of roses—

A Harpy, the personification of vain desire and fitful passion, with a human face, but with claws to her feet and with a serpent's body, is offering in one hand a piece of honey-comb, whilst she holds her sting behind her in the other. In one corner, beneath the God of Love, doves are billing and cooing; but over against them, beneath Folly, there are masks showing the hideous emptiness of human passion. And behind them all is Time, with wings to speed his course and the hour-glass on his shoulders to mark his seasons, preparing to let down the veil which Pleasure, with grapes twined in her hair, and with the scowl of angry disappointment on her face, seeks in vain to lift—

Scott: The Antiquary.

This picture—in some ways harsh and vulgar—was originally painted for Francis I. of France. For a note on its crude colouring, see 270.

652. CHARITY.

Francesco Rossi, called "de' Salviati" from his patron, the Cardinal of that name, studied under Andrea del Sarto, and was an imitator of Michael Angelo. He was a great friend of Vasari, whose life of Salviati gives a most interesting account of their intimacy, especially of their early student days, when they "met together and went on festival days or at other times to copy a design from the best works wherever these were to be found dispersed about the city of Florence." In 1548 Salviati settled in Rome, where he was much employed.

The usual pictorial representation of Charity, as a woman surrounded by children and giving suck, is the same as Spenser's description of "Charissa"—

[Pg 325]

653. HUSBAND AND WIFE.

This picture, formerly ascribed to Roger van der Weyden, and called "The Painter and his Wife," is delightfully typical of the Flemish ideal both in man and woman—"the man shrewd and determined, the woman sweet and motherly." "They are not fine of figure nor graceful of limb, but, with hardly an exception, their faces tell us that they are men of tried capacity and learnt experience. Through the eyes of many of them glances a happy, childlike soul enough, but the mind is almost invariably a slow-moving, solid power ... and such as they, were the artists who painted them; they possessed the same industry, they admired the same qualities. The virtue of honest strength, which made the men of Flanders the merchant princes of Europe, was the virtue whose traces the artists of Flanders loved to observe.... They care little for mystery, little for pity, little for enthusiasm.... They love a man whose visage tells the strength of his character, who has weathered the buffetings of many a storm, and bears on his visage the marks of the struggle" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 104).

654. THE MAGDALEN.

Known for the Magdalen by the small vase at her feet—emblem, in all the religious painters, of the alabaster box of ointment—"the symbol at once of her conversion and her love." In these "reading Magdalens" she is represented as now reconciled to heaven, and magnificently attired—in reference to her former state of worldly prosperity. "It is[Pg 326] difficult for us, in these days, to conceive the passionate admiration and devotion with which the Magdalen was regarded by her votaries in the Middle Ages. The imputed sinfulness of her life only brought her nearer to them. Those who did not dare to lift up their eyes to the more saintly models of purity and holiness,—the martyrs who had suffered in the cause of chastity,—took courage to invoke her intercession" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 205). Hence the numerous Magdalens to be met with in nearly every picture gallery; in art decidedly there has been "more joy over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety-and-nine that need no repentance."

"This picture is undoubtedly by the unknown master who painted two remarkable panels formerly in the Abbey of Flémalle in Belgium, but now in the Städel Museum at Frankfort-on-Maine. They present respectively the standing figure of the Virgin with the Infant at her breast, and the figure of St. Veronica, as an elderly woman, holding before her the sacred napkin on which is the impression of our Lord's visage. These, and a third panel in the same museum, representing the Trinity, but, unlike the others, painted in monochrome, must have belonged to a large altar-piece in many compartments, of which it is quite possible the small picture above described may have formed one" (Official Catalogue). Mr. Claude Phillips, on the other hand, while admiring the delicate and exquisite colour of our picture and the enamel-like quality of its surface, sees in it no resemblance to the works described above (see Academy, Sept. 28, 1889).

655. THE READING MAGDALEN.

This painter, who studied in Raphael's school, was a designer for tapestry (the staple industry of Brussels in his time) and stained glass, as well as what is now exclusively called an artist, and had all a designer's care for little things. He superintended the manufacture of the tapestries of the Vatican made from Raphael's cartoons, and there are some tapestries by him in the great hall at Hampton Court.

Notice the prettily designed cup in ivory and gold—symbolical of the box of precious ointment offered by the Magdalen to her Lord. For the subject see under last picture.

[Pg 327]

656: A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

Mabuse (Flemish: about 1470-1541).

Jan Gossart, called Mabuse from the town in Hainault (now in France) where he was born, is interesting in the history of art as the man who began the emigration of Flemish painters to Italy. He set out in 1508 in the suite of Philip of Burgundy, and remained about ten years in Italy where he copied the works of Leonardo and Michael Angelo. He was one of the illuminators of the famous Grimani Breviary in the Library at Venice. The finest example of the first, or Flemish period of Mabuse is the "Adoration of the Magi" at Castle Howard. To his second period, in which Italian influence is discernible, belongs the altar-piece in the Cathedral of Prague. There is a good portrait group by him at Hampton Court representing the children of King Christian II. of Denmark. A very fine work, attributed to Mabuse, has recently been added to the Gallery, No. 1689.

The sitter here is of the Flemish national type, but the Italian influence may be seen in the Renaissance architecture of the background.

657. A DUTCH GENTLEMAN AND LADY.

This painter was the master of Jan Schorel (720), and is mentioned by Van Mander as a great artist. Most of his altar-pieces for the churches of Holland perished during the Reformation. He was also an engraver, and his woodcuts were as much admired as the copperplates of his contemporary, Lucas van Leyden. He had a son, Dirk, who was also a good painter, especially of portraits.

Presumably a husband and wife—the donors, we may suppose, of an altar-piece. Their patron saints attend them. St. Peter lays his hand approvingly on the man's shoulder. The woman, as "the weaker vessel," seems to be supported by St. Paul. It should be noticed that in sacred and legendary art these two saints are almost always introduced together—St. Peter, with the keys, representing the church of the converted Jews, St. Paul that of the Gentiles: his common attributes are a book (denoting his Epistles), and a sword, signifying the manner of his martyrdom, and being emblematic also of "the good fight" fought by the faithful Christian with "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

[Pg 328]

658. THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN.

A picture, painted perhaps by Hugo van der Goes, on the lines of a print by Martin Schongauer, who was known to his contemporaries as "the glory of painters" and "Martin the Beautiful." He was born at Colmar, but probably studied under Roger van der Weyden. By some the picture is ascribed to the anonymous "Master of Flémalle," a contemporary of Roger van der Weyden: for whom see a little picture in Room XVI., now (1908) lent to the Gallery by Mr. Salting.

The "absolute joy in ugliness," which Ruskin finds most strongly exemplified in some of Schongauer's prints (Modern Painters, vol. iv. pt. v. ch. xix. § 18), is not altogether absent from this picture. A more unpleasant bedchamber, with its unseemly crowd of fat bustling apostles (notice the old fellow puffing away at a censer on the left), it would be hard to conceive. One is glad to escape through the open window to the pretty little view of the square.

659. PAN AND SYRINX.

This painter was born at Munich. Early in life he went to Rome, where he obtained some reputation. He next went to Venice, where he executed some pictures in imitation of Tintoretto, who was then still living. On his return to his native country he settled at Augsburg, and was much patronised by the Emperor Rudolph II.

The nymph Syrinx, beloved by Pan and flying from his pursuit, takes refuge among some bulrushes. The god, thinking to grasp her, finds only reeds in his hand—

He formed the reeds into a pipe, hence the name of Syrinx given to the "Pan's pipe," see 94. The background of this picture (which is executed on copper) is said to be by Jan Brueghel (for whom see 1287).

[Pg 329]

660. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

François Clouet, like his father Jeannet before him, was court painter to the King of France. Jeannet was, however, probably a Netherlander; and François remained faithful to the old northern style of painting. This and the other portrait ascribed to him might well be taken for works of the Flemish school.

In the costume of the 16th century: dated 1543.

661. THE MADONNA DI SAN SISTO.

A tracing from the original picture by Raphael at Dresden, by Jakob Schlesinger (1793-1855)—a Professor of Painting at Berlin.

663. THE RESURRECTION.

Artists may be divided according to the subjects of their choice into Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists. The first take the good in the world or in human nature around them and leave the evil; the second render all that they see, sympathising with all the good, and yet confessing the evil also; the third perceive and imitate evil only (Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. vi. § 51). Of the first class Fra Giovanni da Fiesole is the leading type. His life was largely spent in the endeavour to imagine the beings of another world.[158] His baptismal name was Guido, but he changed it early in life to Giovanni, when he entered a Dominican convent in Florence. He was once offered the archbishopric of his city, but he refused it: "He who practises the art of painting," he said, "has need of quiet, and should live without cares and anxieties; he who would do the work of Christ must dwell [Pg 330]continually with Him." He was given the name of "Angelico," and after his death the style and distinction of "Beato" (the Blessed), for his purity and heavenly-mindedness, and it is said of him that "he was never known to be angry, or to reprove, save in gentleness and love. Nor did he ever take pencil in hand without prayer, and he could not paint the Passion of Christ without tears of sorrow." By this "purity of life, habitual elevation of thought, and natural sweetness of disposition, he was enabled to express the sacred affections upon the human countenance as no one ever did before or since. In order to effect clearer distinction between heavenly beings and those of this world, he represents the former as clothed in draperies of the purest colour, crowned with glories of burnished gold, and entirely shadowless. With exquisite choice of gesture, and disposition of folds of drapery, this mode of treatment gives, perhaps, the best idea of spiritual beings which the human mind is capable of forming. It is, therefore, a true ideal; but the mode in which it is arrived at (being so far mechanical and contradictory of the appearances of nature) necessarily precludes those who practise it from being complete masters of their art. It is always childish, but beautiful in its childishness" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. vi. § 4). Angelico, it may be added, looking on his work as an inspiration from God, never altered or improved his designs when once completed, saying that "such was the will of God." Angelico's work, says Ruskin in a later passage, in which he discusses the weakness of the monastic ideal, will always retain its power, "as the gentle words of a child will." Yet "the peculiar phenomenon in his art is, to me, not its loveliness, but its weakness.... Of all men deserving to be called great, Fra Angelico permits to himself the least pardonable faults and the most palpable follies. There is evidently within him a sense of grace and power of invention as great as Ghiberti's; ... [but] comparing him with contemporary great artists of equal grace and invention, one peculiar character remains noticeable in him—which, logically, we ought therefore to attribute to the religious fervour;—and that distinctive character is, the contented indulgence of his own weaknesses, and perseverance in his own ignorances." Passing to consider the sources of the peculiar charm which we nevertheless feel in Angelico's work, Ruskin mentions "for one minor thing, an exquisite variety and brightness of ornamental work"; while "much of the impression of sanctity" is "dependent on a singular repose and grace of gesture, consummating itself in the floating, flying, and, above all, in the dancing groups" (Ethics of the Dust, pp. 150-152). Fra Angelico is said to have begun his artistic career as an illuminator of manuscripts—a tradition which is entirely in accordance with the style of his later works. In 1409 he left Fiesole for Foligno and Cortona. In the churches of the latter place fine altar-pieces by him are still preserved. From 1418 to 1436 he was again at Fiesole. In the latter year he was invited to Florence to decorate the new Convent of St. Mark. His frescoes here occupied him nine years. "This convent, now converted into a national monument, is a very museum[Pg 331] of Fra Angelico—cloisters, refectory, chapter-house, guest-room, corridor, stairs, and not less than nineteen or twenty cells, bear witness to a skill and leisure alike obsolete." Copies of several of the frescoes may be seen in the Arundel Society's collection. In 1445 Fra Angelico was called to Rome, where he painted the chapel of Nicolas V. in the Vatican (also copied and engraved for the Arundel Society). At Orvieto in 1447 he commenced some paintings in the chapel of the Madonna di San Brixio, which were afterwards completed by Signorelli. The last years of the painter's life were spent at Rome. He was buried in the Church of the Minerva, where his recumbent effigy (an emaciated figure in the Dominican habit) may still be seen. "Some works are for Earth," says a line in his Latin epitaph, "others for Heaven."

The weakness and the strength of the painter are alike well seen in this picture of Christ, with the banner of the resurrection surrounded by the Blessed. The representation of Christ Himself is weak and devoid of dignity; but what can be more beautiful than the surrounding angel choirs, "with the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores of heaven" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 21).[159] No two of the 266 figures are alike in face or form, though each is perfect in grace and beauty.[160] In the central compartment the seraphim (red) are on Christ's right, the cherubim (blue) on His left. In the compartment to Christ's left are, amongst other patriarchs and [Pg 332]saints, Abraham with the sword, Noah with the ark, Moses with the tables of law, Aaron with his name on his mitre, and below them St. Agnes with the Lamb, and St. Catherine with her wheel. The martyrs bear palms in their hands; some wear wreaths of roses, others the crown of thorns. In the compartment to Christ's left are the Virgin, St. Peter with the keys, and the Evangelists. On the extreme ends on either side are those of the painter's brother Dominicans, in their black robes, who have joined the company of the "Blessed."

This picture was formerly the predella of an altar-piece in San Domenico at Fiesole. It was sold by the monks in 1826 to the Prussian Consul in Rome, from whose nephew it was purchased for our Gallery. "The price paid was £3500. The additional and incidental expenses, in consequence of the demands of the Roman Government before allowing the exportation, were unusually great. Those demands, ostensibly founded on the excellence and celebrity of the picture, were admitted to be partly also suggested by the state of the Papal finances." The British Consul finally paid £700 for the permission of exportation (Director's Report, 1861). The altar-piece to which our picture belonged remains sadly damaged in situ.

664. THE DEPOSITION IN THE TOMB.

This painter was born at Tournai, where he was known as Rogelet de la Pasture. He afterwards went to Brussels, where he assumed [Pg 333]his Flemish name, and where in 1436 he was appointed town painter. For the Hall of Justice there he painted four pictures, which are now lost, but of which the designs are preserved in a set of tapestries in Berne Cathedral. He was the chief master (as a teacher, that is) of the early Flemish school. It was he who carried Flemish art into Italy (see 772), where he was in 1449-1450. "Contemporary Italian writers laud the pathos, the brilliant colouring, and the exhaustive finish of his works." He on his side gained something from the study of Italian masters. The composition of many of his great works—e.g. "The Last Judgment" at Beaune, the "Nativity" at Berlin, and "The Adoration of the Magi" at Munich—bears evidence of Italian influence. Nearer home, the school of the Lower Rhine in its later time was an offshoot of his school: and farther up the river, Martin Schongauer, at Colmar, was an immediate pupil of his. He set the fashions in several subjects—such as descents from the cross, and hundreds of followers imitated his designs. What gave his art this wide currency was the way in which it united the older religious feeling, from which Van Eyck had cut himself adrift, with the new naturalism and improved technique which Van Eyck had introduced. His French blood, too, gave his art an element of vivid emotion, which was lacking in the staid control of Van Eyck. He is especially praised for his "representations of human desires and dispositions, whether grief, pain, or joy." He thus painted for the religious needs of the people at large; and though an inferior artist, enjoyed a far wider influence than Van Eyck. "Less intensely realistic than Van Eyck, less gifted with the desire and the power to reproduce the phenomena of nature for their own sake, and in their completeness, he thought more," says Sir F. Burton, "of expressing the feelings common to him and the pious worshippers for whose edification he wrought. His figures exhibit deep, if sometimes rather overstrained, pathos. He strove with naïf earnestness to bring home to the senses the reality of the incidents connected with the last sufferings and death of the Saviour. Still he was naturalistic too, in the sense in which that term applies to all painters of the early Flemish school, in that he imitated with minuteness every object which he thought necessary to his compositions; but of the broad principles of chiaroscuro and subordination which Van Eyck had so wonderfully grasped, he had small perception. His scenes seem filled with the light of early morning. His colour, pale in the flesh-tints with greyish modelling, is varied and delicately rich in the clothing and other stuffs introduced. His landscape abounds in freshness and greenth. Thus he transferred to his oil pictures the light and brilliance of missal painting, an art which perhaps he had himself practised." "He occasionally practised a very different technical method from that usually employed in Flanders—that is to say, he painted in pure tempera colours on unprimed linen, the flesh tints especially being laid on extremely thin, so that the texture of the linen remains unhidden. Other colours, such as a smalto blue used for draperies, are applied in greater body, and[Pg 334] the whole is left uncovered by any varnish" (Middleton). Of this method the present picture is a fine example.

This picture—"one of the most exquisite in feeling of the early Flemish school" (Poynter)—is full of sincere emotion. "Roger van der Weyden is especially known by his touching conception of some of the scenes of the Passion. He excelled in the lull of suppressed feeling. The picture of the Entombment by him in the National Gallery is as much more sad to the heart than the passionate Italian conception, as a deep sigh sometimes than a flood of tears. We could almost wish those mourners, with their compressed lips, red eyelids, and slowly trickling tears, would weep more—it would grieve us less. But evidently the violence of the first paroxysm of grief is over, and this is the exhaustion after it. The tide is ebbing as with all new sorrow, too soon to flow again. No finer conception of manly sorrow, sternly repressed, exists than in the heads of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who devote themselves the more strenuously to their task in order to conceal their grief. Strange that a painter of such exquisite refinement of feeling should adhere to so hideous a type of Christ as that which appears here" (Mrs. Jameson's History of our Lord, ii. 246). It is interesting to contrast the figure of Christ with that in Francia's picture (180). In painting such subjects the Italians of the best time endured the physical painfulness, the Northern temperament rejoiced in it. The painters in so doing were only meeting the wishes of their patrons. There is a contract, for instance, still in existence in which it is expressly stipulated that the form of our Lord in a picture ordered at Bruges shall be painted "in all respects like a dead man."

665. THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

This great Umbrian master was a native of Borgo San Sepolcro in Umbria, but studied in Florence, where it is probable that he was a pupil of Paolo Uccello (see 583). A combination of the characteristics of the two schools is to be seen in the work of Piero, who had at the same time a marked individuality of his own. "He has the imaginative impulse, the Umbrian sense of an inner, an almost mystic beauty, of a certain aloofness from earth and uplifting of the soaring spirit; and yet on the other side of his character he is strongly scientific; he studies perspective, the projection of shadows, the scheme of[Pg 335] values; he fills his work with light and atmosphere, and improves on the oil methods of the earlier Florentines" (Brinton's Renaissance in Italian Art, iii. 85). "By dignity of portraiture, by loftiness of style, and by a certain poetical solemnity of imagination he raised himself above the level of the mass of his contemporaries. Those who have once seen his fresco of the 'Resurrection' at Borgo San Sepolcro [in the Pinacoteca] will never forget the deep impression of solitude and aloofness from all earthly things produced by it" (Symonds, iii. 170). A copy of this fresco may be seen in the Arundel Society's collection. The picture now before us also well illustrates the skill in dealing with technical difficulties and the solemn grandeur of conception which characterise the painter. Piero della Francesca was so called after his mother,[162] "Francesca's Peter," for, says Vasari, "he had been brought up solely by herself, who furthermore assisted him in the attainment of that learning to which his good fortune had destined him." He received at first a scientific education, and possessed, adds Vasari, "a considerable knowledge of Euclid, inasmuch that he understood all the most important properties of rectilinear bodies better than any other geometrician." In a treatise on perspective, written in the vulgar tongue, he reduced the science to "rules which have hardly admitted of subsequent improvement." These studies influenced Piero's tendencies in art. "The laws of aerial perspective, of the harmony of colours, the proportions of light and shade, and the position of objects in space were equally developed by one whose feeling for precise calculation went pari passu with that of pictorial representation. In this combination of science and art he was strictly the precursor of Leonardo da Vinci. Fra Luca Paccioli, a celebrated mathematician, and an intimate friend of Piero, was in later years in constant communication with Leonardo" (Layard, i. 215). Piero probably acquired the new method of oil painting from Domenico Veneziano (see 766), whom he assisted in some wall paintings in S. Maria Nuova in Florence in 1439, and with whom he afterwards worked at Loreto. Some of his best works are to be seen in his native city, and at Arezzo he painted a remarkable series of frescoes for the church of S. Francesco. Piero was also employed at Urbino, where he appears to have been the guest of Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. He worked also in Rimini and Ferrara, and was called to Rome to paint two frescoes in the Vatican, which were afterwards destroyed to make room for the works of Raphael. His later, like his earlier years, were devoted to mathematical studies, and in his old age "the ban Of blindness struck both palette from his thumb And pencil from his finger." Among his pupils Vasari mentions Perugino and Signorelli.

A picture of great interest from a technical point of view, as [Pg 336]showing an advancing skill, especially in perspective. The feet of Christ are finely "foreshortened"; the tops of the mountains are correctly reflected on the surface of the river in the foreground; in the middle distance there is a foreshortened view of a street leading to a fortified town, and the anatomy of the figure stripping himself for baptism is very carefully rendered. This very realistic figure of a convert strikes a curious note; Piero's paintings are "the working out of problems before our very eyes." In these technical respects Piero resembles Paolo Uccello, while there is also a striking affinity of style between the landscapes of the two painters. "The peculiar construction of these landscapes, with steep mountains of an uncommon type, is the more remarkable because they are the starting-point of all the later achievements in realistic landscape painting" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 16). "The study of natural phenomena," says Mr. Monkhouse, "is everywhere apparent. The pomegranate trees are the earliest attempt in the National Gallery to give what may be called the portrait of a particular tree—the habit of its growth, the special character of its leafage. The hedge in Uccello's 'Battle of St. Egidio' is the nearest approach to it. He has striven to imagine the scene as it actually might have happened. Sundry worthies, in strange rich costumes, look on from a further bank. Nothing is 'newer' in the picture than the carefully studied reflections of their garments in the water. The effect, so beautifully rendered by Burne-Jones in his picture of 'Venus's Looking-Glass,' Piero was the first to paint, if not to observe" (In the National Gallery, p. 106).

The subject is the baptism in Jordan. Christ, under the shade of a pomegranate tree, is being "baptized of John in Jordan; and straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him" (Mark i. 9, 10). The spiritual feeling of the scene is enhanced by the sweet presence of the attendant angels,—crowned with wreaths of flowers, instead of the nimbus. It is an old belief that angels watch over men's birth, and so too they are represented as presiding over the new birth, which is typified by the rite of baptism. "What solemnity in the bearing of Christ as He permits John to pour over Him the water of Jordan which is flowing in a shallow stream at his feet! How modest the deportment of the assistant angels at His side! How the trees, whose every leaf in the dense foliage[Pg 337] is distinctly outlined, seem even to hush their whispers that nothing may disturb the nearness of God, who looking down from heaven as out of the far distance, makes his presence felt" (Grimm's Life of Raphael, p. 46). This picture, which seems never to have been finished and shows the under-painting, was formerly the principal altar-piece of the Priory of St. John the Baptist at Borgo San Sepolcro.

666. THE ANNUNCIATION.

This and the companion picture by the same artist (667) were painted for Cosmo de' Medici (this one is marked with Cosmo's crest—three feathers tied together in a ring), and are identified with a story told by Vasari, which Browning worked up in his poem on the artist. Cosmo, knowing the artist's ways, kept him under lock and key that his work might be the quicker done, but Lippi one night contrived a way of escape, and "from that time forward," adds Vasari, "Cosmo gave the artist more liberty, and was by this means more promptly and effectually served by the painter, and was wont to say that men of genius were not beasts of burden, but forms of light." Filippo was the son of a butcher, and, being left an orphan, was committed to the charge of the monks of the Carmelite convent close to which his parents had lived. At the age of fourteen or fifteen he was induced to take the vows of the order. At this time he must have seen Masaccio painting in the famous Branacci chapel of the conventual church, S. M. del Carmine. Lippi himself executed some works (now destroyed) in the church, and having by this time found his true vocation, he was in 1431 permitted to leave the convent in order to be free to practise his art. Vasari relates that during an excursion on the Adriatic, Lippi was taken captive by some Moorish pirates. But after a while he found opportunity to draw a whole-length portrait of his master with charcoal on a white wall, which the pirates deemed so marvellous that they set him at liberty. This tale, however, is inconsistent with the facts of Lippi's life as now known[Pg 338] from documentary evidence. Lippi enjoyed the patronage of the Medici, and he received sinecure offices also from the Pope. During the years 1431-53 many of his best panel pictures were painted. Among these may be mentioned the "Coronation of the Virgin" (Academy, Florence), in which is introduced a portrait of himself with the tonsure, and bearing a scroll inscribed Is perfecit opus, and the "Virgin adoring the Infant, borne by two Angels" (Uffizi), which was selected by Ruskin for one of his four "Lesson Photographs," and is fully described by him in Fors, 1875, p. 307. At the end of the period in question Lippi undertook the principal work of his life, which occupied him for several years, the series of frescoes in the choir of the Duomo at Prato. "These magnificent paintings," says Morelli, "were executed at about the same time as those equally celebrated by Mantegna in the Cappella degli Eremitani at Padua. Whoever would learn to know the aspirations and artistic power of that period in the highest utterances, has only to study those two wall-paintings. If we are carried away by Fra Filippo's grandeur of conception and his pure dramatic vividness, we are enthralled, on the other hand, by Mantegna's greater fulness of expression and his perfect execution" (German Galleries, p. 71). While engaged on these frescoes, the friar-painter was appointed chaplain to the convent of Santa Margherita. Here he became enamoured of one of the nuns, Lucrezia Buti, and having persuaded the abbess to let Lucrezia sit to him for a study of the Madonna, he carried her off to his house. She remained with him for two years, and bore him a son, the renowned painter, Filippino Lippi (293). Her portrait is to be seen in the Virgin of the "Assumption," now in the Communal Gallery at Prato. She was induced to return to the convent, and took fresh vows, but again escaped to seek the friar's protection. The scandal now became serious, and Filippo was threatened with punishment. But Cosmo de' Medici intervened, and the Pope issued a bull releasing the erring pair from their vows and sanctioning their marriage. Lippi's last work was a series of frescoes in the choir of the Duomo at Spoleto. Here he died, from an illness ascribed by some to poison, leaving the work to be finished by his assistant, Fra Diamante. He was buried in the Duomo. Over his tomb Lorenzo de' Medici caused a monument to be erected, and Poliziano wrote Latin couplets to commemorate the fame of the friar-painter. "His art," says Ruskin, "is the finest, out and out, that ever monk did, which I attribute myself to what is usually considered faultful in him, his having run away with a pretty novice out of a convent.... The real gist of the matter is that Lippi did, openly and bravely, what the highest prelates in the Church did basely and in secret; also he loved, where they only lusted; and he has been proclaimed therefore by them—and too foolishly believed by us—to have been a shameful person"[163] (Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii. 4; Ariadne [Pg 339]Florentina, vi. § 5 n.). In other words, Lippi, while true to his religion, did not shut himself out from the world—to use the theological language, he "sanctified," not "crucified," the flesh. His pictures are "nobly religious work,—examples of the most perfect unison of religious myth with faithful realism of human nature yet produced in this world" (Fors Clavigera, 1876, p. 187). "The human element, with him so naïve and spontaneous, gives," says Burton, "a singular charm to his works. His colour is golden and broad, and his drapery finely cast and of fascinatingly broken tones." Among his pupils (besides his son) were Pesellino and Botticelli.

Here the traditional legend of the Annunciation is faithfully adhered to, and there is much "unusually mystic spiritualism of conception" in the dove, the Spirit of God, proceeding in rays of golden light from the hand of an unseen Presence; but the painter delights to elaborate also every element of human interest and worldly beauty. Note, for instance, the prettiness of the angel's face, the gracefulness of his figure, the sheen of his wings, and the dainty splendour of the Virgin's chamber.

667. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND SAINTS.

Lippi's general characteristics, noticed above under the companion picture (666), may again be seen here. The "other saints" are Sts. Francis (on the spectator's right, with the stigmata), Lawrence, and Cosmas; on the left Sts. Damianus, Anthony, and Peter Martyr—this last a particularly "human" saint. Lippi was a monk himself, and drew his saints in the human resemblance of good "brothers" that he knew. "I will tell you what Lippi must have taught any boy whom he loved. First, humility, and to live in joy and peace, injuring no man—if such innocence might be. Nothing is so manifest in every face by him as its gentleness and rest." It is characteristic of Lippi, too, that the saints should be represented sitting in so pretty a garden. Secondly,—"a little thing it seems, but was a great one,—love of flowers. No one draws such lilies or such daisies as Lippi. Botticelli beat him after[Pg 340]wards in roses, but never in lilies" (Ariadne Florentina, vi. § 9).

668. THE BEATO FERRETTI.

Gabriele Ferretti (to whose family Pope Pius IX. belonged) was Superior of the Franciscans in the March of Ancona, and died in 1456. Thirty years later his body was found incorrupt, and was deposited in a sarcophagus in the church of S. Francesco ad Alto at Ancona. It is conjectured that the present picture was painted for that church in commemoration of the discovery of the body. The artist shows us the holy man in enjoyment of the vision of the beatified. "The Beato (in Franciscan habit) has been reading or praying, at the entrance of a cave near a church, in a quiet country spot from which a road leads to a town in the distance. Suddenly in the sky the Virgin and Child appear (surrounded by the Vesica glory, see No. 564). He has laid down his book, put off his sandals, and kneels in prayer and adoration.... The masterly treatment of the drapery, the perfection of the forms, the architecture, the sense of spaciousness in the landscape, all point to the maturity of Crivelli's art.... The landscape, for general effect, is one of his best, though the treatment of the rocks and of the foreground is still conventional. The most striking objects in it are the leafless tree-stems, the counterpart, as it were, of the hard and bony human figures of which he was so fond, and therefore an illustration of his love for anatomical forms. His seeking after realism again appears in the two ducks painted with minute precision. In contrast to them we get the festoon of fruit at the top of the picture, illustrating the conventional and decorative aspect of his art. No picture of his suggests more completely both the range and the limitations of Crivelli" (G. M. Rushforth: Carlo Crivelli, pp. 65, 87).

669. ST. SEBASTIAN, ST. ROCH AND ST. DEMETRIUS.

Giambattista Benvenuti, called L'Ortolano (the gardener) from his father's occupation, is still a problem in art history, details of his[Pg 341] life being so uncertain that even the existence of him is disputed by some critics. There is, however, documentary evidence which proves his existence. This noble picture was, until 1844, the altar-piece of the parochial church of Bondeno, near Ferrara, where it was generally considered the painter's masterpiece. His life and works are generally confounded with those of Garofalo, to which painter Morelli ascribes the present work. "Garofalo's characteristics are apparent in the form of hand, the brown flesh-tints, the drapery, the landscape, and the small stones in the foreground" (Italian Painters: The Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries in Rome, p. 208). On the other hand, Venturi has drawn up a list of works, showing common characteristics and common differences from Garofalo, which he therefore attributes to Ortolano. To this list should be added Lord Wimborne's "St. Joseph presenting the Infant Christ." Among the characteristics noticeable in our picture are houses planted on posts; long, straight streaks in the background turning to white; trees with large, sparse, yellowing leaves. "Garofalo never achieved the rapt expression of St. Demetrius" (see the argument of Venturi quoted in Burlington Fine Arts Club's Catalogue, 1894).

In the centre is St. Sebastian, tied to a tree, and pierced with arrows; whilst in the foreground is a cross-bow, lying uselessly. For the story is that Sebastian was a noble youth who was promoted to the command of a company in the Prætorian Guards by the Emperor Diocletian:

"At this time he was secretly a Christian, but his faith only rendered him more loyal to his masters; more faithful in all his engagements; more mild, more charitable; while his favour with his prince, and his popularity with the troops, enabled him to protect those who were persecuted for Christ's sake, and to convert many to the truth. Among his friends were two young men of noble family, soldiers like himself; their names were Marcus and Marcellinus." And when they were tortured for being Christians, Sebastian, "neglecting his own safety, rushed forward, and, by his exhortations, encouraged them rather to die than to renounce their Redeemer. Then Diocletian ordered that Sebastian also should be bound to a stake and shot to death with arrows. The archers left him for dead; but in the middle of the night, Irene, the widow of one of his martyred friends, came with her attendants to take his body away, that she might bury it honourably; and it was found that none of the arrows had pierced him in a vital part, and that he yet breathed. So they carried him to her house, and his wounds were dressed; and the pious widow tended him night and day, until he had wholly recovered" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, pp. 343, 344).

This legend was one of the special favourites with the[Pg 342] mediæval painters: "the display of beautiful form, permitted and even consecrated by devotion, is so rare in Christian representations, that we cannot wonder at the avidity with which this subject was seized" (ibid. p. 346). It is instructive to compare the noble use of the subject made in this picture, in which the great technical skill of the painter is subordinate to the beautiful display of a sacred legend, with the "St. Sebastian" of Pollajuolo (292), in which, as we have seen, the subject is used solely—and painfully—for the display of such skill. With St. Sebastian is here represented, on his left, his contemporary, St. Demetrius. He is clad in armour, for he also served under Diocletian, being Proconsul of Greece, and like St. Sebastian used his high office to preach Christ. On the other side is St. Roch (for whose legend see 735). He is a much later saint (about A.D. 1300), and is associated with St. Sebastian as another patron of the plague-stricken. Arrows have been from all antiquity the emblem of pestilence; and from the association of arrows with his legend, St. Sebastian succeeded in Christian times to the honours enjoyed by Apollo, in Greek mythology, as the protector against pestilence.

670. A KNIGHT OF ST. STEPHEN.

He wears the robes of his order (with a red cross bordered with yellow), an order established by Cosimo, Duke of Tuscany, and charged with the defence of the coasts against pirates. The knight is a good specimen of the courtier aristocracy with which Cosimo surrounded himself. The knights of St. Stephen afterwards won much honour by their prowess, but they were men of culture also: notice that this one holds a book in his hand, which rests on a table richly carved in the taste of the time. This portrait was presented to the nation by Mr. Watts, R.A.

671. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED

This fine picture was originally the principal altar-piece of the church of San Guglielmo (St. William) at Ferrara. Hence the introduction of that saint (on our left)—a beautiful face, into which the artist has put, one may think, all his local piety. The[Pg 343] saint is in armour, for William—the institutor of the hermit order of Guglielmites—was originally a soldier, and was "given," says one of his biographers, "unto a licentious manner of living, too common among persons of that profession." It was to escape from such temptations that he became a holy penitent, and fought thenceforward in mountain solitudes, as a soldier of Christ against the flesh and the devil. Beside him stands St. Clara, "the very ideal of a gray sister, sedate and sweet, sober, steadfast, and demure." She gazes on a crucifix, for she too had renounced the pomps and vanities of the world. Her wealth of golden hair was cut off, it is said, by St. Francis; her fortune she gave to hospitals, and herself became the foundress of the Order of "Poor Clares." St. Francis stands on the other side of the throne, and besides him is "good St. Anthony" (see under 776).

672. HIS OWN PORTRAIT.

"This portrait, dated 1640, describes the man well—strong and robust, with powerful head, firm and compressed lips and determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, separated by a deep vertical furrow, and with eyes of keen penetrating glance,—altogether a self-reliant man, who would carry out his own ideas, careless whether his popularity waxed or waned" (J. F. White in Encyclopædia Britannica).

673. "SALVATOR MUNDI."

A picture of special interest as being the earliest known work (it is dated 1465) of Antonello, of Messina in Sicily, who is famous as the man by whom the art of painting in oils, as perfected by the Van Eycks (see 186), was introduced into Venice. Vasari's story is that Antonello saw, on a visit to Naples, a picture by John Van Eyck, in which the brilliancy and fine fusion of the tints so struck him that he forthwith set out for Flanders, ingratiated himself with Van Eyck, and learnt from him the secret of his method. But the dates do not agree with this story. For Van Eyck died in 1440, and Antonello must therefore have been born early in the century, whereas, on the contrary, Vasari expressly states that he died in 1493, aged forty-nine. More probably Antonello learnt the Flemish technique from the painters of that school who are known to have been at Naples in the middle of the fifteenth[Pg 344] century. In his native town, in the church of S. Gregorio, is a triptych by him, dated 1473. In the same year he was at Venice, where he remained until his death. "His practical mastery of the new method, still unknown in the city of the Lagoons, of glazing in oil colours a ground laid in tempera, must have given Antonello a higher status at Venice than his intrinsic merits as an artist would have warranted. We see that he is at once honoured with a commission from the wardens of S. Cassiano. Unhappily the altar-piece there, so highly praised by Matteo Collaccio and Sabellico, and signed with the year 1473, has long since disappeared. And not only did the church dignitaries of Venice patronise him, but the patricians were eager to have their likenesses taken on the new principle practised by Antonello; and, to judge by the number of portraits he turned out in those years, he must for a time have been the most popular portrait painter in Venice" (Morelli). Of his portraits there is a good example in our Gallery (1141). The splendid portrait in the Louvre is dated 1475; that in the Berlin Gallery, 1478. The "Crucifixion" in our Gallery is dated 1477. "It is evident to me," says Morelli, "that Antonello gradually formed himself by studying the works and seeking the society of the great Venetian masters, till he reached that degree of perfection which we miss in his early Ecce Homos and admire in his portraits of 1475-78. His Italian nature gradually works its way through the Flemish shell in which his first master had encased his hand as well as mind. In this transformation of Antonello as an artist Giovanni Bellini had obviously the greatest share. Whoever visits the churches of Messina, and of the towns and villages along that eastern coast of Sicily as far as Syracuse, will still find in many of them Madonnas, whether in colour or in marble, that remind him of Antonello and Giambellino. And not only did Antonello act powerfully on his own Sicilian countrymen; we also discern his influence in several portraits by painters of Upper Italy—for instance, those of Solario." No. 923, for example, the portrait of a Venetian Senator, by that master, is strongly reminiscent of Antonello's style. In fact, as Sir F. Burton says, "to Antonello and his Flemish education is due that type of portraiture which we find among the Venetian and North Italian painters of his time, and which, under a southern sun, and in the hands of a Titian, expanded itself in the noblest form." (The above account of Antonello follows Morelli: see his Italian Masters in German Galleries, pp. 376-390).

Christ as the "Saviour of the World," stands with his finger on the edge of a parapet, giving the blessing and gazing into eternity. The picture, being dated 1465,[164] must have been [Pg 345]painted by Antonello in his twenty-first year. Both in conception and in the ruddy complexion peculiar to the school of Van Eyck (see 222 and 290) it suggests a Flemish influence. Notice also the pentimenti (or corrections): the right hand and border of the tunic were originally higher, and their forms, obliterated by the painter, have now in course of time disappeared. This again shows the hand of an experienced artist.

674. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

A splendid specimen of this painter's portraits, and a type of the face which meets one in nearly every Gallery of Europe; for Bordone, who had (as we have seen) a great vogue as a lady's portrait painter, had yet a way, says Ridolfi, of making such works appear more like fancy portraits than individual portraits. This one is of a girl of the Brignole family, aged eighteen, according to the inscription. In the Brignole Palace at Genoa (now the property of the town) are two magnificent portraits by Bordone. The type here is that of a cruel and somewhat sensual beauty—the eyes, especially, being, "like Mars, to threaten or command"—

Since the above note was written, Mr. H. Schütz Wilson has suggested, with some plausibility, that the portrait is of Bianca Cappello (1542-1587), "as pre-eminent in sumptuous voluptuous loveliness, as she was in the crime of her day in Italy." "In the deadly calm of the almost inscrutable lineaments of this remarkable portrait, in which charm and grace are shown behind so much that is terrible, so much that is earthly, sensual, devilish, in those awful eyes, and in that cruel 'red mouth, like a venomous flower,' we see, as I fancy," says Mr. Wilson, "not an obscure girl of a noble family of Genoa, but the counterfeit presentment of the romantically wicked Renaissance heroine, the fair and evil Grand Duchess of Tuscany" (Pall Mall Gazette, November 22, 1888).

[Pg 346]

679. THE PORTRAIT OF AN ASTRONOMER.

Bol was the most distinguished of Rembrandt's pupils in portraiture. He was born at Dordrecht, and settled at Amsterdam, where he acquired burgess rights in 1652. One of Bol's portraits in the Louvre has attained the honour of being hung in the Salon Carré. His "Four Regents of the Leprosy Hospital" at Amsterdam is the painter's masterpiece, and one of the finest works of the Dutch School. Bol's pictures are remarkable for a prevailing yellow tone. Up to about the year 1660 he seems to have remained the pupil of Rembrandt. "Unfortunately he did not remain faithful to his early teaching. He made sacrifices to the taste of his time, and abandoned the sober and grave figures, the severe and sustained method of painting, the powerful light and shade of his school, to seek a fresh source of success in overwhelming allegory and in the imitation of Rubens. This was his ruin. His later works, painted in full light, are very inferior to those of an earlier date; their colouring is hard, glaring, and discordant, and in composition they are frequently bombastic and pretentious" (Havard: The Dutch School of Painting, p. 93).

The sitter is conjectured to be an astronomer, from the globes on the table before him and from the look on his face as of a man dwelling among the clouds. The picture is signed, and dated 1652.

680. THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.

Painted by Van Dyck from the large picture by Rubens at Mechlin, for an engraver to work from. "One of the too numerous brown sketches in the manner of the Flemish School, which seem to me rather done for the sake of wiping the brush clean than of painting anything. There is no colour in it, and no light and shade;—but a certain quantity of bitumen is rubbed about so as to slip more or less greasily into the shape of figures; and one of St. John's (or St. James's) legs is suddenly terminated by a wriggle of white across it, to signify that he is standing in the sea" (Art of England, p. 44). Ruskin notices the picture as an example of the art which was assailed by the Pre-Raphaelites. A word-picture of the same scene in the Pre-Raphaelite manner, with its literal and close realisation, will be found in Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. § 16.

[Pg 347]

685. SHOWERY WEATHER.

Hobbema, who disputes with Ruysdael the place of best Dutch landscape painter, was a friend of the latter, and perhaps his pupil: certainly works of the two are sometimes remarkably alike. Thus it has been pointed out that Hobbema's No. 996 shows the influence of Ruysdael, whilst Ruysdael's No. 986 recalls Hobbema's. Often, too, they painted the same country; compare e.g. No. 986 with Hobbema's No. 832. Like Ruysdael, too, Hobbema was a painter without honour in his own country, and nine-tenths of his known works are in England, where he was first appreciated, and where he was the means of influencing many of our landscape painters, notably Nasmyth. His pictures were often ascribed to other painters, now considered greatly his inferiors, in order to obtain better prices. It has been remarked as a curious fact that until the middle of the eighteenth century no engraver thought it worth while to reproduce any of Hobbema's pictures; and Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Tour in Holland (1781) makes no reference to Hobbema, though he must have seen some of his pictures. Even a hundred years ago they were not much sought after; now they are more valued than those of any landscape painter and fetch very large prices at auctions. Recently one of them sold for as much as £8820. This appreciation is due in part to the fact that Hobbemas are very rare; the known works by him number hardly more than a hundred. Of Hobbema's life very little is recorded. His name (like that of Alma Tadema) betokens Frisian origin. His birthplace is unknown, but he appears to have been born at Amsterdam, and to have been the scholar of Jacob Ruysdael in landscape painting. Ruysdael was the witness at his marriage. This was in 1668. In the same year he was appointed one of the sworn gaugers for the excise of the town. "Thus, a century before Burns, fortune played upon one of the greatest of landscape painters the same trick that she played in his case upon the most spontaneous of poets." Hobbema was not the only painter of his time who had to eke out a bare subsistence by employment more lucrative than the production of masterpieces. Salomon van Ruysdael was also a frame-maker; Van Goyen speculated in houses, picture-dealing, and tulips; and Jan Steen was an innkeeper. The coincidence of Hobbema's marriage and his appointment as gauger of wines and oil was not by chance. The archives throw a curious light upon the public morals of Amsterdam at the time of its greatest prosperity. By a deed executed in the month of his marriage, Hobbema admits that he owes his appointment to the influence of a companion of his wife, like her a servant in the employment of the burgomaster, and in consideration of this he agrees to pay her, so long as he holds the place, an annual sum of 250 florins. Posterity owes this servant of the burgomaster a grudge, for after taking up the appointment, Hobbema[Pg 348] scarcely painted any more. The post cannot, however, have been lucrative, for he died in evil circumstances—in a house directly opposite to that in which Rembrandt had died forty years before. The painter of works, any one of which is now worth a small fortune to its possessor, was buried in a pauper's grave.

In spite of the resemblance to Ruysdael above noted, Hobbema's best and most characteristic works are quite distinct. Ruysdael is the painter of the solitude of nature, of rocks and waterfalls; Hobbema of the Dutch "fields with dwellings sprinkled o'er." The pervading tone of Ruysdael is dark and sombre; that of Hobbema is drowsy and still. A second characteristic of Hobbema is his fondness for oak foliage, and a certain "nigglingness" in his execution of it. See e.g. 832, 833. "They (Hobbema and Both) can paint oak leafage faithfully, but do not know where to stop, and by doing too much, lose the truth of all, lose the very truth of detail at which they aim, for all their minute work only gives two leaves to nature's twenty. They are evidently incapable of even thinking of a tree, much more of drawing it, except leaf by leaf; they have no notion nor sense of simplicity, mass, or obscurity, and when they come to distance, where it is totally impossible that leaves should be separately seen, being incapable of conceiving or rendering the grand and quiet forms of truth, they are reduced to paint their bushes with dots and touches expressive of leaves three feet broad each." "No word," Ruskin elsewhere adds, "has been more harmfully misused than that ugly one of 'niggling.' I should be glad if it were entirely banished from service and record. The only essential question about drawing is whether it be right or wrong; that it be small or large, swift or slow, is a matter of convenience only. But so far as the word may be legitimately used at all, it belongs especially to such execution as this of Hobbema's—execution which substitutes, on whatever scale, a mechanical trick or habit of hand for true drawing of known or intended forms." A second objection to Hobbema's method may be mentioned besides its "trickiness." His "niggling" touch is extended from the foreground to objects farther off, and thus "a middle distance of Hobbema involves a contradiction in terms; it states a distance by perspective, which it contradicts by distinctness of detail" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 17, sec. vi. ch. i. § 22; vol. v. pt. vi. ch. v. § 6). In spite, however, of such defects, the works of Hobbema have an enduring charm for their incisiveness of touch, and warmth of light. He had not Ruysdael's variety nor his depth of poetic feeling. The forest glade and the watermill are almost all he paints. But these he paints so firmly and decisively that they live for ever, and upon them he casts a warm and golden tone which never fails to please.

[Pg 349]

686. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

It is only in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges that the art of this exquisite painter can be properly studied. There, as among the Fra Angelicos at San Marco in Florence and the Giottos at the Arena in Padua, one may see the great works of a mediæval painter in the very surroundings which first produced them. (Copies of some of Memlinc's works at Bruges and elsewhere are included in the Arundel Society's collection.) The Hospital is, as it were, a shrine of Memlinc. Around this fact legends grew. In one of the pictures, it was said, a portrait of the artist might be discovered; on the sculptured ornaments of a porch enframing one of its subjects, an incident of the master's life might be traced,—his danger as he lay senseless in the street, his rescue as charitable people carried his body to the hospital. It came to be told how the great artist began life as a soldier who went to the wars under Charles the Bold, and came back riddled with wounds from the field of Nancy. Wandering homeward in a disabled state in 1477, he fainted in the streets of Bruges, and was cured by the Hospitallers. Unknown to them and a stranger to Bruges, he gave tangible proofs of his skill to the brethren of St. John, and showed his gratitude by refusing payment for a picture he had painted. Unfortunately all this is a myth. Of his real life little is known, but it is enough to refute the legends that for so long passed current. In 1477 he was under contract to furnish an altar-piece for the guild chapel of the booksellers of Bruges; this picture, preserved under the name of the "Seven Griefs of Mary," is now one of the principal treasures of the Gallery of Turin. His many pictures for the Hospitallers were painted in 1479 and 1480. He was born at Mayence on the Rhine. His name (which should not be spelt Memling) was probably derived from the town of Memmelinck (now Medenblik) in the north-east of Holland, to which place his family presumably belonged. He is known from the town records to have been settled in Bruges in his own house in 1479. He must have been a citizen of some wealth, for in the next year he was one of those who contributed to a loan raised by Maximilian of Austria to push hostilities against France. In 1487 he lost his wife. In 1494 he died, his children being still minors, and was buried in the Church of St. Giles (see a document cited in the Athenæum of 2nd February 1889).

This is all that documentary evidence has disclosed about Memlinc's life. If the evidence of his pictures may be taken, his life must have been gentle and peaceful. For Memlinc's place in the history of art is among the leaders of the "Purist" School (see under 663). He was, we may say, the Fra Angelico of Flanders. In technique he used the methods perfected by the Van Eycks. "In drawing a com[Pg 350]parison between Memlinc and his predecessors and contemporaries,[165] he is found inferior to John Van Eyck in power of colour and chiaroscuro, as well as in searching portraiture; to Van der Weyden in dramatic force; to Dierick Bouts and Gheeraert David in beauty and finish of landscape" (Weale's monograph on Memlinc, published by the Arundel Society). But Memlinc had a sentiment and an ideal of his own to which none of his Flemish contemporaries attained. "Van Eyck saw with his eye, Memlinc begins to see with his spirit. The one copied and imitated; the other copies, imitates,—and transfigures. Van Eyck, without any thought of an ideal, reproduced the virile types which passed before his eyes. Memlinc dreams as he looks, chooses what is most lovable and delicate in human forms, and creates above all as his feminine type a choice being who was unknown before his time, and has disappeared since. They are women, but women seen according to the tender predilections of a spirit in love with grace, nobility, beauty." Memlinc's men, on the other hand, do not compare advantageously with Van Eyck's. There is more vigour in the latter, more framework, more muscle, more blood. "Memlinc's art is very human, but there is in it no trace of the villainies and atrocities of his time. His ideal is his own. It foreshadowed perhaps the Bellinis, the Botticellis, the Peruginos, but not Leonardo, nor the Tuscans, nor the Romans of the Renaissance. Imagine in the midst of the horror of the century a privileged spot, a sort of angelic retreat where the passions are silenced and troubles cease, where men pray and worship, where physical and moral deformities are transfigured, where new sentiments come into being and sweet usages grow up like the lilies: imagine this and you will have an idea of the unique soul of Memlinc and of the miracle which he works in his pictures" (Fromentin: Les Maitres d'Autrefois).

In front is a portrait of the donor of the picture. On the Virgin's left is St. George with the dragon—not a very dreadful dragon, either—"they do not hurt or destroy" in the peaceful gardens that Memlinc fancied. Notice how the peaceful idea is continued in the man returning to his pleasant home in the background to the left. The Virgin herself is typical of the feminine idea in early Flemish art. "It must be borne in mind that the people of the fifteenth century still lived in an age when the language of symbols was rich and widely understood.... The high forehead of the Virgin and wide arching brows tell of her intellectual power, her rich long [Pg 351]hair figures forth the fulness of her life, her slim figure and tiny mouth symbolise her purity, her mild eyes with their drooping eyelids discover her devoutness, her bent head speaks of humility. The supreme and evident virtue which reigns in all these Madonnas is an absolute purity of heart" (Conway's Early Flemish Painters, pp. 109, 110).

687. ST. VERONICA.

A work of interest as being by the first artist who emerges in the North as an individual painter—painting before his time being a mere appendage of other arts and the work solely of guilds. This "Master William," who is mentioned in an old chronicle as having "painted a man as though he were alive," was a native of Herle, near Cologne, and attained a prominent position in the latter town.

The subject of this picture is the compassionate woman whose door Christ passed when bearing his cross to Calvary. Seeing the drops of agony on his brow she wiped his face with her napkin, and the true image (Vera Icon: hence her name) of Christ remained miraculously impressed upon it—the Christ-like deed thus imprinting itself and abiding ever with her. The subject of the picture gives it a further historical interest as being suggestive of the mystics, the "Friends of God," as they called themselves, who were preaching in the Rhine Valley at this time, and under whose influence this early school of painting arose. "The mystic is one who claims to be able to see God with the inner vision of the soul. He studies to be quiet that his still soul may reflect the face of God"—even as did the cloth of St. Veronica (Beard's Hibbert Lectures).

690. "HIS OWN PORTRAIT."[166]

[Pg 352]

The cabinet pictures of Andrea del Sarto, "the faultless painter," are well known to all visitors in the great galleries of Europe. There is a certain mannerism in them which makes them very easy of recognition. His type of Madonna is constant, for it was taken from the beautiful wife whom he loved so well, and who requited his love so ill. In his angels there is a delicate, misty beauty; and over all his works there is "that peculiar softness, harmony, and delicacy of colouring which the Italians call morbidezza, and which is to be seen in its perfection in the 'Madonna di San Francesco' in the Uffizi." That Holy Family (painted in 1517) is generally considered his masterpiece, and may be taken as the supreme type of similar pictures in all the galleries. Another typical work is the "Charity" of the Louvre (painted 1518). But it is only in Florence among his frescoes—now unhappily fading, but preserved in part by copies in the Arundel Society's collection—the frescoes of the Santissima Annunziata, the convent of S. Salvi, and, above all, the cloister of the Scalzo, that a full conception of Andrea's power can be obtained. "There only," says Mr. Swinburne, "can one trace and tell how great a painter and how various he was. There only, but surely there, can the influence and pressure of the things of time on his immortal spirit be understood.... In the little cloister of the Scalzo there is such exultation and exuberance of young power, of fresh passion and imagination, that only by the innate grace can one recognise the hand of the master whom hitherto we knew by the works of his after life, when the gift of grace had survived the gift of invention. This and all other gifts it did survive; all pleasure of life and power of mind. All these his charm of touch, his sweetness of execution, his 'Elysian beauty, melancholy grace' outlived and blossomed in their dust" (Mr. Swinburne's eloquent piece on this painter's works is in the first series of Essays and Studies, where also are some notes on the master's drawings in the Uffizi collection).

The painter's life is told in great detail and with much vivacity by Vasari, to whose pages every reader should turn. He was the pupil of Piero di Cosimo, and the friend and fellow-worker of Franciabigio. All their spare, time, we are told, was spent in drawing from the cartoons of Michelangelo and Leonardo. "After the exhibition of Michelangelo's celebrated 'Cartoon of Pisa,' in 1506, he became a decided imitator of that painter in design: in colour and light and shade Fra Bartolommeo appears to have been his model." His[Pg 353] celebrated frescoes in the convent of the Annunziata (not completed till 1514) were among his earliest works. Those in the Scalzo were done in 1514. In 1517 he married, and in 1518 he went to Paris, returning to Florence in the following year. The story that he embezzled sums of money given him by the king for the purchase of pictures is open to suspicion, since the accounts of the king have been discovered. No trace of such moneys occurs, nor did the king ever make any effort to obtain restitution. Andrea died of the plague at the early age of forty-five.

Browning's poem, in which he sets forth the pathos of the artist's life, is the best commentary on this beautiful portrait—so masterly in workmanship, so rich in suggestion of character. The real name of Andrea del Sarto—"Andrew of the Tailor," so called from his father's trade—was Andrea d'Agnolo: his monogram, formed of two inverted A's, may here be seen on the background to the left. The Italians called him "the faultless painter": faultless, they meant, in all the technical requirements of painting—

But men may be "faultily faultless"; and what he lacked was just the one thing needful—the consecration and the poet's dream, which lift many works by less skilful hands than his into the higher region of imaginative art—

And the self-reproach was not less bitter for the knowledge of "what might have been." There is a story that Michael Angelo visited his studio, and said afterwards to Raphael—

Yet Andrea himself too was once pricked on by kings. Two pictures of his had been sent to Francis I., who thereupon invited the painter to his court. And there for a time he worked and was honoured; but in the midst of it all he sat[Pg 354] reading the letters which Lucrezia, his wife, sent him to Paris. "You called me and I came home to your heart." It is her face which we see everywhere in Andrea's Madonnas, and if at any time he took his model from any other face, there was always a resemblance to hers in the painting—

But Lucrezia served as his model, not his ideal. She had been married before to a hatter, but was remarkable, says Vasari, who worked in Andrea's studio and had a grudge against her, "as much for pride and haughtiness, as for beauty and fascination."[167] And

It is in some such mood of communing with himself that we seem here to see the painter; yet there is a certain undercurrent of contentment below the look of melancholy. "The force of a beautiful face carries me to heaven": so sang Michael Angelo. Lucrezia dragged her husband down; his rivals overcame him—

691. "ECCE HOMO!"

602. ST. HUGO OF GRENOBLE.

Said to have been a scholar of Francia.

The crozier shows him to be a bishop, and it is inscribed S. VGO. This is St. Hugo (died 1132), who was Bishop of Grenoble when St. Bruno founded the Chartreuse, and who often resided amongst the Carthusians. Doubtless he was [Pg 355]not an unwelcome visitor, for he had the power, it is said, of converting fowls into fish, which it was lawful to eat. For forty years, it is further told of him, he had haunting doubts on the old, old question of the origin of evil. The good bishop referred them at last to Pope Gregory VII., who greatly comforted St. Hugo by assuring him that such doubts were only sent to try his virtue and faith in the providence of God in permitting evil in the world.

693. ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA.

Bernardino di Betto, or the son of Benedetto, was commonly called Pinturicchio, "the little painter." He is not strongly represented in our Gallery. His principal works are the decorated ceiling and frescoes in the Library of Siena, which represent the life of the Pope Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II.). A drawing of this Library and copies of some of the frescoes are in the Arundel Society's Collection. Pinturicchio, says Symonds, is "a kind of Umbrian Gozzoli, who brings us here and there in close relation to the men of his own time. His wall-paintings in the library of the Cathedral of Siena are so well preserved that we need not seek elsewhere for better specimens of the decorative art most highly prized in the first years of the 16th century. These frescoes have a richness of effect and a vivacity of natural action which, in spite of their superficiality, render them highly charming. The life of Pius II. is treated like a legend. Both Pope and Emperor are romantically conceived, and each portion of the tale is told as though it were a part in some popular ballad. So much remains of Perugian affectation as gives a kind of childlike grace to the studied attitudes and many-coloured groups of elegant young men" (Renaissance, iii. 220). In the foreground of one of the frescoes is a charming figure, supposed to be a portrait of the young Raphael. Vasari states and subsequent writers have repeated that Pinturicchio was assisted in these frescoes by Raphael. This supposition rests on three drawings attributed to Raphael, but now proved to be by Pinturicchio, who bound himself to execute the whole work with his own hand. Morelli's attribution to Pinturicchio of the so-called "Raphael's sketch-book" at Venice is one of the most important of that critic's discoveries. "If (says Morelli) in representing serious religious subjects, he does not come up to Perugino as regards proportion, finish, and the filling of space; if his forms are not so noble, and the expression of religious sentiment not so deep as in Pietro; yet, on the other hand, Pinturicchio is, to my mind, less conscious, more fresh and racy than Perugino, and does not so often fatigue us by monotony and that conventional sweetness which, especially in the productions of his last twenty years, makes[Pg 356] Pietro positively wearisome. And, as an imaginative landscape-painter, Pinturicchio surpasses almost all of his contemporaries" (German Galleries, p. 285). Pinturicchio's frescoes at Siena occupied him from 1502 to 1509. He probably studied first under Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (No. 1103); afterwards he entered into partnership with Pietro Perugino. He went to Rome in 1479 and was honoured by commissions from cardinals and popes. Among his works in Rome are frescoes representing the stories of the Virgin and St. Jerome in S. Maria del Popolo; frescoes in the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican, and frescoes of S. Bernardino of Siena in the Bufalini Chapel, S. Maria Aracoeli. Morelli attributes to him also two of the frescoes in the Sixtine Chapel (the Baptism of Christ and the History of Moses). In 1500 he commenced the beautiful series of frescoes, now much disfigured, in the collegiate church at Spello (see Arundel Society's copies). That he was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens is shown by his having been elected in 1501 Decemvir of Perugia in place of Pietro Perugino. Unlike Perugino, he never mastered the use of oil, but painted in tempera. Vasari, who did not like Pinturicchio, describes him as somewhat of a hack, and still more of a lover of money. "Among other qualities he possessed that of giving considerable satisfaction to princes and nobles because he quickly brought the works commanded by them to an end." As for his love of money, he died of vexation, Vasari assures us, "because a certain trunk which he had insisted on being removed from his painting-room in Siena was afterwards found to be full of gold pieces." According, however, to a contemporary writer, his wife left him alone in his house when ill, and he was starved to death.

St. Catherine of Alexandria was of all the female saints next to Mary Magdalene the most popular: she meets us in nearly every room in the National Gallery, and even in London, churches and districts once placed under her protection still retain her name. Her general attributes are a book, a sword, and a wheel. The meaning of these will be seen from the legend of her which crusaders brought from the East. She was the daughter of a queen, and of marvellous wisdom and understanding. And when the time came that she should govern her people, she, shunning responsibility and preferring wisdom before sovereignty, shut herself up in her palace and gave her mind to the study of philosophy. For this wilful seclusiveness her people wished her to marry a husband who should at once fulfil the duties of government and lead them forth to battle. But she, to prevent this repugnant union, made one more spiritual by her mystical marriage with Christ. And for this and other unworldly[Pg 357] persistencies, the heathen tyrant Maximin would have broken her on a wheel, but that "fire came down from heaven, sent by the destroying angel of God, and broke the wheel in pieces." Yet for all this the tyrant repented not, and after scourging St. Catherine with rods beheaded her with the sword, and so having won the martyr's palm, she entered into the joy of her Lord.

694. ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY.

Besides translating the Bible, St. Jerome (see 227) is famous as one of the founders of the monastic system, "of the ordered cell and tended garden where before was but the desert and the wild wood," and he died in the monastery he had founded at Bethlehem. This picture shows us the inside of monastic life. St. Jerome, with the scholar's look of quiet satisfaction, is deep in study; his room has no luxury, but is beautiful in its grace and order; the lion, who seems here to be sharing his master's meditation, and the partridge peering into the saint's slippers, speak of the love of the old monks for the lower animals; and the beautiful landscape seen through the open window recalls the sweet nooks which they everywhere chose and tended for their dwelling. The effect of the whole picture is to suggest the peaceful simplicity of the old religious life in contrast to the "getting and spending" with which we now "lay waste our powers."

The picture belongs to what Ruskin has called the "Time of the Masters," who desire only to make everything dainty and delightful. "Everything in it is exquisite, complete, and pure; there is not a particle of dust in the cupboards, nor a cloud in the air; the wooden shutters are dainty, the candlestick is dainty, the saint's blue hat is dainty, and its violet tassel, and its ribbon, and his blue cloak, and his spare pair of shoes, and his little brown partridge—it is all a perfect quintessence of innocent luxury—absolute delight, without one drawback in it, nor taint of the Devil anywhere" (Verona and other Lectures, § 26). For another specimen of this "pictorial [Pg 358]perfectness and deliciousness," see 288 (especially the compartment with Raphael and Tobit).

As for the partridge, this is frequently introduced into sacred pictures, especially those of the Venetian School. There is a pretty legend of St. John which perhaps accounts for it, and which makes its introduction very appropriate in the picture of a recluse. St. John had, it is said, a tame partridge, which he cherished much, and amused himself with feeding and tending. A certain huntsman, passing by with his bow and arrows, was astonished to see the great apostle, so venerable for his age and sanctity, engaged in such an amusement. The apostle asked him if he always kept his bow bent. He answered that would be the way to render it useless. "If," replied St. John, "you unbend your bow to prevent its being useless, so do I thus unbend my mind for the same reason" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 100).

695. MADONNA AND CHILD.

This painter (whose personality is in some art-histories merged in that of Cordelle Agii, see 1409) was one of Bellini's numerous pupils—a provincial from Bergamo, "a dry, honest, monotonous" painter (see Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 178-181, and under 1203). "As regards technique, Previtali is certainly very eminent; in brilliance of colouring he is not behind any of Bellini's pupils, and the landscapes in the background of his pictures are for the most part neatly and faultlessly executed. But he lacks the main attributes of a great artist—invention and the power of original representation." Whilst painting in Venice, he signed his pictures Andreas Bergomensis; on his return to Bergamo, Andreas Previtalus. His pictures at Bergamo are numerous; the best is the altar-piece in S. Spirito.

A characteristic example of the painter. The figure of the monk in adoration is somewhat hard. The landscape background is pleasant.

696. MARCO BARBARIGO.

He was Venetian Consul in London in 1449, and holds in his hand a letter addressed to him there. He was subsequently elected Doge, but died (in 1486), after holding the office for six months. It is recorded of him as Doge that he was a[Pg 359] specially mild-tempered and good man—a character which is not belied in this portrait of him in his earlier days. This portrait was formerly ascribed to Gerard van der Meire (see under 1078). It is now by some attributed to Petrus Cristus.

697. PORTRAIT OF A TAILOR.

Giambattista Moroni is one of the greatest of the Italian portrait-painters, and this picture is perhaps his best-known and most popular production.[169] The works of Moroni appeal alike to the general public and to the painter. He gave to his figures a vitality and ease, and impressed upon them a verisimilitude which appeal to every spectator. His works (adds Sir F. Burton) "will always be highly estimated by the painter, as they exhibit rare technical merits, perfect knowledge and command of means, facility of execution without display of dexterity, truth of colour, and the finest perception of the value of tones." "No portrait-painter ever placed the epidermis of the human face upon canvas with more fidelity, and with greater truth than Moroni: his portraits have all a more or less prosaic look, but they must all have had that startling likeness to the original which so enchants the great public, who exclaim 'The very man! just how he looks!' And it was with the eyes of the great public that Moroni did look at his subjects; he was not a poet in the true sense of the word, but a consummate painter. Yet, now and then, he manages to go beyond himself, and to pierce the surface till he reaches the soul of the sitter. In such cases his portraits may rank with those of Titian" (Morelli's German Galleries, p. 48). His colouring varied at different periods of his life. For examples of his manner before he came under Il Moretto's influence see 1023 and 1316—the reddish hue of his flesh-tints being characteristic. In his second period he adopted the "silvery" manner of Il Moretto: seen here and in 1022; whilst for his third, or naturalistic manner see 742. Moroni is a distinguished ornament of the school of Bergamo—a provincial school characterised, says Morelli, by "manly energy," but also by "a certain prosaic want of refinement." See, for other Bergamese painters, Previtali (695) and Cariani (1203). Palma Vecchio, the greatest of them, is represented by the "Portrait of Ariosto," 636. Giambattista Moroni was a painter without honour in his own country, and when people from Bergamo came to Titian to be painted, he used to refer them to their own countryman—no better face painter, he would tell them, existed.[Pg 360] Moroni is believed to have entered the studio of Moretto at Brescia when fifteen years of age. His religious pictures are inferior reflections of his master's. Upon one of them, still preserved in the church of Gorlago (between Bergamo and Brescia) he was engaged at the time of his death. No admirer of Moroni should omit to visit Bergamo: a splendid series of his portraits is to be seen in the Carrara gallery of that town. There too, as also in the gallery at Verona, is a pretty portrait by him of a little girl.

A "speaking portrait." "The tailor's picture is so well done," says an old Italian critic, "that it speaks better than an advocate could." A portrait that enables one, moreover, to realise what was once meant by a "worshipful company of merchant tailors." Tagliapanni—for such is his name—is no Alton Locke—- no discontented "tailor and poet"; neither is he like some fashionable West-End tailor, with ambitions of rising above his work. He is well-to-do—notice his handsome ring; but he has the shears in his hands. He does the work himself, and he likes the work. He is something of an artist, it would seem, in clothes: his jacket and handsome breeches were a piece of his work, one may suppose; and the artist has caught and immortalised him, as he is standing back for a minute to calculate the effect of his next cut.

698. THE DEATH OF PROCRIS.

A very characteristic work, and the most interesting of those extant, by Piero, called di Cosimo, after his godfather and master, Cosimo Rosselli. Piero's peculiarities are well known to all readers of George Eliot's Romola, where everything told us about him by Vasari in one of his most amusing chapters is carefully worked up. The first impression left by this picture—its quaintness—is precisely typical of the man. He shut himself off from the world and stopped his ears; lived in the untidiest of rooms, and would not have his garden tended, "preferring to see all things wild and savage about him." He took his meals at times and in ways that no other man did, and Romola used to coax him with sweets and hard-boiled eggs. His fondness for quaint landscape ("he would sometimes stand beside a wall," says Vasari, "and image forth the most extraordinary landscapes that ever were") may be seen in this picture; so also may his love of animals, in which, says Vasari, he took "indescribable pleasure." Piero accompanied his master, Cosimo Rosselli, to Rome in 1480, and painted the landscape to that master's "Sermon on the Mount" in the Sixtine Chapel. He painted several altar-pieces, but his true bent was towards mythological[Pg 361] subjects and quaintly decorative treatment. Vasari describes in detail a Carnival triumph devised by Piero. This and the adornment of dwelling-rooms and marriage-chests were the forms in which his fantastic originality found the most congenial expression. He was also a good portrait-painter: No. 895 in this gallery has recently been recognised as his work.

The subjects of Piero's pictures were generally mythological. In Romola he paints Tito and Romola as Bacchus and Ariadne; here he shows the death of Procris, the story in which the ancients embodied the folly of jealousy. For Procris being told that Cephalus was unfaithful, straightway believed the report and secretly followed him to the woods, for he was a great hunter. And Cephalus called upon "aura," the Latin for breeze, for Cephalus was hot after the chase: "Sweet air, O come," and echo answered, "Come, sweet air." But Procris, thinking that he was calling after his mistress, turned to see, and as she moved she made a rustling in the leaves, which Cephalus mistook for the motion of some beast of the forest, and let fly his unerring dart, which Procris once had given him.

Piero's treatment of the theme is, it should be noted, romantic, rather than classical; in which respect his picture is characteristic of the earlier Renaissance. "In creating his Satyr the painter has not had recourse to any antique bas-relief, but has imagined for himself a being half human, half bestial, and yet wholly real; nor has he portrayed in Procris a nymph of Greek form, but a girl of Florence. The strange animals and gaudy flowers introduced into the landscape background further remove the subject from the sphere of classic treatment. Florentine realism and quaint fancy being thus curiously blended, the artistic result may be profitably studied for the light it throws upon the so-called Paganism of the earlier Renaissance. Fancy at that moment was more free than when[Pg 362] superior knowledge of antiquity had created a demand for reproductive art, and when the painters thought less of the meaning of the fable for themselves than of its capability of being used as a machine for the display of erudition" (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 187). Piero seems to have taken his background from Lake Thrasymene.

Piero's poetic fancy in this picture has aroused a responsive echo in the poets of our own day. The lines quoted above are from "The Death of Procris; a version suggested by the so-named picture of Piero di Cosimo in the National Gallery," in Mr. Austin Dobson's Old World Idylls. Another version of the picture may be found in Michael Field's Sight and Song:—

Mr. Ruskin also has written a piece around our picture, which he reads with a different eye from "Michael Field,"[170] seeing [Pg 363]in it not so much the inapprehensiveness of nature as the pathetic fallacy whereby the moods of nature are made to sympathise with human joy or sorrow:—

"The next best landscape (to Bellini's 'Peter Martyr') in the National Gallery is a Florentine one on the edge of transition to the Greek feeling; and in that the distance is still beautiful, but misty, not clear; the flowers are still beautiful, but, intentionally, of the colour of blood; and in the foreground lies the dead body of Procris, which disturbs the poor painter greatly; and he has expressed his disturbed mind about it in the figure of a poor little brown (nearly black) Faun, or perhaps the god Faunus himself, who is much puzzled by the death of Procris, and stoops over her, thinking it a woful thing to find her pretty body lying there breathless, and all spotted with blood on the breast" (Lectures on Landscape, § 94).

699. AGOSTINO AND NICCOLO DELLA TORRE.

To this great painter full justice has scarcely been done by writers on art—an omission which in recent years Morelli and still more Mr. Berenson, in his elaborate monograph, have sought to repair. Lotto led a wandering life, which took him much away from Venice; hence his pictures are comparatively little known. Again, as Sir F. Burton points out, "great versatility and remarkable impressibility are among the chief characteristics of Lotto, who certainly was possessed of genius but whose development was oscillating and affected by many influences. Only by extremely careful study and comparison can his hand be traced throughout in works, which at first sight exhibit little or nothing in common. Were none of Lotto's works signed or otherwise attested they would certainly bear very various attributions, as indeed many of his unsigned pictures have done, and as it is likely some do still." The portrait, for instance, of Andrea Odoni at Hampton Court was for several centuries attributed to Correggio, but recent cleaning has uncovered Lotto's signature and the date 1527. Of his power as a portrait-painter visitors to the National Gallery can form a good idea. His works in this sort will bear comparison with the best of his contemporaries. They have, says Morelli, "all that refined, inward elegance of feeling which marks the culminating point in the last stage of progressive art in Italy, and which is principally represented by Leonardo da Vinci, Lotto, Andrea del Sarto, and Correggio; whereas the elegance of Bronzino in Tuscany, and of Parmigiano in North Italy, is an outward affected one, which has nothing to do with the inner life of the person represented, and therefore characterises the first stage of declining art." His sympathetic nature enabled him to seize the finer traits of his sitters, and they in turn "look out from his canvasses as if begging for the sympathy" of the spectator. No. 1047[Pg 364] in our Gallery is especially characteristic. Lotto's altar-pieces, which were numerous, must be studied at Treviso, Recanati, Jesi, Bergamo, and Trescorre (frescoes), near the latter place. His pictures at different periods (they are for the most part dated) show strong resemblances to different painters—to Bellini and the Vivarini, to Palma, to Titian, to Giorgione, and to Correggio. He was born at Venice, and, according to Vasari, was a disciple of John Bellini. Mr. Berenson, on the contrary, maintains on internal evidence that Lotto must have belonged to the rival school of Alvise Vivarini. Of Palma, he was, according to Vasari, the friend and companion. With Titian he was on friendly terms, though if we may judge from a letter by Pietro Aretino, the attitude of the worldly Titian coterie to the gentle Lotto, was not unmixed with some contempt. "O Lotto," he writes, "as goodness good, and as talent talented, Titian from Augsburg, in the midst of the high favour everybody is eager to show him, greets and embraces you by the token of the letter which I received from him two days ago. He says that it would double the pleasure that he takes in the emperor's satisfaction with the picture he is now painting, if he had your eye and your judgment to approve him. And indeed, the painter is not mistaken, for your judgment has been formed by age, by nature, and by art, with the prompting of that straightforward kindliness which pronounces upon the works of others exactly as if they were your own. Envy is not in your breast. Rather do you delight to see in other artists certain qualities which you do not find in your own brush, although it performs those miracles which do not come easy to many who yet feel very happy over their technical skill. But holding the second place in the art of painting is nothing compared to holding the first place in the duties of religion, for Heaven will recompense you with a glory that passes the praise of this world.—Venice, April 1548." The resemblance between Lotto and Correggio was founded on no personal intercourse or artistic "influence," but on similarity of temperament. It is most conspicuous in the works of Lotto's "Bergamask period" (1518-1526). But whereas Correggio's sensitiveness is to impressions of outward joy and beauty, Lotto's is attuned rather to states of the human soul. Titian's sitters, it has been well said, are as if on parade, and his religious pictures tell of the pomp or rapture of public services. Lotto's sitters commune rather with their own souls, and in his devotional pieces he aims at a personal interpretation of religious motives. "As a colourist," says Burton, "Lotto remained throughout a Venetian. His flesh tints are true, and various as the age, sex, and temperament of the persons depicted." All that we know of his life suggests a reserved, sensitive, and unworldly nature. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he never sued the favour of the mighty. In his account book recently discovered at Loreto he speaks again and again of having done excellent work for people who remunerated him with pence where if a contract had been made they would have had to pay him in pounds. He lodged sometimes with friends, sometimes with monks. His life was that of a[Pg 365] lonely wanderer, very industrious, but laying up no store. In 1554 he made over himself and all his belongings to the Holy House at Loreto, "being tired of wandering and wishing to end his days in that holy place." During the last years of his life he had almost entirely lost his voice. In one of his wills is a reference which shows us the temperament of the man. Among his scanty possessions were a number of antique gems. These he speaks of lovingly, because they were engraved with mystic symbols for the spirit to brood upon (see Lorenzo Lotto: an Essay in Constructive Criticism, by Bernhard Berenson, 1895; and Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 31-40; Roman Galleries, p. 301).

Agostino was Professor of Medicine in the University of Padua; he holds a copy of "Galen," the most celebrated of the ancient medical writers, in his hand. It was for Niccolo, however, according to the inscription, that the picture was painted in 1515; and Signor Morelli (its former owner) thinks that Agostino's portrait must have been inserted at a later time, for "it is placed very awkwardly in the background" (German Galleries, p. 37 n.). "No one with a feeling for composition can doubt for an instant that Agostino was originally intended to be alone on the canvas, as he occupies all of it that a single bust ought to occupy. Morelli's inference seems thus to be well founded that Lotto, on his return from Venice to Bergamo, stopped at Padua and painted the portrait of Agostino, which he brought to Niccolo at Bergamo, who thereupon had his own portrait added.... Lotto's sitters were in no way remarkable. Nevertheless, he gives them a look of refinement and innate sweetness of nature which brings us very close to them" (Berenson, pp. 138, 321).

700. THE HOLY FAMILY.

Lanini was a native of Vercelli, and a scholar of Gaudenzio Ferrari. Subsequently he approached more to the manner of Leonardo, as in this picture dated 1543. His works are frequent at Turin and Vercelli. There is an altar-piece by him at Borgo Sesia, near Varallo; his principal works are frescoes in the Cathedral at Novara.

Mr. Pater bids us notice in this picture the "pensive, tarnished silver sidelights, like mere reflections of natural sunshine" ("Art Notes in North Italy," New Review, Nov. 1890).

[Pg 366]

701. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

A picture of interest as being the oldest by any North Italian painter in the Gallery—the date inscribed on the plinth below is 1367. Justus (Giusto di Giovanni) was a native of Florence, who in 1375 settled in Padua and founded his style upon the works of Giotto in that town. The frescoes at Padua formerly ascribed to him are now said to be the works of his scholars, Giovanni and Antonio da Padova.

None of the pictures in our Gallery by followers of Giotto is so satisfactory as this; "exquisite both in design and colour, though on a very small scale, it has," says Sir E. Poynter, "all the largeness of style which characterises the great Florentine fourteenth-century frescoes" (The National Gallery, i. 258). "The Virgin is of a fresh type, pretty and noble also. Amongst the saints in the centre picture that of St. Paul (on the extreme right) is distinguished by its natural bearing. There is, however, vigour and a sense of beauty and proportion throughout this charming little work." In the panel to the left, with the Nativity, "may be noticed the spirit of alertness in the attendant waiting to wash the child, and the statuesque design of St. Joseph"; in that to the right, with the crucifixion, "the figure of St. John, at the foot of the Cross, with its fine expression of grief, and beautifully-designed drapery" (Monkhouse, Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 23). Above is the Annunciation, with regard to which see notes on No. 1139. On the reverse side of the wings are other incidents from the life of the Virgin.

This and the pictures following (701-722) were presented by Queen Victoria to the National Gallery "in fulfilment of the wishes of H.R.H. the Prince Consort." They formerly belonged to the collection of H.I.H. Prince Louis of Oettingen-Wallerstein, and afterwards became the property of Prince Albert. It was his intention from the first to present them to the nation, but the gift was delayed owing to the uncertainty with regard to the site of the proposed new National Gallery. The Prince's purpose remained unaccomplished, but not forgotten, at his death, and in 1863 the best pictures from the collection were presented by Queen Victoria to the nation.

[Pg 367]

702. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Formerly ascribed to L'Ingegno. See 1220.

703. MADONNA AND CHILD.

704. COSIMO, DUKE OF TUSCANY.

A contemporary portrait of the great Medici, the first "Grand Duke" of Tuscany (ruled 1537-1564), who was regarded in his day as the very incarnation of Machiavelli's Prince, "inasmuch as he joined daring to talent and prudence," and though "he could practise mercy in due season," was yet "capable of great cruelty." No one, who notices here that large protruding under lip of his, will doubt this last element in his character.

705. STS. MATTHEW, CATHERINE, AND JOHN.

"Meister Stephan" was a native of Constance, who settled in Cologne, and whose work has the stamp of the early Cologne School (see 687). His chief work is the so-called Dombild, now in Cologne Cathedral: "Item. I gave two white pennies," says Albert Dürer in his diary, "to see the picture that Master Staffan of Cologne painted." This famous altar-piece has been published by the Arundel Society. "Italian Art," says Sir F. Burton, "has seldom produced a group so beautiful as that of the crowned Madonna in its central panel." Another exquisite little picture ascribed to Meister Stephan is in the Cologne Museum.

Three figures full of innocent fervour and graceful sentimentality. St. Matthew as an evangelist holds a book and a pen, and is attended by the symbolic angel. St. John is attended by the eagle, which is the constant symbol of this evangelist, because he soared upwards to the contemplation of the divine nature of the Saviour.

[Pg 368]

706. PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE.

A picture by the unknown painter of a series of Passion pictures, formerly belonging to Herr Lyversberg of Cologne, but now in the Museum of the city. He painted also a series of eight subjects from the Life of Mary. Of these six are in the Pinacothek at Munich, a seventh is in the German Museum at Nuremberg, and our picture is the eighth.

Characteristic of the German School after the Flemish influence. The sky background is gilt as in the old German pictures, but the types of the figures are Flemish. Notice the quaint pointed shoes, and the touch of realism in making the foot of Simeon, as he advances to receive the child from its mother, come half out of his slipper.

707. ST. PETER AND ST. DOROTHY.

Part of an altar-piece, the rest of which is in the Munich Gallery, by an artist whose name is unknown, and who is therefore called after his principal works (now in the Cologne Museum). It has been well said of him that "he succeeded in giving an intense expression of transient emotion to the faces; but by endeavouring to lend a sympathetic action to the whole figure, he has exaggerated the action into distortion" (History of Painting, from the German of Woltmann and Woermann, ii. 224). This is conspicuously the case here. Look, for instance, at the comic contrast between St. Peter's big foot and St. Dorothy's pointed little shoe—between what is almost a leer on his face and the "mincing" affectation on hers. St. Peter is distinguished of course by the keys; St. Dorothy by the basket of flowers—the flowers which she sent to Theophilus in token of the truth of the faith in which she died: "Carry these to Theophilus, say that Dorothea has sent them, and that I go before him to the garden whence they came and await him there" (see Mrs. Jameson; Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 336, ed. 1850).

[Pg 369]

708. MADONNA AND CHILD.

The Madonna offers Christ an apple—symbol of the forbidden fruit, and thus of the sin in the world which he came to remove.

709. MADONNA AND CHILD.

"In Flemish pictures the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours, and cannot be removed without destroying at the same time the very fabric of the work. For this reason all attempts to, what is called, restore, or clean pictures of the Flemish School, result only in the destruction of the work, and by this means many fine pictures have, for all practical purposes, perished.... (This picture) is a lamentable example" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 119).

710. PORTRAIT OF A MONK.

711. "MATER DOLOROSA."

712. "ECCE HOMO!"

"It was a common custom with Roger's followers to copy single heads out of their master's large groups. Such single heads always have gold backgrounds, usually dotted over with little black dashes" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 275). These companion panels are perhaps instances, and the heads selected for reproduction are typical of the overstrained pathos of this school. Notice how prominently the tears in the sorrowing mother, and the blood and tears in the "Ecco Homo" are made to stand out.

[Pg 370]

713. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Mostaert, a native of Haarlem, was for eighteen years painter to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. A picture ascribed to him is preserved in the church of Notre Dame at Bruges, but no known pictures bear his signature. A large number of his works perished in the great fire at Haarlem in 1571.

One of the few specimens in the Gallery of the first period of Dutch art, when it was still following the traditions of the Early Flemish School.

714. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Engelbertsz was one of the earliest oil painters at Leyden, and is said to have been the master of Lucas of Leyden. Most of his important religious works were destroyed by the Dutch iconoclasts of the sixteenth century.

715. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Patinir (born at Dinant, but settled in Antwerp) was styled by Albert Dürer, who stayed with him when in Antwerp, drew his portrait and attended his wedding, "Joachim the good landscape painter." What distinguishes his landscape is its greater expanse, as compared with earlier works. The Flemish painters preceding him were mostly content with the narrow domestic scenery of their own Maas country. But Patinir's pictures "embrace miles of country, and open on every side.... Some far-away cottage by the river-side, some hamlet nestling against a remote hill-slope, some castle on a craggy peak, blue against the transparent sky—such objects were a joy to him.... Moreover, with Patinir the fantastic element was of much importance. He wished his landscapes to be romantic.... He would have precipitous rocks.... His river must pass through gorges or under natural archways; his skies must be full of moving clouds; his wide districts of country must present contrasts of rocky mountain, water, and fertile plains.... He saw also the grandeur of wild scenery, and strove, though not with perfect success, to bring that into his pictures, showing thereby the possession of a foretaste of that delight in nature for her own sake, the full enjoyment of which has been reserved for the people of our own century" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, pp. 299, 300). "His figures," says Sir F. Burton, "while[Pg 371] retaining old Netherlandish characteristics, are good, expressive, and even noble in conception." Most of the Galleries contain pictures by Patinir. Madrid is particularly rich in them.

"A high authority on early Flemish art, M. Henri Hymans, has stated that the figures in the 'Crucifixion' given to Joachim Patinir, and of which the landscape is undoubtedly his, are by the painter's friend, Quentin Matsys. Unquestionably these figures differ much in colour and execution from those contained in such other examples of Patinir in the National Gallery as the 'Nun' (945), or 'The Visit of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth' (1082)" (Claude Phillips in the Academy, September 28, 1889).

716. ST. CHRISTOPHER.

One of the earliest attempts in painting to tell the beautiful legend of Christopher (the Christ bearer), the hermit ferryman, who, "having sustained others in their chief earthly trials, afterwards had Christ for companion of his own." The best account of the legend of St. Christopher is to be found in Miss Alexander's Roadside Songs of Tuscany, edited by Ruskin, illustrated with "the most beautiful and true designs that have ever yet been made out of all the multitude by which alike the best spiritual and worldly power of Art have commended to Christendom its noblest monastic legend."

717. ST. JOHN ON THE ISLAND OF PATMOS.

The evangelist on the island of Patmos, writing the revelations out of an ink-horn held by an eagle, which an imp is attempting to steal. In the sky above are the revelations themselves: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.... And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads" (Revelation xii. 1, 3).

[Pg 372]

718. CHRIST ON THE CROSS.

Bles, called by the Italians "Civetta" (the owl), on account of the owl which he often adopted as his monogram, was an imitator of Patinir (see 715). Van Mander says that his nickname was Met de Bles (with the forelock), but as he signs himself Henricus Blessius, it is probable that Bles was his real name.

719. THE READING MAGDALEN.

For the subject see No. 654.

720. A "REPOSE" (see No. 160).

721. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Schorel, so called from his birthplace, belongs to the second period of Dutch art, and was one of the most successful of the "Italianisers"; but neither of these pictures is a good or indeed a certain specimen. He was a poet and musician as well as a painter, and studied under Albert Dürer at Nuremberg. He afterwards visited Venice, whence he went to Jerusalem, returning by Rhodes to Rome. In 1522 he was made by his countryman, Pope Adrian VI., Keeper of the Art Collection of the Vatican. He afterwards returned to Utrecht, where he died a Canon of St. Mary's. He was the master of Anthony Mor.

722. A LADY'S PORTRAIT.

Formerly ascribed to Sigmund Holbein (1465-1540). A German housewife—with a characteristic mixture about her of sentimentality (for she holds a forget-me-not in her hand) and of austerity (for there is something forbidding, surely, in these terribly angular fingers of hers).

724. "OUR LADY OF THE SWALLOW."

Full of the dainty detail which characterises the Venetian pictures of this time. Notice the fruit placed everywhere[Pg 373] about the Virgin's throne; and above, the vases of flowers and the swallow—hence the name of the picture, "Madonna della Rondine." Notice also the beautiful dress patterns and the rich hanging brocades. The Virgin's dress is a lovely silk brocade, of a design which might well be copied for muslins and curtains. In this picture, however, "Crivelli's gift of characterisation has been overpowered by his interest in the accessories. St. Jerome, indeed, is a noble and dignified figure, but who could believe in the St. Sebastian? As a study of costume the figure is interesting, reproducing every detail with minute fidelity, and bringing before us the model of a well-dressed young man of Crivelli's time. But the features are of an ignoble type, and the attitude is suggestive only of self-conscious vanity. Instead of a devout attendant at the throne, we seem to get a dandy posing for the admiration of the spectator." The scenes of the predella, on the other hand, are full of animation, of feeling, and of force (Rushforth's Crivelli, p. 72). The picture is signed by Carolus Crivellus Miles, so that it is one of his later works. In the centre of the step is the escutcheon of the Odoni family, for whose chapel in the church of the Franciscans at Matelica the picture was painted.

726. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

An early work of the master, painted probably about 1459 (nearly half a century earlier than the Doge's portrait, 189), but interesting as showing the advance made by him in landscape. "We see for the first time an attempt to render a particular effect of light, the first twilight picture with clouds rosy with the lingering gleams of sunset, and light shining from the sky on hill and town—the first in which a head is seen in shadow against a brilliant sky" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 73). "In the figures of the Apostles, especially in the one on the left, the repose of sleep is expressed in so admirable and convincing a manner, that it would be difficult to name a second painter of the quattro-cento who could compare with Bellini in this respect" (Richter). Nor is the advance one in the technique of art only. The picture is one of the earliest in which art made use of what Ruskin calls "the pathetic fallacy"—in which,[Pg 374] that is, art represents nature as sympathising with human emotion. Bellini "called in nature," says Mr. Hodgson, R.A. (Magazine of Art, 1886, p 215), "to sympathise with human sorrows, or rather he was the first to point out that nature takes her colouring and her aspects from the conditions of our passions and sentiments.[173] That sombre sky, with its gleam along the horizon, that long dark hill, the wild plain over which the traitor and his accomplices are stealing, have exactly the aspect which they would present to one who stood there knowing that a horrible treason was going to be perpetrated." Compare, for this "pathetic fallacy" in painting, Titian's "Noli me tangere" (No. 270). Bellini's picture should be compared with Mantegna's of the same subject in an adjoining room (1417). Mantegna seizes only the sublimity of the idea of the Agony, Bellini's penetrating sympathy renders its infinite pathos. Mantegna's picture is in some technical respects the more accomplished; "but in all that concerns the imaginative conception of the subject, in the harmonising of all the accessories to produce a single profound impression on the emotions, above all in the large and reposeful spaciousness of the composition, Bellini is surely the more to be admired" (Roger Fry: Giovanni Bellini, p. 22). Both pictures may be profitably compared with Correggio's of the same subject, in which we are introduced to a new order of ideas (See notes on No. 76).

727. THE TRINITY.

This accomplished master was called Pesellino to distinguish him from his grandfather Pesello, by whom he was brought up. He is "entitled to one of the highest places in the ranks of the Florentine School of the fifteenth century. His compositions are distinguished by their lively grace, and the beautiful and truthful expressions of the persons portrayed" (Kugler). In beauty of colour and dignity of design the work before us is his masterpiece. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and subsequently opened a workshop in Florence in partnership with a certain Piero di Lorenzo. He died at the early age of thirty-five, leaving a widow and several children in penury. His [Pg 375]works are very rare. Two compartments of a predella by him are in the Accademia at Florence, a fourth being in the Louvre. The collection of Morelli (now in the Public Gallery of Bergamo) contains three charming little pictures by him, which strongly recall the style of Fra Filippo (Morelli's account of the painter is in his Roman Galleries, pp. 253-58). "In the Torrigiani Palace at Florence are two remarkable panels from cassoni, there ascribed to Gozzoli, but by modern criticism more justly to Pesellino; they bear out Vasari's remark as to this painter's skill in delineating animals" (Burton).

This picture is perhaps the finest version extant of the conventional Italian representation of the mystery of the Trinity. The Son on a crucifix is supported by the Father, whilst the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovers over the head of the Son. The head of the First Person of the Trinity is a very majestic conception. "In this face, so full of beauty and power, of intensity and calm, as well as the careful modelling of the pathetic figure of Christ upon the cross, Pesellino touches heights which Lippi could not reach; but in the charming cherubim and seraphim with which the severity of the subject is softened and decorated, and in the beauty of the colour (though that has suffered much) we may recognise the influence of his master. We have only to compare this picture with the representations of the same subject by Landini (580a) and Orcagna (570) to show how the power to render the most august subjects had been increased by progress in technical accomplishment and the liberation of the artist's imagination, even when the elements and arrangements of the composition remained virtually unchanged from the traditional type" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 62). The picture is referred to by Vasari: "At Pistoja is a work by Pesello, representing the Trinity, with figures of San Zeno and San Jacopo" (ii. 115). On the suppression of the religious congregation to whom the church of the Holy Trinity at Pistoja belonged, the picture was sold, and passed into the collection of Mr. Young Ottley. The side panels referred to by Vasari are still in private collections.

728. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio came of a noble family in Milan (his epitaph is in the Brera) and filled public offices in his native town. He fell under the influence of Leonardo, and when that master settled[Pg 376] at Milan, Beltraffio lodged in his house, and became his ardent disciple. "His most ambitious creation, where he lamentably fails, is the Louvre altar-piece, the redeeming features of which are the fine portraits of the Casio family, his friends and patrons. When he confined himself to portraiture he was often strikingly successful, and the older Milanese families still possess a number of ancestral portraits by him, some of which are of great charm. He seems to have become the pet artist of the society of his day, often painting the portraits of his friends in the guise of a St. Sebastian, or as Sta. Barbara. He accompanied Leonardo to Rome in 1514. Although not a great artist, and entirely lacking in imagination and dramatic power, he exhibits singular refinement. His cultured intellect enabled him to appreciate, and in a measure reflect, the fastidious spirit of his master. His works charm by their high finish, and by the absence of all vulgarity or display. His portraits do not reveal much penetration, and he never caught the subtleties of character or the intellectual qualities of his sitters" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. lviii.). His pictures are for the most part on a small scale. Good specimens are to be seen in the Morelli collection at Bergamo, and the Poldi-Pezzoli collection at Milan. To delineate the human figure on a large scale, or human passions, was not his forte; he succeeded better in expressing naïve innocence in children, and gentle grace in the Mother of God, or devoted women (Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 425-48; Roman Galleries, p. 163).

Of Beltraffio's powers in the respect last mentioned this charming picture is perhaps the best specimen extant. The child with its quaint belly-band, and still more the noble but slightly languishing grace of the mother, at once recall Leonardo.

729. THE ADORATION OF THE KINGS.

Foppa—Il Vecchio as he is called, to distinguish him from a younger Foppa of the Brescian School[174]—is an important person in the history of art. Born at Brescia, but removing in early manhood to Milan, he "holds both in the School of Brescia, and especially in that of Milan, the same place that the mighty Mantegna does at Padua, and Cosimo Tura at Ferrara," representing that early period of development when force of character is more insisted on than beauty of expression. In relation to the Milanese, Foppa was the founder of [Pg 377]the school which prevailed before and up to the time of Leonardo da Vinci. He was already an artist of repute in 1456, when he was employed to decorate the Medici Palace at Milan with frescoes. These works, and many others executed by him in Milan and the neighbourhood, have perished. His best remaining frescoes are those of the Four Fathers of the Church in S. Eustorgio at Milan. Foppa was also employed in Genoa and Savona. Late in life he returned to Brescia, where he received a renewed grant of citizenship, and a pension, and where also he died. Of his extant works, the earliest is a Crucifixion in the Bergamo gallery. This is dated 1456, and supports the statement of old writers that Foppa had studied under Squarcione at Padua. His latest work is the altar-piece, now in S. Maria di Castello at Savona. This belongs to the year 1490, and agrees in style with our National Gallery picture. Foppa is said to have written on perspective, and many painters of the Lombard School studied under him.

Traces of the older style of work, from which Foppa freed his school, may here be seen in the embossed ornaments in gilt stucco. Notice the daintiness of the picture throughout: the pretty flowers in the foreground, the splendid brocades of the kneeling king, the birds and weeds in the ruined stable. In the background are the star and city of Bethlehem. "The general effect is dark and heavy, relieved by an abundant use of red; the flesh tones, as usual, are of ashen hue. The Madonna is of Foppa's characteristic type, of solid build. It is interesting to find that there is little or no direct trace of Leonardesque influence, a fact which shows that Foppa was too advanced in years to modify perceptibly his style on the advent of the mighty Florentine in 1481" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. xxviii.).

732. A CANAL SCENE.

The figures in the picture are supposed to be by Lingelbach (see No. 837).

734. A MILANESE LAWYER.

Andrea belonged to an artist family, the Solari (of Solaro, a village near Saronna); one of his brothers, Christopher (nicknamed "Il Gobbo," the hunchback), was an architect and sculptor, and from[Pg 378] him perhaps Andrea learnt his superb modelling of the head—a point which is conspicuous in this picture, and in which he surpassed all his contemporaries. His repute in his own time is attested by the journey he made to France in 1507. The Cardinal George of Amboise desired to entrust the decoration of a chapel to Leonardo; but Leonardo was too much taken up with hydraulic works at Milan to accept the commission, and the Cardinal's representative sent Andrea in the great man's place. It is not known with whom Solario studied painting, but his subject-pictures prove conclusively that he came within Leonardo's sphere of influence. "Although by birth and training a Lombard artist, Solario was so much in Venice that his native style was largely modified. There is no historical evidence that he ever met Antonello da Messina, but his works bear such close resemblance to that master's productions that it cannot be doubted they were acquainted. The portrait No. 923 is obviously Venetian in character; indeed, it passed not long since under Bellini's name. It seems unnecessary to suppose [with Morelli] that he paid a visit to Flanders. The Flemish traits so conspicuous in his work could well be derived from contact with Antonello. To the end of his life he painted with the utmost finish and delicacy. The brilliance and warmth of his colour compensate for the somewhat cold ivory pallor of his flesh tones. His landscapes are remarkably picturesque and full of incident. That behind the figure of Longono in the National Gallery portrait is of the greatest delicacy and charm" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. lxi. See also Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 63-68; Roman Galleries, pp. 170-176). Subject-pictures by Solario may be seen in the Brera and the Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery at Milan, and in the Louvre. His last work was a large "Assumption of the Virgin" for the Certosa of Pavia (now in the Sacristy), which his death prevented him from finishing.

A portrait (dated 1505) of the artist's friend, a Milanese lawyer, whose name, John Christopher Longono, is written on a letter in his right hand. He wears the gown and cap (not unlike that still worn by French "advocates") of his profession. Observe the landscape background—here quaintly peopled with prancing dogs and horses on the left, and servants in red pushing off boats on the right—with which the old painters, like some of our modern photographers, were fond of flattering their subjects. But in this case the subject is well entitled to his "setting," for he is a nobleman as well as a lawyer, and the background is perhaps studied from his country seat. On the bottom of the panel is a Latin inscription which, literally interpreted, runs, "Not knowing what you have been or what you may be, may it for long be your study to be able to see what you are," i.e. by looking at this picture of yourself—a[Pg 379] neatly-turned compliment at once to the painter and his subject: the picture is to last for many a long year, and the lawyer for many a long year is to grow no older. Or is the inscription also meant to describe the lawyer's character in words, as the portrait does in colours—a man not troubled overmuch with what has been or what may be hereafter, but one who is keenly alive to what he is, and who pours all his powers into the tasks and interests of the present?

735. ST. ROCH WITH THE ANGEL.

Paolo Morando, otherwise known as Cavazzola (his father was Taddeo Cavazzola di Jacobi di Morando), was a pupil of Morone (see 285). He "infused a higher life, and a fine system of colouring into the Veronese School, making thus a great advance upon his contemporaries, and preparing the way for Paul Veronese.... He shows, as Dr. Burckhardt has justly observed, 'a marvellous transition from the realism of the fifteenth century to the noble free character of the sixteenth, not to an empty idealism'" (Layard, i. 270). His masterpieces are still in his native Verona, and nowhere else, except in the National Gallery, can he be studied.

St. Roch is the patron of the sick and plague-stricken. The legend says that he left great riches to travel as a pilgrim to Rome, where he tended those sick of the plague, and by his intercession effected miraculous cures. Through many cities he laboured thus, until at last in Piacenza he became himself plague-stricken, and with a horrible ulcer in his thigh he was turned out into a lonely wood. He has here laid aside his pilgrim staff and hung his hat upon it, and prepared himself to die, when an angel appears to him and drops a fresh rose on his path. There is no rose without a thorn, and no thorn in a saint's crown without a rose. He bares his thigh to show his wound to the angel, who (says the legend) dressed it for him, whilst his little dog miraculously brought him every morning a loaf of bread.

736. A VENETIAN SENATOR.

Called incorrectly, by Vasari, Monsignori. He was born at Verona, where, in the churches of S. Fermo, S. Bernardino, S. Paolo, and[Pg 380] in the Pinacoteca, works by him may be seen. In the grand but not always attractive productions of his earlier style, Bonsignori followed the traditions and manner of the Veronese School. Later in life he went to Mantua, where he settled and was influenced by Mantegna (see Morelli's German Galleries, p. 103, note).

A portrait—remarkable for vigorous execution, and strong individuality—of a senator, from the life, "in his habit as he stood,"—a branch of art in which this painter excelled. He has been called indeed "the modern Zeuxis," after the famous Greek painter whose painted grapes deceived the birds. For so lifelike were Bonsignori's pictures—says Vasari in his entertaining account of this painter—that on one occasion a dog rushed at a painted dog on the artist's canvas, whilst on another a bird flew forward to perch itself on the extended arm of a painted child. The portrait before us is executed in tempera. The study in chalk, for it is in the Albertina collection at Vienna.

737. A WATERFALL.

739. THE ANNUNCIATION.

Mary is kneeling in her chamber; while a golden ray from a glory above, piercing the house wall, has struck her head, over which is hovering a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. The angel of the Annunciation is outside in the court, but she cannot see him, for a wall stands between them—"a treatment of the subject which may be intended to suggest that the angel appeared to her in a dream." It also gives the painter an opportunity for introducing an additional display of incident and ornament. Beside the angel is St. Emidius, the patron saint of Ascoli, with a model of the city in his hand. "There could not be better examples of what we may call Crivelli's 'exquisite' style, which is only just saved by its refinement from mere prettiness and affectation. This angel is a poseur if ever there was one." The picture is very characteristic, in two features, of mediæval art. First, it was never antiquarian: it did not attempt to give a correct historical setting (cf. under[Pg 381] 294). No mediæval painter made the Virgin a Jewess; they nationalised her, as it were, and painted her in the likeness of their own maidens. So too their scenery was the likeness of their own homes and their own country. Here, for instance, is a picture of an Italian city in gala attire, somewhat idealised, no doubt, in splendour, but otherwise a "perfectly true representation of what the architecture of Italy was in her glorious time; trim, dainty,—red and white like the blossom of a carnation,—touched with gold like a peacock's plumes, and frescoed, even to its chimney-pots, with fairest arabesques,—its inhabitants, and it together, one harmony of work and life" (Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 21). And secondly, the picture shows the pleasure the painters took in their accessories, and the frank humour—free at once from irreverence and from gloom—with which the Venetians especially approached what was to them a religion of daily life. Notice especially the little girl at the top of the steps on the left, looking round the corner. The whole of this side of the picture shows a naturalistic treatment which forms "a curious accompaniment and contrast to Crivelli's ordinary conventional manner. The group talking with a friar at the house door, the citizen who passes along bent on business, the dandy who shades his eyes from the sun and looks up at the house, the figures on the arch, and the people walking in the open space by the town walls beyond, make up a picture of real life unequalled among Crivelli's works" (Rushworth's Crivelli, p. 63). As a representation of the "Annunciation," the picture should be compared and contrasted with Lippi's (666). The Madonna and the Angel, "though essential to the work from the point of view of the patrons, who commissioned it, were merely its occasion from the point of view of that extraordinarily painstaking and detail-loving creature, its painter. There is endless profusion of decorative work; elaborate arabesques on the pilasters of the Madonna's lordly house, elaborate capitals, elaborate loggias, an elaborate cornice. The grain of the wood on her reading-desk is carefully painted; so are the planks in the wall of her bedchamber.... Besides the endless interest of its decorative work, this picture is useful as marking the difference between the spiritual and ideal motives which dominated Florence, and the worldly motives of richness and splendour which dominated Venice. Compare its purely adventitious detail with the poetical background of Filippo Lippi. In the Florentine, the detail is there[Pg 382] for the sake of the picture; in the Venetian, the picture is there for the sake of the detail" (Grant Allen, in the Pall Mall Magazine, July 1895). See under 1139 for further notes on the subject.

The picture is signed and dated, 1486, at the bottom of the pilasters of the Virgin's chamber. On the face of the step below is an inscription between three coats of arms (the Bishop's, the Pope's, and the town's)—Libertas Ecclesiastica, which is of some historical interest. In the year 1482 the city of Ascoli came to an agreement with the Pope, whereby, in return for an annual tribute and the acknowledgment of his suzerainty, the Pope issued a Bull in favour of its citizens, conferring on them municipal Home Rule. A new phrase—Libertas Ecclesiastica, Independence under the Church—was invented to describe the new settlement. The arrival of the Charter on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, was celebrated henceforth by ceremonies on that day, in which a procession to the church of the Annunziata was a prominent feature. Our picture was painted for that church, where it remained until 1790.

740. MADONNA AND CHILD.

741. THE DEAD ORLANDO.

The closing scene, according to one of the many legends, in the history of that "peerless paladin," Orlando, or Roland, who was slain at the battle of Roncesvalles, when returning from Charlemagne's expedition against the Saracens in Spain. Invulnerable to the sword, he was squeezed to death by Bernardo del Carpio. He lies, therefore, prostrate, but fully dressed and armed, his right hand resting on his chest, his left on the hilt of his famous sword. Over the dead man's feet there hangs from a branch a small brass lamp, the flame of which, like the hero's life, has just expired. On either side [Pg 383]are the skulls and bones of other "paladins and peers who on Roncesvalles died."

742. PORTRAIT OF A LAWYER.

An excellent example of the painter's third or naturalistic manner. There is an ease of attitude and an absence of constraint which makes the portrait transparently natural.

744. THE "GARVAGH MADONNA."

This picture—known as the "Garvagh Madonna," from its former owner, Lord Garvagh, or the "Aldobrandini Madonna," from having originally belonged to the Aldobrandini apartments of the Borghese Palace at Rome—belongs to Raphael's third or Roman period, and a comparison with the "Ansidei" shows the changes in feeling between the painter's earlier and later manners. The devotional character of the Umbrian School is less marked. In the "Ansidei Madonna" the divinity of the Virgin is insisted on; and above her throne is the inscription "Hail, Mother of Christ." But here the divinity is only dimly indicated by a halo. And as the Madonna is here a merely human mother, so is the child a purely human child. The saints in contemplation of the "Ansidei" are replaced by a little St. John, and the two children play with a pink. The expressions of the children, as indeed the whole picture, are full of sweetness and beauty.[176] Very beautiful too is the pyramidal composition of the group. Of the ultimate significance of the change marked by Raphael's third manner, Ruskin says that it—

"Was all the more fatal because at first veiled by an appearance of greater dignity and sincerity than were possessed by the older art. One of the earliest results of the new knowledge was the putting away the greater part of the unlikelihoods and fineries of the ancient pictures, and an apparently closer following of nature and probability. The [Pg 384]appearances of nature were more closely followed in everything; and the crowned Queen-Virgin of Perugino sank into a simple Italian mother in Raphael's 'Madonna of the Chair.' ... But the glittering childishness of the old art was rejected, not because it was false, but because it was easy; and, still more, because the painter had no longer any religious passion to express. He could think of the Madonna now very calmly, with no desire to pour out the treasures of earth at her feet, or cover her brows with the golden shafts of heaven. He could think of her as an available subject for the display of transparent shadows, skilful tints, and scientific foreshortenings,—as a fair woman, forming, if well painted, a pleasant piece of furniture for the corner of a boudoir, and best imagined by combination of the beauties of the prettiest contadinas"[177] (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. §§ 12, 13).

It should, however, be remembered that the "Madonna di San Sisto," perhaps the most spiritual of all Raphael's conceptions, was the latest of the series.

745. KING PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN.

Few kings have left so many enduring monuments of themselves as Philip IV., whose face figures twice on these walls and meets one in nearly every European gallery. But nowhere, perhaps, has it been more supremely rendered than on this canvas, where the king seems to live and move before us. The picture is "perhaps the finest example of oil-painting accessible to the British student. Though one of the later works of the master, it is constructed out of a carefully wrought and smooth impasto, without any 'bravura' strokes. The lights are nowhere loaded. The hair is painted, not modelled; the jewels on the dress are easily touched in without relief-effect or juggling. The wonder of the thing is the infinite variety over a surface so simply treated. The face is in such broad, even light that one has to adopt some device which brings it freshly into the field of vision—as by [Pg 385]turning the head down or looking at it through the hand—in order to see how firm is the modelling. The flesh-tints are simple enough. Yet take almost any square inch of surface on the face—say the upper lip with its moustache—and note the effect of each one of the free brush-strokes which draw the pale, umber hair over the warm rubbing on the flesh; or in the cold, lack-lustre, blue eye, measure the apparent ease of the touches against their firm, incisive clearness. Everything is there—form, expression—in a word, the life; but it has all grown into perfection on the canvas so quietly, so smoothly, as if Velazquez had indeed painted with the will only and not with the hand" (Baldwin Brown: The Fine Arts, p. 319). "Velazquez fuses his colours in a way that baffles painters. They melt into each other by imperceptible gradations, as he deals with plane after plane in his subtly-modelled faces. Observe the action of light on the pallid face of the worn-out king, giving to the skin the breath of life in its delicate transparency" (Quarterly Review, April 1899).

The face is one which, once seen, is not soon forgotten. Velazquez, as we have said, caught its expression at once, and by comparing the face in its youth (1129) with its middle age here, one can almost trace the king's career. In youth we see him cold and phlegmatic, but slender in figure graceful and dignified in bearing, and with a fine open forehead. But the young king was bent on ease and pleasure, and his minister Olivares did nothing to persuade him into more active kingship. The less pleasing traits in his character have, in consequence, come to be deeper impressed at the time of this later portrait. He was devoted to sport, and the cruelty of the Spaniard is conspicuous in the lip—more underhung now than before. In the growth of the double chin and yet greater impassiveness of expression, one may see the traces of that "talent for dead silence and marble immobility" which, says the historian, "he so highly improved that he could sit out a comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience without movement of a muscle, except those in his lips and tongue." It is not the face of a great ruler; but it is one which rightly lives on a painter's canvas, for no king was ever at once so liberal and so enlightened a patron of the arts as he. Himself too he was something of an artist; and the best-known piece of his painting tells a pretty story, which it is pleasant to remember[Pg 386] in front of Velazquez's portraits of him. Velazquez painted once his own portrait in the background of the king's family (the "Maids of Honour"—Las Meninas—now at Madrid). "Is there anything wrong with it?" Velazquez asked. "Yes," said the king, taking the palette in his hand, "just this"—and he sketched in on the painter's portrait the coveted red cross of the order of Santiago. "In all his portraits Philip wears the golilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. It was invented by the king, who was very proud of it. In regard to the wonderful structure of Philip's moustaches, it is said that, to preserve their form, they were encased during the night in perfumed leather covers called bigoteras" (J. F. White, in Encyclopædia Britannica).

746. A LANDSCAPE WITH RUINS.

This picture is signed and dated 1673.

747. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND ST. LAWRENCE.

St. Lawrence may nearly always be distinguished by his gridiron—the emblem of his martyrdom. He was a pious deacon of the Christian Church, who was put to death by the Romans. A new kind of torture was, says the legend, prepared for him. He was stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and was roasted alive. "But so great was his constancy that in the middle of his torments he said, 'Seest thou not, O thou foolish man, that I am already roasted on one side, and that, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other?' Then St. Lawrence lifted up his eyes, and his pure and invincible spirit fled to heaven."

748. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. ANNE.

Girolamo inherited his surname ("of the books") from the occupation of his father, who was an illuminator of manuscripts. Girolamo himself excelled in this branch of art, but he also became famous as a[Pg 387] painter of altar-pieces. He had "a playful fancy, and loved to introduce into his pictures festoons of flowers and fruit, trees of rich green foliage bearing lemons and oranges, and angels singing and playing on musical instruments. He was a true Veronese in his feeling for colour, which in his works is always rich and gay. In his backgrounds are frequently seen distant views of his native city, with her castellated hills and blue mountains" (Layard, i. 269). Girolamo, whose friendship with Francesco Morone (285) is on record, was born in Verona, and it is there that many of his principal works are preserved. In the Pinacoteca are several charming pictures, and there also is a collection of Girolamo's missals. In S. Giorgio Maggiore is a "Madonna Enthroned," dated 1526, which is by many considered the painter's masterpiece. The German artist Ludwig Richter,[178] thus records (in his Lebenserinnerungen) the impression it made upon him:—"I thought that I had scarcely ever seen anything so beautiful and touching. The picture was by Girolamo dai Libri, an old master of whom until then I had never heard, nor, indeed, have I seen any other picture by him since. Here it was that there first arose in me a suspicion of what a depth of spiritual life, and of the heavenly beauty that is born of it, lay in the masters of the pre-Raphaelite period. The master's way of seeing and feeling, his style—and the style is the man—impressed me deeply and permanently, touched me sympathetically. In fact this dear old painter became veritably my patron saint, for he it was who first opened to me the gates of the inner sanctuary of Art" (quoted by Dr. Richter, in the Art Journal, February, 1895).

A picture "with a pedigree," being mentioned by Vasari. "In the church of the Scala (at Verona)," he says, in his life of the painter, "the picture of the Madonna with St. Anna is by his hand, and is placed between the San Sebastiano of Il Moro and the San Rocco of Cavazzola (Morando)." The latter picture (735) and Girolamo's now hang on the same wall of our Gallery. In the composition of this picture one may trace, perhaps, the influence of the dainty work Girolamo was first accustomed to. Thus the trefoil, or cloverleaf pattern, is followed both in the arrangement of the Virgin, St. Anne, and the Child, and in that of the little playing angels below. Notice the pretty trellis-work of roses on either side, and the slain dragon at the Virgin's feet, emblematic (the latter) of Christ's victory over the powers of evil, and (the former) of the "ways of pleasantness" and "paths of peace" that he came to prepare.

[Pg 388]

749. THE GIUSTI FAMILY OF VERONA.

Little is known of this painter except that he was a friend of Mantegna. The façade of his house at Verona was painted with frescoes, the upper part by Mantegna, the lower by Giolfino himself. He was probably a scholar of Liberale, to whose altar-piece in the cathedral at Verona he added the wings. One of his best works is a large altar-piece in S. Anastasia in that city.

Two groups of family portraits, chiefly interesting for studies in costume, originally in one picture, which formed the predella of an altar-piece: hence the upward look of some of the faces.

750. THE DOGE GIOVANNI MOCENIGO.

This picture was, until recently, ascribed to Carpaccio, of whom, therefore, some account is here retained. It was once inscribed with Carpaccio's name and the date 1479, but these, having been shown to be false, were removed. The work is now attributed, in accordance with the conclusions reached by Signor Molmenti and Dr. Ludwig[179] to Bastiani.

Lazzaro Bastiani was for many years the victim of one of Vasari's confusions. Carpaccio, we are told by that authority, "taught his art to two of his brothers, both of whom imitated him closely; one of these was called Lazzaro, the other Sebastiano." No such painters existed; but the name of Lazzaro Bastiani is on record as that of a painter already at work in 1449. The presumption is, therefore, that he was not taught by, but the master of, Carpaccio, by which latter painter there is no dated work before 1490. Numerous records of later works by Bastiani from 1449 onwards have been discovered; and there is a public document of December 11, 1508, in which Bastiani and Carpaccio were appointed to value the frescoes executed by Giorgione on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Our picture, hitherto supposed to be an early work of Carpaccio, should be compared with the signed and dated (1484) work of Bastiani in the Duomo of Murano, representing a Canon kneeling before the Virgin. Other pictures by him are in the Academies of Vienna and Venice respectively.

Various technical similarities between the work of Bastiani and Carpaccio are pointed out by Sig. Molmenti and Dr. Ludwig, but Bastiani's pictures lack the charm and gaiety of Carpaccio and his chief claim to fame is that which the critics now award him of having been the master of that great painter.

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The works of Vittore Carpaccio (about 1450-1522) have of recent years attracted great attention owing to the prominence given to them by Ruskin in all his writings since 1870. Of "The Presentation" in the Venetian Academy (dated 1510) he says: "You may measure yourself, outside and in,—your religion, your taste, your knowledge of art, your knowledge of men and things,—by the quantity of admiration which honestly, after due time given, you can feel for this picture. You are not required to think the Madonna pretty, or to receive the same religious delight from the conception of the scene which you would rightly receive from Angelico, Filippo Lippi, or Perugino. This is essentially Venetian,—prosaic, matter of fact,—retaining its supreme common-sense through all enthusiasm. Nor are you required to think this a first-rate work in Venetian colour. This is the best picture in the Academy, precisely because it is not the best piece of colour there;—because the great master has subdued his own main passion, and restrained his colour-faculty, though the best in Venice, that you might not say the moment you came before the picture, as you do of the Paris Bordone, 'What a piece of colour!' Carpaccio does not want you to think of his colour, but of your Christ.... If you begin really to feel the picture, observe that its supreme merit is in the exactly just balance of all virtue;—detail perfect, yet inconspicuous; composition intricate and severe, but concealed under apparent simplicity; and painter's faculty of the supremest, used nevertheless with entire subjection of it to intellectual purpose." Other powers of Carpaccio are better seen in the St. Ursula Series, also in the Venetian Academy, and since Ruskin's day honourably hung. "They are," says Layard, "masterly works, rich in all that gives value and grandeur to historical art. The rather monotonous history which forms the groundwork of many of them is throughout varied and elevated by a free style of grouping and by happy moral allusions. The colours, notwithstanding injudicious cleanings and restorations, still shine with the purest light. The variety of expression, always lifelike, in the many figures, their beautiful and simple action, and the admirable dramatic representation of the different incidents connected with the story, give these pictures an inexpressible charm. The subject of the dream of the young St. Ursula, in bed in her chamber, with her table and an open book upon it and her vase of flowers, has a purity and simplicity quite unique" (i. 320). These pictures were painted 1490-5. Of later date (1502-1511) is the series in the little church of S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni. They are full of the charm of picturesque reality, the wealth of rich and quaint accessories, the playful fancy and penetrative imagination, which characterise Carpaccio. Occasional works by him are to be seen in various continental galleries (e.g. Milan and Ferrara); but it is only in Venice that any adequate conception of him can be formed. Of his life little is known. He was born either in one of the Venetian islands, or in Istria. He generally signed himself "Victor Carpathius." Vasari calls him Scarpaccia; in old Venetian documents, he is Scarpaza. "He was associated with Gentile Bellini in executing the historical paintings for the Hall of the Great Council[Pg 390] in the Ducal Palace, and it has been thought possible that he accompanied Gentile to Constantinople as an assistant. The minute knowledge of Oriental customs and costumes which his works display suggests that he had visited the East, and even those parts of it which were then still under the sway of the Sultans of Egypt" (Burton). Ruskin's criticisms, and descriptions of his principal pictures, will be found in his Guide to the Academy at Venice, St. Mark's Rest (Supplements), and Fors Clavigera, 1872, xx.; 1873, xxvi.; 1876, pp. 329, 340, 357, 381; 1877, p. 26; 1878, p. 182. An earlier reference is in the Oxford Lectures on Art, § 73. Copies from some of Carpaccio's "Schiavoni" pictures are in the Arundel Society's Collection. Copies of the "Ursula" series and other pictures made for Ruskin are in the St. George's Museum at Sheffield.

This is a votive picture commissioned by Giovanni Mocenigo (who reigned over Venice 1477-1485), to be presented by him, according to the custom with reigning doges, to the Ducal Palace. The scene selected represents the doge kneeling before the Virgin and begging her protection on the occasion of the plague of 1478. The gold vase on the altar before the throne contains medicaments, for which, according to the inscription below, a blessing is invoked: "Celestial Virgin, preserve the City and Republic of Venice and the Venetian State, and extend your protection to me if I deserve it." Behind the doge is his patron saint St. John, on the opposite side is St. Christopher. The setting thus chosen for the doge's picture is characteristic. "The first step towards the ennobling of any face is the ridding it of its vanity; to which aim there cannot be anything more contrary than that principle of portraiture which prevails with us in these days, whose end seems to be the expression of vanity throughout, in face and in all circumstances of accompaniment; tending constantly to insolence of attitude, and levity and haughtiness of expression, and worked out further in mean accompaniments of worldly splendour and possession; together with hints or proclamations of what the person has done or supposes himself to have done, which, if known, it is gratuitous in the portrait to exhibit, and, if unknown, it is insolent to proclaim.... To which practices are to be opposed ... the mighty and simple modesty of ... Venice, where we find the ... doges not set forth with thrones and curtains of state, but kneeling, always crownless, and returning thanks to God for his help; or as priests, interceding for the nation in its affliction" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xiv. § 19). The picture was bought in 1865 from the Doge's descendant, Aloise Count Mocenigo di Sant' Eustachio.

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751. MADONNA AND CHILD.

This picture is of peculiar interest because it is by Raphael's father. It does not, however, give a full idea of the extent to which Raphael's talent was hereditary, for Giovanni's easel pictures, such as this, are inferior to his wall pictures. The young Raphael had all the advantages of an atmosphere of artistic culture. Giovanni, like his father before him, was a well-to-do burgher, and kept originally a general retail shop, but he afterwards—under the teaching, it is thought, of Melozzo da Forli—took to painting, and his house, if one may judge from Piero della Francesca's visit in 1467, was a resort of painters. At the brilliant court of Duke Federigo of Urbino, Giovanni moreover acquired a taste for literature, and there is a long rhyming chronicle by him extant in which he describes the Duke's visit to Mantua, and amongst other things praises greatly the works of Mantegna, Melozzo, and Piero della Francesca. But to see how much of Raphael's genius was original, one has only to compare this picture by the father with one (say 744) by the son. Giovanni's female heads are not without a mild dignity of their own; but his works lack the soft grace and winning charm that distinguish his son's.

"Worth study, in spite of what critics say of its crudity. Concede its immaturity, at least, though an immaturity visibly susceptible of a delicate grace, it wins you nevertheless to return again and again, and ponder, by a sincere expression of sorrow, profound, yet resigned, be the cause what it may, among all the causes of sorrow inherent in the ideal of maternity, human or divine. But if you keep in mind, when looking at it, the facts of Raphael's childhood,[180] you will recognise in his father's picture, not the anticipated sorrow of the Mater Dolorosa over the dead son, but the grief of a simple household over the mother herself taken early from it. This may have been the first picture the eyes of the world's great painter of Madonnas rested on; and if he stood diligently before it to copy, and so copying, quite unconsciously, and with no disloyalty to his original, refined, improved, substituted,—substituted himself, in fact, his finer self—he had already struck the persistent note of his career" (Pater: Miscellaneous Studies, p. 32).

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752. MADONNA AND CHILD.

A picture by a Bolognese artist, of the Giottesque period, Lippo, son of Dalmasius, called also "Lippo of the Madonna," from the many pictures like this he painted: no Bolognese gentleman's family, we are told, was considered complete without one.

753. ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS.

There was no native and independent school of Cremona. Melone was a pupil of Romanino at Brescia. He painted some of the frescoes in the nave of Cremona Cathedral.

Two of Christ's disciples are walking after his death and burial to Emmaus. The risen Christ "drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden, that they should not know him" (Luke xxiv. 16). The painter makes excuses for the disciples not recognising their Master by naïvely dressing Him as a tourist with an alpenstock.

755. RHETORIC.}
756. MUSIC.  }

Melozzo, born at Forli in the Romagna, near Ravenna, is classed with the Umbrian School, both because he studied (it is believed) under Piero della Francesca, and because he worked at Urbino. Giovanni Santi, who was his friend, especially praises Melozzo, "to me so dear," for his skill in perspective; and, like many other artists of these times, he was an architect as well as a painter. In 1472 he was in Rome; he was one of the original members of the Roman Academy of St. Luke, founded by Sixtus IV., and in the book of the Academy he signs his name as "Painter to the Pope." Some of his Roman frescoes are preserved. In the Vatican gallery is a fresco transferred to canvas, commemorating the restoration of the Vatican Library and containing many portraits. This work has been published by the Arundel Society, but Melozzo is more widely known by the figures of angels playing on musical instruments, now in the sacristy of St. Peter's, which have been published by the same Society. These grand figures of youths with abundant flowing hair are "among the most beautiful and masterful creations of the Renaissance spirit, caught up,[Pg 393] it would seem, into a certain ecstasy and rapture of divine things." Portions of a fresco, painted for SS. Apostoli, representing the Ascension of our Lord, are now on the staircase of the Quirinal Palace. The work was "one of the most grand and daring feats of foreshadowing that art has bequeathed, and may be considered as the first illustration of that science which Mantegna and Correggio further developed" (Kugler). In this connection we may notice in our pictures that "the steps and the figures thereon are drawn in perspective, as if they were real objects seen from below; they present the earliest example the Gallery possesses of this kind of perspective illusion, which was practised with great success by Mantegna, and carried out on the grandest scale by Michael Angelo in the ceiling of the Sistine chapel" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 115). About the year 1480 Melozzo went to Urbino, where he executed the work described below. In Forli itself a few frescoes by Melozzo survive. In the British Museum there are some drawings by this rare master.

These pictures are two of a series of seven, which were painted for the good Duke Frederick to decorate the library of the Ducal Palace at Urbino. The words on the frieze above our pictures are portions of a running inscription describing the Duke's style and titles. He was created "Gonfaloniere of the Church" (756) in 1465 and "Duke of Urbino" (755) in 1474. The series represented symbolically the seven arts—grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy—which, until the close of the Middle Ages, formed the curriculum of a liberal education. Notice in both pictures that the figures of the learners are kneeling—an attitude symbolical of the spirit of reverence and humility which distinguishes the true scholar ("I prayed, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me"); whilst the figures representing the sciences to be learned are seated on thrones—symbolical of the true kingship that consists in knowledge ("And I set her before kingdoms and thrones"), and are clothed about with pearls and other precious stones ("She is more precious than rubies").

In the picture of Rhetoric (755) the youth is being taught not to speak, but to read—"You must not speak," the Queen of Rhetoric seems to tell him, "until you have something to say." Notice, too, that Rhetoric is robed in cold gray. "You think Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous? No. Above all things,—cool."

But Music (756) is robed in bright red, the colour of delight. The book now is closed. "After learning to reason, you will[Pg 394] learn to sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in this sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it." Music points her scholar to a small organ—"not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and healing" (Mornings in Florence, v. 128, 134). Hanging from the wall on the left, almost above the scholar's head, is a sprig of bay, the Muses' crown. Other pictures of this same series are in the gallery at Berlin and in the Royal Collection at Windsor. The latter is of peculiar interest in the history of the Renaissance. It shows the Duke, his son and the Court, and a black-robed humanist, seated in a sort of pulpit—"the unique representation of a scene of frequent occurrence in the Courts of Italy, where listening to lectures formed a part of every day's occupation" (see the description in Symonds, ii. p. 221).

757. CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN.

This is one of the nation's conspicuously bad bargains. It was bought in 1866 as a Rembrandt and at a Rembrandt price (£7000), but was soon recognised as being only a work by some pupil. It is easy to be wise after the event, but it certainly seems strange that the connoisseurs of the time, even if technical differences had escaped them, should not have seen a lack of Rembrandt's power about this work. A writer in the Times (June 24, 1888) has no hesitation in ascribing the picture to Nicolas Maes. He says: "If it was painted by Maes it would probably have been after the series of small works, mostly dating about 1656. Maes was a pupil of Rembrandt in 1650, at the time when the master's treatment of sacred subjects was more direct than in his earlier years. In this picture fanciful costume is discarded, and the figures are painted straight from the life. The figure of Christ is, indeed, weak and conventional, but it is not to be expected that a young man would here be successful in a figure so foreign to his general practice; and, if we admit the supposition that the composition followed the small panels, the relaxation of style pervading the entire work tallies with the known facts of the career of Maes, who between 1660 and 1670[Pg 395] appears to have devoted himself almost entirely to portrait painting; these representations of Dutch and Antwerp burghers, though solid and respectable, possess none of the charm and interest of the earlier works owing their inspiration to the direct influence of Rembrandt." (See, for instance, No. 1277.) Some ascribe the picture with equal assurance to Lievens (see 1095); see an article by Ford Madox Brown in the Magazine of Art, Feb. 1890; others to Eeckhout (see The Athenæum, Jan. 19, 1907).

758. PORTRAIT OF THE COUNTESS PALMA OF URBINO.

Ascribed by Morelli to Paolo Uccello. "The treatment of the hair recalls that of one of the portraits in Paolo's battle-piece (583), while Piero used to represent curls in a thin and thread-like shape. The ornament on the left sleeve of the lady also reminds one of the decoration on the standard" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 17). "Of purely Florentine origin, and with its hardness of outline and modelling, and its severity of aspect, resembles a Pesellino writ large" (Claude Phillips in the Academy, Sept. 28, 1889).

This and the other profile head once ascribed to Piero (585) "are probably the earliest specimens we have in the National Gallery of pure portraits, i.e. pictures devoted simply to record the likeness of an individual, first introduced as donors into votive pictures, and next as actors in scenes from sacred history and legend. Portraits have at length made good their claim to a separate existence in pictorial art" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 41). To Piero della Francesca also we owe "most precious portraits (at Rimini and in the Uffizi) of two Italian princes, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta and Federigo of Urbino, masterpieces of fidelity to nature and sound workmanship" (Symonds).

766, 767. HEADS OF SAINTS.

Though Domenico describes himself as Venetian (as on the signature to 1215), he worked at Perugia and Florence, and his works belie any connection with Venetian art. Between 1439 and 1445 he was engaged in the church of S. Maria Nuova, in which work he was[Pg 396] assisted by his pupil Piero della Francesca. These pictures have perished. The works by his hand we possess give no evidence of his being an oil painter, but he is known to have used oil, and indeed was celebrated as one of the earliest Italian painters in that medium. Vasari's story about Andrea del Castagno's jealousy, and his murder of Domenico in consequence, is disproved by documentary evidence showing that Domenico survived his alleged murderer by five years. Domenico's only known works, now extant, are an altar-piece in the Uffizi and the work described below.

These heads are from the niche or tabernacle which contained the Madonna and Child, No. 1215. The work was executed for the Canto (street corner) de' Carnesecchi in Florence. It is thus referred to by Vasari:—

Being invited to Florence, the first thing Domenico did was to paint a tabernacle in fresco, at the corner of the Carnesecchi, in the angle of the two roads, leading, the one to the new, the other to the old Piazza of Santa Maria Novella. The subject of this work is a Virgin surrounded by various saints, and as it pleased the Florentines greatly and was much commended by the artists of the time, as well as by the citizens, this picture awakened bitter rage and envy against poor Domenico in the ill-regulated mind of Andrea (ii. 99—here follows Vasari's rattling and reckless story of Domenico's murder by the jealous Andrea del Castagno).

For centuries Domenico's work was exposed to wind and weather. The heads, Nos. 766, 767, passed into the possession of Sir Charles Eastlake, from whose collection they were purchased for the National Gallery in 1867. The central fresco (No. 1215) was in 1851 detached from the wall and badly restored. It was subsequently acquired by Lord Lindsay, the author of Sketches of the History of Christian Art, whose son, James, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, presented it to the nation in 1886.

768. ST. PETER AND ST. JEROME.

Antonio da Murano, called also Antonio Vivarini, was the eldest of a family of painters, who played a part in the development of the Venetian School corresponding to that of Giotto and his circle in the Florentine School. The Venetian is, it will be seen, a century later than the Florentine (cf. Introduction). It was at the adjacent island of Murano (where most of the Venetian glass is now made, and which was once the resort of the wealthier Venetian citizens) that an[Pg 397] independent school first developed itself, Antonio and his brother Bartolommeo (see 284) being natives of that place. The work of the Vivarini was to impart a distinctively artistic impulse to the conventional craftsmanship which previously prevailed in Venice in accordance with Byzantine traditions. Recently published documents (dated 1272) give a curious insight into the position and work of the earliest Venetian painters (see Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, pp. 23-29). They were treated merely as artisans. They were engaged for the most part in work which would now be classed as industrial craftsmanship in painting arms and furniture. Paintings, in our sense of the word, were an unimportant and occasional branch of their work. The division of labour which in our own day is a frequent cause of industrial disputes (as, for instance, between builders and plasterers) was then in dispute between painters and gilders. A recorded case was settled as follows: "We judge it just to permit the gilder to use colour, and the painter to use gilding, when the one or the other plays a subordinate part in the finished work. A decision in the opposite sense would seem to us hard; for it would be inconvenient to decree that a work which can be done by one, must be done by two. Thus, though each litigant loses, each is compensated for his loss. The profession of the gilder is gilding, but painting is permitted as an accessory. In like manner painting is the profession of the painter, but gilding is permitted as an accessory." In this picture, St. Peter's key is, it will be seen, embossed in goldsmiths' fashion, and Bartolommeo's picture has a gold background. Antonio Vivarini first worked in partnership with a certain Zuan (Giovanni), who appears to have been a German by birth, and the visitor will notice between the work of the early Venetian School a certain affinity with the contemporary German work of the Cologne School. After 1450 the name of Johannes the German disappears from the inscriptions on Vivarini altar-pieces, and that of Bartolommeo takes its place.

769. ST. MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON.

Formerly ascribed to Fra Carnovale (Bartolommeo Corradini); but between Piero della Francesca's angels in 908 and the figure of St. Michael here there is a close resemblance, which seems to identify the picture as his.

St. Michael, the angel of war against the dragon of sin, stands triumphant over his foe—emblem of the final triumph of the spiritual over the animal and earthly part of our nature. It is the most universal of all symbols. The victor is different in different ages, but the enemy is always the same crawling reptile. Christian art, from its earliest times, has thus inter[Pg 398]preted the text, "The dragon shalt thou trample under feet" (Psalm xci. 13); and in illustrations of Hindoo mythology Vishnu suffering is folded in the coils of a serpent, whilst Vishnu triumphant stands like St. Michael, with his foot upon the defeated monster.

770. LEONELLO D'ESTE.

Of Oriolo nothing is known. He was probably by birth a Ferrarese, and was evidently a pupil of Pisano (see 776).

Leonello (of whom also there is a medallion portrait in the frame of the picture just referred to), of the house of Este, was Marquis of Ferrara, 1441-1450. His mild and kindly face agrees well with what is known of his life. The one important action of his reign was that of a peacemaker, when he mediated between Venice and the King of Anjou. "He had not his equal," says Muratori, "in piety towards God, in equity and kindness towards his subjects. He was the protector of men of letters and was himself a good Latin scholar."

771. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

In the signature of this picture, "Bono of Ferrara" announces himself "a pupil of Pisano's," and the figure of St. Jerome here much resembles Pisano's "St. Anthony" (776). Bono's other known work is a fresco of St. Christopher in the Eremitani Chapel at Padua. "A clumsy and inferior master," says Morelli (German Galleries, p. 11 n.); "an excellent painter," says Sir F. Burton. His style is, at any rate, precise and effective.

St. Jerome (for whom see 773 and 227) is in the desert, deep in thought; his lion couched at his feet keeps his master's thoughts company as faithfully as a scholar's dog. The desert is here shown as the saint's study; notice, especially, the little table that the rock makes behind him for his books. Ruskin says of a similar modification of accessories to express supernatural character, in Bellini's "St. Jerome" at Venice: "The Saint sits upon a rock, his grand form defined against clear green open sky; he is reading; a noble tree springs out of a cleft in the rock, bends itself suddenly back to form a[Pg 399] rest for the volume, then shoots up into the sky. There is something very beautiful in this obedient ministry of the lower creature; but be it observed that the sweet feeling of the whole depends upon the service being such as is consistent with its nature. It is not animated, it does not listen to the saint, not bend itself towards him as if in affection; this would have been mere fancy, illegitimate and effectless. But the simple bend of the trunk to receive the book is miraculous subjection of the true nature of the tree; it is therefore imaginative, and very touching" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 8).

772. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

Cosimo Tura (pronounced Cosmè in Ferrarese) is the first Ferrarese painter of eminence and of native talent whose works have come down to us. He was a well-to-do citizen, and, like Titian after him, dealt in timber. As an artist he was in the service of Duke Borso of Ferrara (whose portrait is introduced in the background of No. 773), and other members of the princely house of Este. The court of Ferrara was then one of the most learned of Italy. A curious instance occurs in this picture, where, on either side of the Virgin's throne, are inscribed the Commandments, in Hebrew characters. Such inscriptions are common in Ferrarese pictures, and point to the presence of some Hebrew scholar or scholars. It was at this court that Cosimo came under the influence of Flemish art as described below, for the house of Este (which was of Lombard origin, and thus had a natural affinity perhaps for northern art) had invited Roger van der Weyden to Ferrara. Tura was "first employed by the Duke of Ferrara in 1451. Between 1452 and 1456 his whereabouts are uncertain. Possibly he was then in Padua among the followers of Squarcione, or else in Venice, to the poor of which city he left by will part of the fruits of his long and industrious life. In 1458 he rose to a fixed appointment in the Ducal service. He made a fortune, risked it in trade, and died a wealthy man" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1894, p. xv.). Some of his works are to be seen at Ferrara, others are in the Berlin Gallery, at Bergamo, and the Correr Museum at Venice. He is one of the most unmistakable and least fascinating, yet most interesting of painters. Of beauty or grace in the human figure he had no perception. His colour schemes are peculiar, and harmonious rather than beautiful. But he had sincerity of purpose and vigour of manipulation. Where his subjects lend themselves to strength, he is impressive, as in the "St. Jerome" (773), but his Madonnas (772 and 905) are both affected and ugly. His patience in the execution of detail, and quaint if superabundant ornament, are always interesting.[Pg 400] The picture now before us is thoroughly characteristic of a master who alternately repels and attracts.

The decorative detail here deserves close attention. Compare, for instance, the ornament of the pilasters here with that of the pilasters in Crivelli's "Annunciation" (739), which was painted about the same time. "Crivelli follows the traditional lines common to all such features from later Roman times downwards, while Tura's accessories are full of inventiveness and are evidently designed for this especial picture. Thus the cup, balls, and wing-like appendages in the pilaster are quite original. The general scheme of colour in the picture, also, with its contrasts of red and green, is quite apart from anything existing in contemporary Italian art, and recalls rather a Flemish stained-glass window of the fifteenth century" (G. T. Robinson in Art Journal, May 1886, pp. 149, 150). The musical instruments are also worth notice. "One of the angels, on the left, holds an ornamental viol, having five strings, with a carved man's head; another angel, on the right, holds a similar viol, with a carved woman's head. In the centre is placed a positive organ—that is, a small organ not intended for removal. The player is on the left, in front of the organ; the blower is on the right, behind it. Only natural keys are visible, but there are three stops to be drawn out from the side, in the primitive way, by means of cords attached to them, to control the pipes, of which thirty are visible and three are drones. These pipes are grouped in columnar disposition, like an hour-glass, and not in the order of ranks usual with small organs. It is noticeable that the player uses both hands, held nearly in the modern position" (A. J. Hipkins in The Hobby Horse, No. i. p. 19).

773. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

and schooling himself into renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil. In contrast to the wildness of the surroundings, the painter introduces quite a company of birds and beasts—an owl sits in sedate wisdom above the saint, his familiar lion is walking to the stream for water, and in the crannies and[Pg 401] ledges are other animals to keep him company. For it was his union of gentleness and refinement with noble continence, his love and imagination winning even savage beasts into domestic friends, that distinguished St. Jerome and formed the true monastic ideal (see 227).

774. MADONNA AND CHILD.

On the Madonna's right is St. Peter; on her left St. Paul, an arrangement common in early art, St. Peter and St. Paul being the two chief apostles on whom the Church of Christ is built. St. Paul offers a pink to the infant Christ. Flowers were consecrated to the Virgin, and the early painters chose those they liked best to be emblems of love and beauty. Notice the design on the stuff fixed at the back of the Madonna's throne; it is a beautiful example of the ornamental work of the time in northern Europe. The picture was formerly ascribed to Van der Goes—an artist whose only certainly known picture is the altar-piece in the hospital of S. Maria Nuova in Florence,—and is by some ascribed to Bouts (see under 783).

775. AN OLD LADY.

An old lady, eighty-three years of age (as the inscription shows). This splendid portrait is dated 1634, and was made therefore when Rembrandt was twenty-eight. His mother was from the first a favourite sitter of his, and hence, perhaps, the affectionate fidelity with which he always painted the wrinkled faces of old age. In the British Museum there is an Indian-ink copy of this portrait, from which it appears that the lady's name was Françoise van Wasserhoven. Rembrandt, says M. Michel, "is most individual and moving in those portraits of old women, in which by the accidents of form and feature he so admirably suggests the moral life."

776. ST. ANTHONY AND ST. GEORGE.

The earliest picture of the Veronese School in the Gallery. "No school of painting in Italy except the Florentine shows," says Morelli,[Pg 402] "so regular and uninterrupted a development, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, as the graceful school of Verona. If we look, for example, at some of the oldest frescoes at St. Zeno, at the frescoes of the great Pisanello in S. Anastasia of the first half of the fifteenth century, at the pictures of Liberale (1134 and 1336) and Domenico Morone (1211), and of their pupils Francesco Morone (285), Girolamo dai Libri (748), Michele da Verona (1214), Giolfino (749), and Morando (735 and 769), and then to Paolo Veronese and his followers, we find everywhere the same cheerful and graceful character looking out of each of these works of the Veronese School. The Veronese do not penetrate so deep into the essence of art as the Venetians, but they are, with few exceptions, more gracious and serene. And to this day the population of this beautifully situated town is reckoned the cheeriest and gayest in all Italy: Veronesi, mezzo natti" (German Galleries, p. 395). In the National Gallery the development of the Veronese School may, as will be seen from the references inserted above, be well studied. The importance and independence of the Veronese painters are shown by the career of Vittore Pisano, commonly called by the endearing diminutive Pisanello. He was born at St. Vigilio, near the Lake of Garda, and was probably a pupil of Altichiero, an older master of the Veronese School, and was famous as the inventor of a method of casting medals; but though better known now as a medallist, in his own day he was equally famous as a painter. In the frame of this picture are inserted casts from two of his medals, and it will be noticed that the lower one—a profile of himself—is inscribed Pisanus Pictor; Pisano the Painter. The medal above is that of Leonello d'Este, his patron, for whom this picture was probably painted, and whose portrait by a pupil of Pisano is in our Gallery (770). At Bergamo is a portrait of Leonello by Pisano himself (reproduced in the Illustrated Catalogue of the Morelli Gallery by Signor Frizzoni). Another evidence of Pisano's practice as a medallist will be noticed in the gilt embossed work of St. George's sword and spurs. Leonello wrote of Pisano as "the most illustrious of all the painters of this age," and contemporary writers similarly extol his fame. In 1421 he was summoned to Venice. "When, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, great monumental works in painting were to be carried out at Venice, the local school was still so insignificant that no native artist could be entrusted with the commission. They were obliged to summon Vittore Pisano, notwithstanding that he had once been on the list of the politically obnoxious, and as such was liable to penal consequences" (Richter). Pisano was accompanied by Gentile da Fabriano. "The presence of those two eminent artists in the city of the Lagoons gave," says Morelli, "a new impulse to its school of painting. Jacopo Bellini became a scholar of Gentile, and when his master had finished his work at Venice he accompanied him to Florence. During the few years of their stay at Venice, Gentile and Pisanello must not only have instructed Bellini in their art, but their influence on Antonio Vivarini of Murano also seems to me undeniable.... Taking him all in all, I consider that Giovanni Bellini was the[Pg 403] greatest painter in North Italy in the fifteenth century, though undoubtedly Pisano was in the first half of the century as great a painter as was Bellini in the second half" (German Galleries, p. 357; Roman Galleries, p. 267). Of Pisano's wall-paintings in the Doge's Palace, in that of the Pope, and in the castles of the foremost princes of the century, no traces remain. His fresco of "St. George mounting for the fight" may be seen in the church of St. Anastasia at Verona. Among his very rare easel-pictures the one now before us is signed and very original in conception; No. 1436 is the most important, and is especially interesting as illustrating Pisano's love of representing animals, and the high reputation he enjoyed for his skill in doing so. "Vittore lived," says Sir F. Burton, "at a time when the traditions and forms of chivalry had not yet died out; and all his works, including his delicate and spirited pen-drawings in the Louvre, have a certain stamp of knightly grace which is singularly attractive: in this respect they resemble the creations of Gentile da Fabriano."

The subject of the picture—a meeting between St. George and St. Anthony, with a vision of the Virgin and Child above—is not to be found in the legends of the saints, and Pisano's conception is quite original. St. George appears to have been a favourite subject with the artist—probably because of the way in which his armour lent itself to medallion-like treatment. There is a good instance of frank anachronism in the large Tuscan hat of Pisano's own day which he quaintly makes St. George wear, "according to the everyday custom of the Italian noblemen at their country-seats in the summer."[181] Perhaps too the painter chose St. George partly because he involved a horse and a dragon, and Pisano, says Vasari, "took especial pleasure in the delineation of animals." This may have given him a weakness for the boar of good St. Anthony—the hermit saint whose temptations have passed into a proverb. The saint carries a bell, for "it is said that the wicked spirits that be in the region of the air fear much when they hear the bells ringen," and a staff, another means of exorcising the devil; whilst the boar, now tamed into service, is symbolical of the demon of sensuality which St. Anthony vanquished. And here perhaps we find the clue to the idea in the picture. For the dragon whom [Pg 404]St. George slew represents the same sensual enemy. St. George conquered by fighting, St. Anthony by fasting. The two saints now meet when "each on his course alone" has "worked out each a way." The old man, whose life has been spent in struggle, greets the triumphant youth with curious surprise; and St. George too, with the thoughtful look on his face, will have much to say and learn. But over them both, as to all who overcome, the heavens open in beatific vision; for though there be diversity of gifts, it is the same spirit. The signature of the painter (Pisanus pinxit) is fantastically traced by herbage in the foreground.

777. MADONNA AND CHILD.

A picture of great beauty, which goes far to justify the title of "the Raphael of the Veronese School" by which Morando has been distinguished. Every visitor will be struck by the unpretentious simplicity of conception, the rich colours and the sweet faces—with just a dash of Raphaelesque affectation. It is interesting to note that Morando was almost exactly contemporary with Raphael, while his art exhibits a maturity developed under totally different circumstances. For Morando never left Verona, and was thus, says Sir F. Burton, "a pure growth of the native Veronese School. His colouring, though often brilliant, is rather cold; the pale flesh-tints, glossy in surface, are shadowed with grey, and even the lake reds introduced in garments tend towards that purplish hue which the best colourists avoid."

778. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Martino of Udine was called also Pellegrino of San Daniele (a village near the former place). According to Vasari, he was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, who, astonished at the marvellous progress of his pupil, gave him the name of Pellegrino—that is, rare, extraordinary. More probably, however, it should be interpreted merely as a stranger or foreigner at Udine, Martino being of Dalmatian origin (see for a full account and discussion of this painter Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 18-23). He was, says Sir F. Burton, "one of those men who, with little native genius, have yet the capacity of absorbing material from others, and of working it into new forms with success. Thus Pelle[Pg 405]grino turned out some works which, while they carry the foreign stamp of Giorgione, Titian, Pordenone, or other great contemporaries, nevertheless show considerable freshness of conception and treatment." His altar-piece, of 1494, in the church of Osopo, shows the influence of Cima da Conegliano. From 1504 to 1512 he was frequently at Ferrara working for the Duke Alfonso. In 1519-1521 he painted a part of the choir of S. Antonio at S. Daniele (the earlier part was painted in 1497); in this, his best work, he appears as an imitator not only of Pordenone but of Romanino. In 1526 he went, apparently for the first time, to Venice, there to buy colours for a large picture which he had engaged to paint for the church of Cividale: that picture shows his study of Palma. Pellegrino combined with painting the business of a timber merchant. "That so mediocre a painter as Pellegrino should have attained high honour in Friuli need," says Morelli, "surprise no one who knows the other painters of that little country. The value of anything in the world is comparative. The Friulan race never manifested the same talent for art as, for instance, their neighbours of Treviso."

On the right of the throne is St. James, with his hand on the shoulder of the donor of the picture; on the left St. George, with the dead dragon at his horse's feet.

779, 780. FAMILY PORTRAITS.[182]

On the left (779) a group of nine men, above them a [Pg 406]hand, probably of some patron saint; on the right (780) a group of thirteen women, kneeling (apparently) by the side of a tomb—studies of character drawing. These pictures are painted on silk (now attached to wood), and were originally part of a standard. Mr. Pater says of Borgognone that "a northern temper is a marked element of his genius—something of the patience, especially, of the masters of Dijon or Bruges, nowhere more clearly [seen] than in the two groups of male and female heads in the National Gallery, family groups, painted in the attitude of worship, with a lowly religious sincerity which may remind us of the contemporary work of M. Legros. Like those northern masters, he accepts piously, but can refine, what 'has no comeliness'" ("Art Notes in North Italy," in the New Review, November 1890).

781. RAPHAEL AND TOBIAS.

The Hebrew legend of Tobit and his son Tobias (told in the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha) was a favourite one with the Mediæval Church, and became therefore a traditional subject for painting; see e.g. in the National Gallery, 288, 72, and 48. Tobit, a Jewish exile, having fallen also into poverty, and afterwards becoming blind, prays for death rather than life in noble despair. "To him the angel of all beautiful life (Raphael) is sent, hidden in simplicity of human duty, taking a servant's place for hire, to lead his son in all right and happy ways of life" (Fors Clavigera, 1877, p. 31). Here we see Raphael leading the young Tobias into Media, where he was to marry Sara, his rich kinswoman, the daughter of Raguel. But she was haunted by an evil spirit, who had slain her seven husbands, each on their wedding-day, and the angel bade Tobias take the gall of a certain fish, wherewith afterwards to heal his father's blindness, and its heart and liver wherewith to drive away the evil spirit from his bride. Tobias is carrying the fish, Raphael has a small box for the gall. The "rising step" and the "springy motion in his gait" are characteristic of him who was the messenger of heaven, the kindly companion of humanity—

[Pg 407]

For the authorship of this picture, see under 296. "This picture," says a critic who gives both to Verrocchio, "may possibly be not entirely from his hand, but there is no doubt that it is essentially his, and that to his fancy for painting boyhood and opening youth we owe that curious misreading of the story of Tobias, representing him as a young lad instead of a grown man, which is to be found through all the numerous Florentine picture of him by the school of Botticelli, by Piero di Cosimo and the rest" (Times, October 26, 1888).

782. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Probably only a "school picture." Most of the old masters kept schools, or shops, in which several pupils served as apprentices and worked at pictures under the master's directions. The sale of such pictures under the master's name was (and is) a very common occurrence, and even in those days forged signatures were not unusual.

783. THE EXHUMATION OF BISHOP HUBERT.

This beautiful work was formerly in the collection of Mr. Beckford at Fonthill, where it was described as the Burial of a Bishop by Jan Van Eyck. It has also been ascribed to Gerard Van der Meire (see 1078) and to Thierri Bouts (about 1420-1475). This latter painter—called by early authors Thierry, or Dierik of Haarlem, from the name of his native town, and by modern writers Thierri Stuerbout,—was town's painter of Louvain, and a pupil probably of Roger van der Weyden. His principal works are now in the Brussels Museum. Other pictures in the Gallery attributed to him by some critics are 664, 774, and 943. Van der Meire, Justus of Ghent, and Albert Van Ouwater have also been suggested as the painters of this picture; it closely resembles the "Raising of Lazarus" ascribed to the last-named painter in the Berlin Gallery.

St. Hubert was originally a nobleman of Aquitaine, much addicted to all worldly pleasures, and especially to that of the chase. But one day in Holy Week, when all good Christians were at their devotions, as he was hunting in the forest of Ardennes, he encountered a milk-white stag bearing the crucifix between his horns. Filled with awe and astonishment, he renounced the pomps and vanities of the world, turned hermit[Pg 408] in that very forest of Ardennes, was ordained, and became Bishop of Liège. So the legend runs, embalming, we may suppose, the conversion of some reckless lover of the chase, like the wild huntsman of the German legend. And at Liège he was buried, but thirteen years afterwards his body was disinterred, and lo! it was found entire; even the episcopal robes in which he had been interred were without spot or stain. A century later the body was removed from Liège and reinterred in the abbey church of the Benedictine monks of Ardennes. The Emperor Louis le Débonnaire assisted at the translation of the relics, and the day was long kept as a festival throughout this part of Flanders. This is the subject of the present picture, of which the scene is laid in the choir of a beautiful Gothic church. On the altar behind the principal group stands a shrine, on which is a little figure of St. Hubert with his hunting-horn. The royal personage assisting represents Louis le Débonnaire. The picture is of wonderful beauty, finished in every part (abridged from Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, pp. 431, 432). Though it is thus an historical picture, the artist takes the figures from his own time, and the heads, like miniatures in character and delicacy of expression, are doubtless portraits—the whole scene being a picture of a Flemish Cathedral on some festival day. Notice, as a particularly interesting little piece of life, the man flattening his nose against the screen on the left, with a jeering expression, as if he "didn't half believe it all." It is a piece of living grotesque, exactly such as meets one in the sculptured stones of a mediæval cathedral itself—"peeping round the corner at you and lurking in secret places, like a monk's joke whispered in church" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 17).

788. AN ALTAR-PIECE.

This important picture is one of Crivelli's masterpieces and is very characteristic of his genius and its limitations. The work, it will be seen, is not so much a picture as a collection of panel pictures built up into a gorgeous piece of decoration. The panels in the two lower tiers were painted for the old church of San Domenico, at Ascoli; the central panel of the Madonna and Child is inscribed with the painter's name and[Pg 409] the date 1476. The church was rebuilt in 1776, and some years afterwards the picture came into the possession of Cardinal Zelada at Rome, who added the four upper pictures by the same painter. In 1852 the picture passed to Prince Anatole de Demidoff, at Florence, where it was put into its present magnificent frame. Crivelli's artistic aim, it has been said, was the development and perfection of isolated figures for elaborate altar-pieces of this kind, and those before us are among the best he ever did: "in them calm dignity, strength of character, gentleness, and grace, can all be treated by him with perfect success apart from the disturbing elements of emotion and action." The type of the Virgin here is very characteristic, with her high-arched eyebrows, small mouth, and hair tightly drawn back from the forehead. So too are the hands, with very long fingers, in which affectation borders on dislocation. Very natural, on the contrary, is the figure of the infant Christ, "fast asleep with one hand under his head while with the other he grasps his mother's middle finger—a picture drawn from the life." The decorative details are characteristic. Note the dolphins on the base of the throne. The festoons are meant to represent real offerings of fruit, tied with string and fastened with nails. On one side of the Virgin is St. Peter, an impressive figure: his costume shows the use of raised ornaments and imitation gems, which is common in Crivelli's earlier works, but which he gradually dropped. Beyond St. Peter is St. John the Baptist in the wilderness: the hard and severe style of the figure is remarkable. "The landscape in which he stands should not be passed over, with the stream flowing at his feet and the tree-stems broken off so as not to interfere with the gold background which sets off the upper half of the figure." On the other side of the Virgin is St. Catherine of Alexandria, and beyond her St. Dominic—a figure "admirable in its expression of piety and humility and in the personality with which Crivelli has invested it." The half-length figures in the second tier are St. Francis, with the stigmata; St. Andrew, with cross and book—a very grand head; St. Stephen, with the stones of his martyrdom; and St. Thomas Aquinas, with book and the model of a church. In the top tier are St. Jerome, also carrying the model of a church; the Archangel Michael, trampling on the dragon and weighing in a pair of scales a man and a woman who are of light weight; St. Peter[Pg 410] Martyr, with the sword of his martyrdom, and St. Lucy, carrying a plate with eyes upon it. The reference is to the legend which relates that in order to discourage the suit of a youth who loved her for the beauty of her eyes, she plucked them out with her own hands and sent them to him in a dish. The youth, struck with remorse, became a Christian, and Lucy's sight was miraculously restored to her.

790. THE ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST.

Michelangelo (commonly anglicised as above) Buonarroti (which surname, however, is commonly dropped) is the Titan of Italian art. He was the rival of Raphael; and amongst the artists who were present at the unveiling of his great statue of David were Perugino, Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Filippino Lippi. He lived through the fall of Rome and Florence, and survived into the decadence of Italian art. In the many-sidedness of his genius he may be compared to Leonardo da Vinci. He was at once painter, sculptor, architect, and man of action. The greatness of his work was reflected in that of his character. He passed most of his life at Rome, amidst the petty intrigues of a debased Court; but he never placed his self-respect in jeopardy. Filial duty, too, was one of the mainsprings of his life. He lived most sparingly, and sent all the money he could save to support his father's family at Florence. "Whence they must pray God," he says in one of his letters, "that all his works may have good success." He was proud, and would brook no insult; and when Pope Julius left him with unpaid marbles and workmen on his hands, he mounted his horse and rode off to Florence. There are many stories, too, of the quiet sarcasm with which he would "reproach men for sin." "What does the raised hand denote?" Julius asked of a statue of himself. "You are advising the people of Bologna to be wise," was Michelangelo's reply. With all this, however, he was for the most part above the jealousy of other artists. When commissioned to paint the Sixtine Chapel, he urged that Raphael would be a more fit person to execute so great a work; and when he was appointed architect of St. Peter's he refused to permit any material alteration of Bramante's design, though Bramante had perpetually intrigued against him. Michelangelo was a poet also (his sonnets have been translated by J. A. Symonds), his poetry being partly inspired by Vittoria Colonna, widow of the Marquis of Pescara, to whom late in life he became attached, and whose friendship, until her death in 1547, was the solace of his lonely labours.

It is only in Florence and in Rome that the work of Michelangelo can be studied. Our Gallery is fortunate, however, in having two easel pictures, which, whether entirely from his own hand or not,[Pg 411] are eminently characteristic of his style. The South Kensington Museum and the Royal Academy each possess one example of his sculpture. His drawings are to be seen in several English collections, especially in that of the University of Oxford. A concise chronological summary may here be useful to recall to the reader's recollection the chief works of the master. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed for three years to Domenico Ghirlandaio to whom our picture, No. 809, was formerly ascribed. He made rapid advance in the art of painting, and showed also aptitude for sculpture; so that in 1489, before his apprenticeship was out, Domenico recommended him to Lorenzo de' Medici, who had founded a school of sculpture in the garden of his villa. Here, in the society and service of Lorenzo, Michelangelo remained for four years. Lorenzo's unworthy successor Piero employed the young artist only on unworthy commissions, setting him on one occasion, it is said, to make a statue of snow; a tradition which inspires a noble passage in Ruskin's Political Economy of Art, as also in Mrs. Browning's Casa Guidi Windows. In 1493 Michelangelo removed to Bologna, returning in the next year to Florence, where he produced a "Sleeping Cupid," which was sold in Rome as a veritable antique. This induced him, in 1496, to try his fortune in the Papal capital. To this period belong his statue of "Cupid," now at South Kensington, the "Bacchus" in the Bargello at Florence, and the noble "Pietà" in St. Peter's at Rome. By these works he attained the position of the greatest sculptor in Italy, and on his return to Florence in 1501 he executed the colossal statue of "David," now in the Accademia. Works of about the same time are the round marble relief in the possession of the Royal Academy, and our picture No. 809. The circular "Madonna and Child," now in the Uffizi, belongs to 1504. In the same year he received a commission to paint one wall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The painting was never executed; but Michelangelo's cartoon for it,—known as the "Cartoon of Pisa"—excited great admiration for its treatment of the human figure. In 1505 began Michelangelo's stormy relations with the imperious Pope, Julius II. For two years he was employed on a great bronze statue of the Pontiff, which was afterwards cast as a cannon and used against the Pope by the Bolognese. In 1508, being then thirty-three, Michelangelo was commissioned by Julius to paint the ceiling of the Sixtine Chapel. In this great work, which was finished on November 1, 1512, the artist set forth, in the vehicle of the human form, his conception of the creation, and the early history of the world, with reference to man's final redemption and salvation. The frescoes have in our time been admirably photographed, and the figures of the Prophets and Sibyls, who sit enthroned in niches round the vault, are very widely known. The paintings caused Michelangelo to suspend his labour on the mausoleum of Julius—a work which gave him an infinity of labour and vexation, and which was never finished. The great figure of "Moses," now in S. Pietro in Vincoli, and the "Captives," in the Louvre, were designed for this monument. During the[Pg 412] nine years' pontificate of Leo X. (1513-22), Michelangelo was mostly employed in the unworthy occupation of procuring marble from the quarries of Pietra Santa for the façade of the church of San Lorenzo at Florence. The short reign of Adrian VI. succeeded, and Michelangelo went on working for a time at the monument to Julius. He was also employed on the works of the Medici Chapel at Florence. In 1523 when Clement VII. succeeded, the artist was put to various architectural works. Stormy years followed, and Michelangelo quitted the Medici statues to defend his native city. He was appointed director of fortifications, and was entrusted also with diplomatic missions. When in 1530 Florence was treacherously yielded to the Medici, Michelangelo lay for some time in concealment. Clement, however, gave him his pardon, and ordered him to resume work on the Medici chapel in San Lorenzo. He worked, as he says, with "morbid haste" but saddened heart, and thus were completed his most impressive productions in sculpture—the four great recumbent figures for the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. In 1534 Clement died. Michelangelo flung down his mallet, and set foot in Florence no more. But "a new Eurystheus arose for our Hercules." The artist hoped to complete the mausoleum of Julius. But the new Pope, Paul III., set him to work upon the fresco of the Last Judgment, on the altar wall of the Sixtine Chapel. In this mighty work, containing 314 figures, which occupied him from 1534 to 1542, the painter "devoted his terrible genius to a subject worthy of the times in which he lived." Since he had first listened, while a youth, to the prophecies of Savonarola, the woes announced in that apocalypse had all come true. To Michelangelo, Christ came as an avenger, vindictive and implacable, and the lost souls fall before his wrath in every contortion of nudity. After the painting of the "Last Judgment," one more great labour was reserved for Michelangelo. He was called upon to succeed Antonio da San Gallo as architect of St. Peter's, a post which he continued to hold under succeeding Popes until his death. "The dome of St. Peter's, as seen from Tivoli or the Alban hills, like a cloud upon the Campagna, is his; but he has no share in the façade which screens it from the Piazza." His last poem declared the vanity of the art which was his glory, and his dying words to his household were these; "In your passage through this life remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ." His body was taken, as he had desired, to Florence, and he lies in Santa Croce.

To the artistic genius of Michelangelo, a few out of innumerable tributes may here be mentioned. Raphael "thanked God that he was born in the days of Michelangelo," and Sir Joshua Reynolds says, in his Discourses, that "to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man." His knowledge of the human body and his power of representing it were supreme. "If a combination of the most exquisite finish in drawing and modelling which allows the work to bear the closest inspection in its details, with the utmost simplicity,[Pg 413] breadth, and clearness of effect in a distant view, constitute, as I believe they do, the elements of perfect work, I must assert positively," says Sir Edward Poynter, "that Michelangelo is the most perfect of workmen." This workmanship was employed with consummate dramatic effect. "He considered figures the highest means of telling a story; he concentrated his powers on the single important point of expression, so that he had no need of accessories to help him out with his story" (Lectures on Art). But above all the work of Michelangelo was the expression of "a vast imaginative gift, the stormy poetry of his mind." His works, says Ruskin, "have borne and in themselves retain and exercise the same inexplicable power—inexplicable because proceeding from an imaginative perception almost superhuman, which goes whither we cannot follow, and is where we cannot come; throwing naked the final, deepest root of the being of man, whereby he grows out of the invisible, and holds on his God home" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. "Of Imagination Penetrative"). "About the qualities of his genius," says Symonds, "opinions may and will, and ought to differ. It is so pronounced, so peculiar, so repulsive to one man, so attractive to another, that, like his own dread statue of Lorenzo de' Medici, 'it fascinates and is intolerable.' There are few, I take it, who can feel at home with him in all the length and breadth and dark depths of the regions that he traversed. The world of thought and forms in which he lived habitually is too arid, like an extinct planet, tenanted by mighty elemental beings with little human left to them, but visionary Titan-shapes, too vast and void for common minds to dwell in pleasurably. The sweetness that emerges from his strength, the beauty which blooms rarely, strangely, in unhomely wise, upon the awful crowd of his conceptions, are only to be apprehended by some innate sympathy or by long incubation of the brooding intellect. It is probable, therefore, that the deathless artist through long centuries of glory will abide as solitary as the simple old man did in his poor house at Rome" (Life of Michelangelo, ii. 373). On his successors the influence of Michelangelo was not happy. They could imitate his mannerisms, but not his manner. They had not his imagination, but they could copy the violent attitudes in which he clothed his Titanic thoughts. The anatomical studies which with him were the groundwork for his imagination to build upon became in their hands the final object of their art. (Among those who have been alternately fascinated and repelled by Michelangelo was Ruskin. His case against Michelangelo is contained in the pamphlet entitled The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret. But some of Ruskin's critics forget that the pamphlet was meant to be read in conjunction with his own earlier praise in Modern Painters, and with Mr. Tyrwhitt's appreciation in Christian Art and Symbolism. "These lectures," said Ruskin, in his preface to that book, "show throughout the most beautiful and just reverence for Michael Angelo, and are of especial value in their account of him; while the last lecture on sculpture, which I gave at Oxford, is entirely devoted to examining the modes in[Pg 414] which his genius itself failed, and perverted that of other men. But Michael Angelo is great enough to make praise and blame alike necessary, and alike inadequate").

One of the many unfinished works, which, as Vasari tells us, Michelangelo left behind him in painting as in sculpture. Its history is interesting. It was formerly in the gallery of Cardinal Fesch, which was sold and dispersed after his death. From its unfinished state and neglected condition it attracted little attention, and was bought literally "dirt cheap" by Mr. Macpherson, an English gentleman established as a photographer in Rome. After the dirt upon its face had been removed, it was submitted to competent judges, who unhesitatingly pronounced it to be the work of Michelangelo. The discovery caused a great sensation. A law-suit was instituted against Mr. Macpherson for the recovery of the picture, which was sequestrated pending the decision of the Roman courts. After some years he obtained a judgment in his favour, removed the picture to England, and sold it to the National Gallery for £2000. Peter von Cornelius, the eminent German painter, in evidence in the law-suit declared it to be "una cosa preziosa—un vero originale di Michelangelo."[183]

[Pg 415]

However this may be, the picture is entirely characteristic of the school of Michelangelo. What we notice in it most is not the features of the Maries, but the rendering of the corpse, in all its flaccid limbs and muscles:—

"Take the heads from a painting of Angelico,—very little but drapery will be left;—drapery made redundant in quantity and rigid in fold, that it may conceal the forms, and give a proud or ascetic reserve to the actions of the bodily frame. Bellini and his school, indeed, rejected at once the false theory and the easy mannerism of such religious design, and painted the body without fear or reserve, as, in its subordination, honourable and lovely. But the inner heart and fire of it are by them always first thought of, and no action is given to it merely to show its beauty. Whereas the great culminating masters, and chiefly of these, Tintoret, Correggio, and Michael Angelo, delight in the body for its own sake, and cast it into every conceivable attitude, often in violation of all natural probability, that they may exhibit the action of its skeleton and the contours of its flesh. Correggio and Tintoret learn the body from the living body, and delight in its breath, colour, and motion. Michael Angelo learned it essentially from the corpse, and had great pride in showing that he knew all its mechanism. The simplicity of the old religious art was rejected not because it was false, but because it was easy; and the dead Christ was thought of only as an available subject for the display of anatomy" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv.; Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, passim).

The ideal of the painter has in fact changed. The picture is in its essence not a devotional work: it is a study in the dead nude.

[Pg 416]

794. A DUTCH COURTYARD.

Hooch (or Hooghe)—"the indoor Cuyp," as he has been called, and "one of the glories of the Dutch School—is also one of the glories of England," for it was here that his great merits were first discovered, and that three-fourths of his pictures are now preserved. "There are," says Ruskin (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii. § 11), whilst tracing the general insensitiveness of the Dutch School, "deeper elements in De Hooghe, sometimes expressed with superb quiet painting." He chose the simplest subjects and used apparently the simplest means. But his figures are always placed with the utmost skill, and the details, so carefully wrought, are all made contributory to the general idea of the picture. In producing an effect of serenity, Hooch is unsurpassed. Of his life nothing is known except that he was at Delft 1653-56, and that afterwards he resided at Amsterdam. In his own country, a fine picture by him so late as 1765 brought only 450 florins. In 1817 it fetched 4000 florins, whilst in 1876 the Berlin Gallery paid £6000 for one of his pictures. At the Secrétan Sale in 1889 an "interior" by De Hooch fetched £11,040. The present picture was bought in Paris in 1869 for £1722. No. 834 fetched in 1804, £220; No. 835, in 1810, £187.

The whole picture, in its cheerful colour and dainty neatness, seems to reflect the light of a peaceful and happy home, in which everything is done decently and in order. They are no rolling stones, these Dutch burghers, but stay-at-home folk, whose pride is in the trimness of their surroundings. Every day, one thinks, the good housewife will thus look to see that the dinner is duly prepared; every day the husband will thus walk along the garden, sure of her happy greeting. The picture is signed, and dated 1665.

796. A VASE OF FLOWERS.

Jan was the son and pupil of Justus van Huysum, a painter of Amsterdam. By close study Jan attained great fame as a flower-painter. The principal florists of Holland supplied him with their choicest productions as subjects, and his reputation soon spread throughout Europe. "Whilst still young he became rich and honoured, and reached the summit of fortune. The prices noted in the sale catalogues of the eighteenth century, which are altogether out of proportion to those realised by other works, reveal to us with what infatuation this finished master, so delicate, erudite, and careful, was[Pg 417] regarded" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 264). He usually arranged his flowers in elegant vases, of which he finished the ornaments in the most careful manner. He was fond also of introducing a bird's nest with eggs. Both of these characteristics may be seen in the picture before us. The care with which he rendered every detail is remarkable. "As to you, dear old Jan Van Huysum," writes an artist of our own day, "you have edified me beyond expression. You teach me that a man can't be too careful as to his work, be it what it may. Your pearly dewdrops on the fresh gathered green things of the earth refresh me. Your tiny ants on the petals of the pink teach me in their minute contemplation to be like the star, Ohne Hast, Ohne Rast. How cool, and calm, and cheerful, and confident you are, Jan!" (Letters of James Smetham, p. 173). "The world is so old," says Ruskin, "that there is no dearth of things first-rate; and life so short that there is no excuse for looking at things second-rate. Let us then go to Rubens for blending, and to Titian for quality, of colour; to Veronese for daylight, and Rembrandt for lamplight; to Buonarroti for awfulness, and to Van Huysum for precision. Any man is worthy of respect, in his own rank, who has pursued any truth or attainment with all his heart and strength" (Letter to Liddell in the Memoir of the Dean, by H. L. Thompson, p. 224). Other pictures by Jan Van Huysum may be seen in the Wallace Collection and the Dulwich Gallery.

Signed, and dated 1736-1737. Notice the bird's nest, with the greenfinch's eggs.

797. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

This excellent portrait serves to remind us that, unlike most of his fellow landscape painters, Cuyp could paint his own figures. Indeed we have seen that he sometimes painted them in other landscapes, see No. 152. The picture is signed "Aetatis suae 56, 1649. A. Cuyp fecit." Cuyp is one of the most various of all the Dutch masters. "What universality in the hand that could paint skies more glowing than those of Both, clouds as vaporous as those of Van de Cappelle, water more luminous than Van de Velde's, cattle as true to nature as Paul Potter's, horses better than Wouverman's, horsemen more distinguished than Vandyck's! Sometimes, too—and there is a noble example in our National Gallery—we find Aelbert Cuyp painting portraits, not in the stiff precise way that the father painted them, but with a freedom of touch and a brilliancy of colour that place him between Van der Helst[Pg 418] and Rembrandt" (Quarterly Review, October 1891, and Fromentin's' Les Maitres d'autrefois, "Hollande," ch. viii.).

798. CARDINAL RICHELIEU.

A painter of historical subjects and portraits, he was born at Brussels, but went to Paris at the age of 19. He was employed by Du Chesne, the painter royal, to work at the Luxembourg in concert with Nicolas Poussin. Du Chesne was of mediocre talent and jealous disposition, and Champaigne and Poussin soon left him. The two men were mutually attached, and in after years Champaigne discoursed at a session of the Academy on the merits of his friend Poussin. Champaigne returned to Brussels, but was recalled in 1627 to succeed Du Chesne. He executed many works for the churches and royal residences and also for Cardinal Richelieu's palace. He became an original member of the French Academy in 1648, of which he was also Professor and Rector. Towards the end of his life, his fame began to pale before that of Le Brun. His religious and historical works, of which there are several in the Louvre, are apt to leave the modern spectator cold; but his portraits are excellent.

This picture was painted for the Roman sculptor Mocchi to make a bust from, hence the two profiles as well as the full face. Over the profile on the right are the words (in French), "of the two profiles this is the better." In this profile the compressed lips, the merciless eyes, the iron-gray hair and prominent nose, bespeak the great Cardinal Minister of Louis XIII., and the maker of France, who summed up his policy and his character in the words, "I venture on nothing without first thinking it out; but once decided, I go straight to my point, overthrow or cut down whatever stands in my way, and finally cover it all up with my cardinal's red robes." In the full face one sees rather the man who was also a princely patron of the arts and artists (of De Champaigne amongst their number), and the founder of the French Academy.[184] The central head here was clearly used as a study for the full-length portrait, No. 1449.

[Pg 419]

802. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Montagna was born near Brescia, and worked at Vicenza, but must have studied at Venice.[185] "He is entitled," says Kugler, "to a much higher place among the painters of the last part of the fifteenth century than that hitherto accorded to him. His art is distinct in character, with a firm outline and a bold, sure hand; his colour is low but rich, bright, and gem-like. He gives a grand, dignified expression and pose to his figures; his draperies are generally arranged in broad folds, and his landscape backgrounds, although minute, frequently denote an original and poetical fancy." His best work is the great altar-piece now in the Brera at Milan, a picture worthy to rank with those of the same kind by Bellini and Carpaccio. Other important works by Montagna are in the Public Gallery of Bergamo, in the Museo Civico at Vicenza, and in the Pilgrimage Church on Monte Berico, near Vicenza.

This picture is ascribed by some critics to Giovanni Speranza, a painter of Vicenza contemporary with Montagna.

803. THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST.

Marco was one of the assistants engaged to work under Giovanni Bellini in the decoration of the Ducal Palace. Whilst Bellini received sixty ducats a year, Marco received only twenty-four. Nothing else is known about his career. Of his works, which are very rare, the best are in our Gallery.

An example which shows what wealth of interest there is in the National Collection. It is only by a second-rate painter of the Venetian school; but no picture in the Gallery is richer than this in decorative design. Note first the varied and beautifully-designed patterns in the mosaics of the church—recalling one of the domes of St. Mark's. Then the lectern, covered with a cloth, and the delicately-embroidered border, wrought in sampler stitch, deserve close examination. The cushion above [Pg 420]this, and the tassels, formed of three pendent tufts of silk hung on to a gold embroidered ball, offer good decorative suggestions to the trimming manufacturer. Attached to the front of the lectern is a label or "cartellino," setting forth that "Marco Marziale the Venetian, by command of that magnificent knight and jurisconsult, the learned Thomaseo R., made this picture in the year 1500." As it is probable that this was the first important commission Marco ever obtained on his own account, there is little wonder that he wrought the record so elaborately. This "Thomaseo R." was Raimondi, a knight of the order of Jerusalem—a man of considerable note in Cremona as a lawyer and poet. His portrait occupies the forefront of the right-hand corner of the picture, his set features recalling the lawyer rather than the poet. It is his mantle, however, which best repays notice—a sumptuous robe of raised red velvet, such a fabric as Venice was then winning industrial renown by weaving. The very pretty pattern is of the so-called "pomegranate form," and occurs also on the mantle of the donor's wife, who occupies a corresponding position on the left-hand side of the picture. In the South Kensington Museum there is a remnant of Italian silk brocade of this pattern (in the Bock collection). The robe of the High Priest is also evidently taken by the painter from a silk robe, and is very rich. The design, in which the wild pink is largely introduced, is unique. Ruskin had a wall-paper made for him in 1872 copied from this robe: it has ever since been used for the walls of the drawing-room and study at Brantwood. "It will thus be seen that this one picture brings before us a great number of suggestions in design for various technic arts; at least half a dozen patterns exist in the ornaments of the mosaic work of the vaults; five or six patterns of embroidered or woven borders will be found in it, as many designs for diapered or other surface decoration, examples of beaten metal-work and of bookbinding, besides the carved wood lectern." For notice of other points, see further the interesting article by G. T. Robinson in the Art Journal, June 1886, and cp. Vacher's Italian Ornament, No. 24.

804. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

This picture was painted seven years later (1507) than 803, which it resembles in the bright mosaics of the vault and the[Pg 421] interesting design on the robe of the bishop on the left. Notice the little angel playing the mandoline on the steps of the throne, characteristic of the earlier Venetian painters.

805. PEELING PEARS.

806. THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY.

Boccaccino was a native of Cremona, where many of his works are still preserved. "All that is best in his art," says Morelli, "he derived from the school of the Bellini." In the Venetian Academy is a beautiful "mystic marriage of St. Catherine" which is signed by him. He is a painter, says Kugler, "of very distinct individuality, and may be easily recognised by the peculiar type and expression of his figures, and especially by his women, who generally have much grace and beauty. One of his characteristics is a light-grey eye with a dark rim." This picture is "not characteristic of Boccaccino's manner, and is probably by another hand" (ii. 389).

For some remarks on the subject of this picture see under 1143.

807. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

This picture (like 724) is signed by "Sir Charles": it is dated 1491. It bears the painter's sign-manual also in the fruits and the vase of flowers. The giver of the picture (which was dedicated to the Virgin, and which, as recorded in a Latin inscription below, cost no inconsiderable sum) is kneeling, in the habit of a Dominican nun, at the foot of the throne. On the Madonna's left is St. Sebastian, pierced with arrows and tied to a pillar, but with the happy look of "sorrow ended" on his face. On her right is St. Francis. Near his feet are some flowers and a snail—typical of the kindness and humbleness of the saint, of whom it is recorded that "he spoke never to bird nor to cicala, nor even to wolf and beast of prey, but as his brother," and who thus taught the lesson "Never to blend our pleasure, or our pride, With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels" (Wordsworth).

[Pg 422]

808. ST. PETER MARTYR.

A fancy portrait of a jolly comfortable-looking Dominican monk—a faithful portrait doubtless. His face is painted as it really was, "wart and all," but it has pleased him to be represented in the character of Peter, a famous member of his order (see under 812).

809. THE HOLY FAMILY.

The Virgin mother is seen withholding from the child Saviour the prophetic writings in which His sufferings are foretold. Angelic figures beside them examine a scroll—

This picture was at one time attributed to Domenico Ghirlandajo; and Signor Frizzoni now attributes it to [Pg 423]Granacci. But, says Sir Edward Poynter, "the beauty of the figures, the nobility of the heads, and the fine qualities of drawing and modelling stamp it as the work of the great master himself." "In my judgment," says Symonds (Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, i. 65), "this is the most beautiful of the easel pictures attributed to Michelangelo.... Florentine painters had been wont to place attendant angels at both sides of their enthroned Madonnas. But their angels were winged and clothed like acolytes; the Madonna was seated on a rich throne or under a canopy, with altar-candles, wreaths of roses, flowering lilies. It is characteristic of Michelangelo to adopt a conventional motive, and to treat it with brusque originality. In this picture there are no accessories to the figures, and the attendant angels are Tuscan lads half draped in succinct tunics. The types have not been chosen with regard to ideal loveliness or dignity, but accurately studied from living models. This is very obvious in the heads of Christ and St. John. The two adolescent genii on the right hand possess a high degree of natural grace. Yet even here what strikes one most is the charm of their attitude, the lovely interlacing of their arms and breasts, the lithe alertness of the one lad contrasted with the thoughtful leaning languor of his comrade. Only perhaps in some drawings of combined male figures made by Ingres, for his picture of the 'Golden Age,' have lines of equal dignity and simple beauty been developed."

810. PARDON DAY IN BRITTANY.

M. Pierre Charles Poussin, a pupil of L. Cogniet, was an exhibitor at the French Salon from 1842 to 1882. Many of his pictures were, like this one, of scenes in Brittany.

The scene is that of a fête held in honour of Notre Dame de Bon Secours of Guingamp in Brittany, on the 2nd of July in every year. Pope Paul V. in 1619 granted a plenary indulgence to all persons "who truly confessed and communicated, who shall visit the said church of Notre Dame de Guingamp on the day and fête of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which it is the custom every year to celebrate on the 2nd day of July; who shall devotionally pray for the preservation of concord and peace among all Christian princes;[Pg 424] who shall render hospitality to the poor pilgrims; who shall make peace with their enemies, and shall promote it amongst others—shall, in short, sweetly bring into the way of salvation some unfortunate and erring soul." An English visitor published a long account of the fête in the Standard of July 5 and following days in 1870, describing "the frank but sedate festivity and merry-making under the trees." That was twenty years after this picture was painted.

811. TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL.

For the subject of Tobias, who is in the water holding the fish, see 781. The wild rocky landscape conveys a general sense of savage power. Salvator, says Ruskin, is "a good instance of vicious execution, dependent on too great fondness for sensations of power, vicious because intrusive and attractive in itself, instead of being subordinate to the results and forgotten in them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 9).

812. THE DEATH OF ST. PETER MARTYR.

"Peter Martyr was general of the Dominicans in 1252, a most powerful person in the Holy Inquisition, and a violent persecutor for what he deemed the true faith, which made him many inveterate enemies. There was one family in particular which he had treated with excessive cruelty, and their relations, who were in the army, were so enraged by Peter's barbarity that they resolved to revenge themselves.... Having been informed that he was to make a visit to a distant province in pursuit of some wretched heretics, who had been denounced to the inquisition, they lay in wait for him in a wood, through which they knew he must pass, in company with one person, a friar of his convent; here they attacked him, cleft his skull with a sabre, and left him dead on the spot" (Mrs. Jameson; Handbook to the Public Galleries, 1842, i. 70).

This picture, one of the painter's latest works, is interesting, first, for its skill in landscape. It is a true piece of local scenery that Bellini paints,—"all Italian in masses of intricate wood and foliage, in plain, mountain, and buildings, and [Pg 425]glowing, not under direct sunshine, but with the soft suffusion of southern light" (Layard, i. 312). It is, says Ruskin, one of the six most beautiful landscapes in the earlier mediæval art, of the "purist" school, "being wholly felicitous and enjoyable." Every leaf is painted with loving care, and Bellini treats the incident in the foreground as "entirely cheerful and pleasing; it does not disturb or even surprise him, much less displease in the slightest degree." "You see in a moment the main characteristic of the school,—that it mattered not in the least to John, and that he doesn't expect it to matter to you, whether people are martyred or not, so long as one can make a pretty grey of their gown, and a nice white of their sleeves, and infinite decoration of forest leaves behind, and a divine picture at last out of all. Everything in the world was done and made only that it might be rightly painted—that is the true master's creed" (Verona and its Rivers, § 27, and Lectures on Landscape, pp. 22, 65, 73).[189] Notice, further, Bellini's compliance, as far as the subject admitted, with one of the conditions of the greatest art, "serenity in state or action." "You are to be interested in the living creatures; not in what is happening to them.... It is not possible, of course, always literally to observe this condition, that there shall be quiet action or none; but Bellini's treatment of violence in action you may see exemplified in a notable way in his "St. Peter Martyr." The soldier is indeed striking the sword down into his breast; but in the face of the Saint is only resignation and faintness of death, not pain—that of the executioner is impassive; and while a painter of the later schools would have covered breast and sword with blood, Bellini allows no stain of it; but pleases himself with most elaborate and exquisite painting of a soft crimson feather in the executioner's helmet" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, p. 16).

814. DUTCH BOATS IN A CALM.

Paul Jean Clays was a native of Bruges. He studied art in Paris under Gudin, and afterwards settled at Brussels, where in 1851 he [Pg 426]received a gold medal. He frequently exhibited at the French Salon, and was a chevalier of the Legion of Honour as well as of the Order of Leopold. For a long time, says a French critic, "the sea, or rather the water, has had no interpreter more exact than Clays: he knows its clearness, and he knows how to render the little noisy waves, all bathed in light." "He does not paint the sea," says another, "but the Scheldt where it widens, and those gray and light waters that bear you on a steamer from Moerdyk to Rotterdam. With a profound feeling for these things he expresses the humidity of the skies of Western Flanders, the sleep of the calmed waters, or the caressing, and sometimes menacing, of the breeze which makes the little uneasy waves stride around the barges loaded to the brim." Some of his pictures have fetched very large prices—one having sold in New York for £3550 (Miss Clement and Laurence Hutton: Artists of the Nineteenth Century).

815. DUTCH BOATS AT FLUSHING.

816. THE INCREDULITY OF ST. THOMAS.

A picture interesting among other things for its history. It is signed and dated (1504), and was painted as a commission for a religious fraternity, for the altar of their patron saint, St. Thomas, in the church of St. Francesco at Portogruario (near Conegliano). The price paid for it was equal to about £17 sterling, at that time representing a considerable sum. The account of its cost and of a law-suit instituted by the painter against the fraternity is still preserved. For 328 years it remained in its original place; it was then removed by the local authorities, and in 1870 was sold to our Government. When bought it "was greatly disfigured by various repaints, and was otherwise in bad condition. Judicious cleaning and restoration (by Mr. Wm. Dyer) have brought out its fine qualities. The heads are highly expressive, and some of the figures ... of great dignity" (Layard, i. 325).

817. TENIERS'S COUNTRY-SEAT AT PERCK.

"A perfect type of the Unromantic Art which was assailed by the gentle enthusiasm of the English School of Land[Pg 427]scape. It represents a few ordinary Dutch houses, an ordinary Dutch steeple or two, some still more ordinary Dutch trees, and most ordinary Dutch clouds, assembled in contemplation of an ordinary Dutch duck-pond; or, perhaps, in respect of size, we may more courteously call it a goose-pond. All these objects are painted either gray or brown, and the atmosphere is of the kind which looks not merely as if the sun had disappeared for the day, but as if he had gone out altogether, and left a stable lantern instead. The total effect having appeared, even to the painter's own mind, at last little exhilatory, he has enlivened it by three figures on the brink of the goose-pond—two gentlemen and a lady,—standing all three perfectly upright, side by side, in court dress, the gentlemen with expansive boots, and all with conical hats and high features. In order to invest those characters with dramatic interest, a rustic fisherman presents to them, as a tribute,—or, perhaps, exhibits as a natural curiosity,—a large fish, just elicited from the goose-pond by his adventurous companions, who have waded into the middle of it, every one of them, with singular exactitude, up to the calf of his leg" (Art of England, pp. 209, 211). The group on the left comprise the painter and his wife, another lady, and his son.

818. COAST SCENE.

819. OFF THE MOUTH OF THE THAMES.

On representations of rough weather by this painter and Vandevelde, Ruskin writes as follows: "If one could but arrest the connoisseurs in the fact of looking at them with belief, and, magically introducing the image of a true sea-wave, let it roll up through the room,—one massive fathom's height and rood's breadth of brine, passing them by but once,—dividing, Red-Sea like, on right hand and left,—but at least setting close before their eyes, for once in inevitable truth, what a sea-wave really is; its green mountainous giddiness of wrath, its overwhelming crest—heavy as iron, fitful as flame, clashing against the sky in long cloven edge,—its furrowed flanks all ghastly clear, deep in trans[Pg 428]parent death, but all laced across with lurid nets of spume, and tearing open into meshed interstices their churned veil of silver fury, showing still the calm gray abyss below; that has no fury and no voice, but is as a grave always open, which the green sighing mounds do but hide for an instant as they pass. Would they, shuddering back from this wave of the true, implacable sea, turn forthwith to the papillotes? It might be so. It is what we are all doing, more or less, continually" (Harbours of England, p. 19). In default of the actual sea-wave, the visitor may be recommended to look next at Turner's rough seas (472 and 476). Such a comparison will show how much of the roughness in the Dutch pictures is due to mere blackness, how little to any terror in the forms of the waves, such as Turner depicts.

820. LANDSCAPE WITH RUIN.

821. A FAMILY GROUP.

In spite of his Spanish-sounding name, this artist was a pure Fleming. He was born at Antwerp and appears never to have left his native town. His father, whose surname was Cocx, gave the child the name of Gonzalvus: these names the painter afterwards changed to Gonzales Coques. His first master was Peter Breughel (the third painter of that name). He afterwards studied under David Ryckhaert the Elder, whose daughter he married. His first subjects were conversation-pieces and assemblies; but the extraordinary reputation acquired by Van Dyck for his portraits inspired Coques with the ambition to distinguish himself in like manner, although on a smaller scale. There is in the little works of Coques the same air of elegance and refinement which distinguishes Van Dyck. Hence he has been called "the Little Van Dyck." His works, says Bürger, are "Van Dycks seen through the wrong side of the glass"; or as another critic puts it, "Van Dycks in 18mo." They were greatly admired during his lifetime, and he was patronised by Charles I., the Archduke Leopold, and the Prince of Orange. His works, however, are very rare; about half of them are in this country. He was admitted as a master in the Guild of Painters in 1640-41, and twice served as its Dean, in 1665-66 and 1680-81.

Notice the youngest child in the go-cart, which is being pushed by another of the children, whilst the eldest sister, as befits her years, is playing the guitar. And the little dogs, as[Pg 429] befits them, are sporting in front. It is pretty of the painter or his sitters to include them in the family group.

822. AN EVENING LANDSCAPE.

An excellent example of the hazy, drowsy effect in which Cuyp excelled. "A brewer by trade,[190] he feels the quiet of a summer afternoon, and his work will make you marvellously drowsy. It is good for nothing else that I know of; strong, but unhelpful and unthoughtful. Nothing happens in his pictures, except some indifferent persons asking the way of somebody else, who, by the cast of countenance, seems not likely to know it. For further entertainment, perhaps, a red cow and a white one; or puppies at play, not playfully; the man's heart not going even with the puppies. Essentially he sees nothing but the shine on the flaps of their ears" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. chap. vi. § 12).

823. ON THE MEUSE.

Notice the reflections. Cuyp "is a man of large natural gift, and sees broadly, nay, even seriously; finds out—a wonderful thing for men to find out in those days—that there are reflections in the water, and that boats require often to be painted upside down" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 12).

824. A RUINED CASTLE.

The castle may be the same as that seen in No. 1289. Some lines from Beattie's "Scotland" have been applied to it:—

[Pg 430]

This picture was originally bought at Horn, in the Netherlands, of an old clothesman, for 1s. 3d. Sir Robert Peel paid 350 guineas for it.

825. THE POULTERER'S SHOP.

This picture, as an acknowledged chef d'œuvre of the master, has long been celebrated. It was purchased by Sir Robert Peel from the Fonthill Collection in 1823 for £1270. Mrs. Jameson, on seeing the picture at Sir R. Peel's, wrote: "All executed with such a nicety of touch—such an inconceivable truth and minuteness of imitation—as to render the picture a very miracle of art. A higher merit consists in the admirable painting of the heads, especially that of the old woman, which is full of life." "A wicker market-basket is a common homely thing, but look at its presentment here—every polished, well-used twig of it following the true undulations of form and colour, light and shade, through the marvellous patience and skill of the vanished Dutchman—and see if it does not produce an exquisite poetic tremor by the thoughts it evolves. There is a dead image of the barnyard cock which Mr. Darwin may compare with the barndoor fowl of to-day as accurately as if it were photographed. His once fiery eye is glazed and sightless as a dim pearl, his neck feathers ruffled but no longer in anger or pride; his pale, amber-coloured legs helplessly and ingloriously reversed, their impatient and masterful scratching among his dames in the stubble over for ever; the glossy purples, greens, and blacks of his tail-feathers rising sharp and delicate out of the speckled hazes of colour which it required days and days to lay side by side among the crushed and crowding plumes. The cock, the horologe of Thorpe's light, crows no more to the answering hill-farms. He is destined for the spit of the housewife who holds up the hare. But his fate was glorious, for by what tens of thousands since the year 1650 or thereabouts have his perfections been admired and praised. It was worth living for, and, to chanticleer, worth dying for, to become the occasion of such a miracle of art" (Smetham's Literary Works, p. 240).

826. FIGURES AND ANIMALS.

[Pg 431]

827. FORDING THE STREAM.

828. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.

This painter was the ablest of the followers of Nicolas Berchem, and like that master often painted Italian scenery. He stayed for some years in Rome, where his pictures were greatly admired, and where, in the jovial artist circles of the day, he was given the nickname of "Barbe de Bouc" (goat's-beard). On his return from Italy he is said to have stayed some time at Lyons, where he married a widow with whom he afterwards settled in Holland. He resided at the Hague from 1656 to 1659, and there was much influenced by the example of Paul Potter. He next moved to Amsterdam, which he made his home for some years. He returned in the end to the Italian haunts of his early years, and died at Venice. In his best pastoral works, the truth and finish of his execution, the brilliancy of their atmosphere, and the harmonious colouring, are attractive. He also painted portraits and large groups, and executed some good etchings.

It has been said of Du Jardin that his works are "excellent when they are not detestable," a remark which is well exemplified in these pictures. No. 827 is at once vulgar in incident and unpleasant in colour. No. 826, on the other hand, one of the pastoral idyls for which Du Jardin is famous, is a chef d'œuvre of the painter (Sir Robert Peel paid 930 guineas for it). No. 828 has a true Italian air, and there is a touch of almost pathetic humour in the contrast between the cow and the woman. It is the beast that has its eyes on the sunset and enjoys the benediction of the evening hour. The woman is cumbered with much serving, and spins with her back to the light.

829. A STAG HUNT.

Hackaert was a native of Amsterdam, but between the years 1653 and 1658 he travelled much in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. At this time he chose his subjects from the mountains. In painting the landscape of his own country he especially affected woodland views, with effects of light shining through the trees.

The figures in this picture are attributed to N. Berchem.

[Pg 432]

830. THE AVENUE, MIDDELHARNIS.

Perhaps the best rendering of a Dutch village in the Gallery—beautiful alike in its general effect and in the faithful way in which every characteristic of the country is brought out. Note the long avenue, a High Street, as it were, of lopped trees, to lead the traveller to the village; the bright red roofs, suggestive already in the distance of the cheerful cleanliness he will find; the broad ditch on either side of the road—the land reclaimed from the water, and the water now embanked to fertilise the land; the neat plantations, allotments it may be, each as trim and well kept as a lawn; and lastly, the nursery-garden on the left, in which the gardener, smoking, like the true Hollander, as he works, is pruning some grafted trees. Middelharnis is one of several places that dispute the honour of being Hobbema's birthplace.

This picture—which is signed, and dated 16-9 (third figure illegible)—is generally recognised as the painter's masterpiece. The subject is unusual, showing a more open landscape and a wider expanse of sky than Hobbema ordinarily represented. The power and freshness with which he has treated the theme are remarkable. "Such daylight," says Waagen, "I have never seen in any picture." It is to be noted further that the artist makes no effort to attain the picturesque, and that the picture offends in some respects against the laws of composition. Thus "M. Michel complains of the road coming straight, at once cutting the picture awkwardly in two, of the slender trees with which it is symmetrically bordered, and which have on their tops only small plumes of foliage, of the parallel ditches which hold in the road on either side, and of the cross-road which cuts the picture horizontally, and lastly, the rose-trees and shrubs planted regularly in straight lines. All this, he says, does not make a very picturesque picture. For our own part, it is the fearless and truthful manner in which Hobbema has treated what must at first sight have appeared an unpromising subject, that is one of its greatest charms" (Cundall: The Landscape Painters of Holland, p. 53). Like Hobbema's pictures generally, this masterpiece was held in little honour in its own country. It was sold at Dort in 1815 for £90. Sir Robert[Pg 433] Peel bought it in 1829 for £800. It is said to have been restored and retouched by Reinagle (see Mrs. Jameson's Handbook to the Private Galleries of London, p. 354 n.).

831. THE RUINS OF BREDERODE CASTLE.

This fine picture also is somewhat unusual in subject for Hobbema, who was ordinarily content with humble village scenes. It affords a good instance of his literal truth to nature. M. Michel, in his monograph on the painter, gives side by side a reproduction of it and a sketch from his own pen of the ruins as they exist to-day, which, with the exception of the addition of a modern barbaric bell-turret and some battlements, preserve almost the identical appearance which Hobbema portrayed upwards of two centuries ago. "The ivy continues to entwine its garlands round the disjointed bricks, and, as formerly, the ducks sport in the stagnant waters of the moat, or take a luxurious siesta amidst the tufts of grass on its banks, while the rooks and crows, installed as masters in the recesses of the ancient walls, fill the air with their incessant cries" (quoted in Cundall's Landscape and Pastoral Painters of Holland, 1891, p. 52). The ducks[191] are ascribed to Wyntrank; the figures to Lingelbach. The picture is signed, and dated 1667. It was, however, at one time re-christened as a Wijnants, in order to procure a better price at auctions. In 1825 it sold for £880.

832. A VILLAGE WITH WATERMILLS.

This is one of Hobbema's most usual subjects—a cottage, a mill, a few trees. The effect is that of a summer sky, with light fleecy clouds, and gleams of sunshine seem to pass over the scene. Sir Robert Peel paid £525 for the picture. It should be compared with Ruysdael's of a similar scene (986).

833. A FOREST SCENE.

[Pg 434]

834. A DUTCH INTERIOR.

This picture is interesting as enabling us to discern the painter's technical process. "The more luminous parts of it, such as the costumes of the two men at the table, are painted in semi-opaque colour over a brilliant orange ground. Here and there the orange may be seen peeping out, and its presence elsewhere gives a peculiar pearliness to the tints laid upon it. De Hooch painted very thinly. In this picture the maid with the brazier is an afterthought. She is painted over the tiles and other details of the background, which now show through her skirts. Before she was put in, this space to the right was occupied by an old gentleman with a white beard and moustache, and a wide-brimmed hat, all of which can be descried under the brown of the mantelpiece" (Armstrong: Notes on the National Gallery, pp. 36, 37).

835. COURT OF A DUTCH HOUSE.

A courtyard at Delft: superbly painted, and a good picture of Dutch home life—of its neatness, its cleanliness, its quiet, and its content. Notice over the entrance a commemorative inscription, partly covered already by vine leaves, dated 1614. The day's work is done, and the wife stands in the porch, waiting for her husband's return; a servant brings down the child too into the courtyard to greet its father. "It is natural to think your own house and garden the nicest house and garden that ever were.... They are a treasure to you which no money could buy,—the leaving them is always pain,—the return to them a new thrill and wakening to life. They are a home and a place of root to you, as if you were founded on the ground like its walls, or grew into it like its flowers" (Fors Clavigera, 1876, p. 51). Such a home (says Mr. Pater in his Imaginary Portraits) "was, in its minute and busy wellbeing, like an epitome of Holland itself, with all the good-fortune of its thriving genius reflected, quite spontaneously, in the national taste. The nation had learned to content itself with a religion which told little, or not at all, on the outsides of things. But we may fancy that something of the religious[Pg 435] spirit had gone, according to the law of the transmutation of force, into the scrupulous care for cleanliness, into the grave, old-world, conservative beauty of Dutch houses, which meant that the life people maintained in them was normally affectionate and pure." This picture was much admired by Constable. "The least mannered," he said, "and consequently the best pictures I have seen, are some of the works of De Hooge, particularly one of an outdoor subject, at Sir R. Peel's. His indoors are as good, but less difficult, as being less lustrous" (Leslie's Life of Constable, p. 299). The picture is signed, and dated 1658.

836. A VIEW IN HOLLAND.

Koninck, or Koning, was born at Amsterdam and became a pupil of Rembrandt. He painted historical subjects and portraits, but it is for his landscapes that he is now most admired. These are generally expansive views in which aerial perspective is well given: "The distances of the painters of the older schools had been full of objects and figures as minutely rendered as those on the foremost places, only ever so much smaller. Compare with these distances the simply treated expanse of country offered to view in P. de Koninck's landscapes. Here we do not have merely a series of objects getting smaller as they recede, but a far more generalised representation of the whole face of nature bathed in an atmosphere in which objects are lost to view" (Baldwin Brown's Fine Arts, p. 301).

There is a repetition of this picture in the Royal Museum at the Hague. One may presume that Koninck's pictures had aristocratic purchasers; for, unlike the painters of "pastoral landscape," he is fond of introducing persons of distinction—here it is a hawking party; in 974 a carriage-and-six with outriders.

837. THE HAY HARVEST.

Though a German by birth, Lingelbach is included amongst the Dutch painters; for he lived chiefly in Amsterdam, and was largely employed in inserting the figures in the landscapes of Wynants and others. He also passed some years in Italy, and frequently painted Italian scenes and incidents.

[Pg 436]

838. THE DUET.

Metsu is one of the genre painters who are now appraised most highly—sums of £2580 and £3200 severally were given at the Secrétan Sale for pictures of his. In the Hertford House Gallery are some good specimens which the late Sir Richard Wallace acquired at great cost. Though, like most of his brother-artists, he was fond of painting tavern-scenes (e.g. No. 970), he was also a painter of high life and the drawing-room, like Terburg and Netscher. "In each of these spheres he combined humour with expression, a keen appreciation of nature with feeling, and breadth with delicacy of touch, in a manner unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries" (Crowe). "When his pictures have escaped the ordeal of ruthless cleaning they are pervaded by the finest tone, and the whites in them have that delicate glow which distance and atmosphere lend to snowy peaks. It is obvious that he caressed this least manageable of colours with unceasing love. Altogether his works have a quality of distinction rare in those of any school" (Burton). Metsu's father was a painter, whose third wife (the mother of Gabriel) was a painter's widow. The boy was taught by Gerard Dou, and already at the age of fourteen was admitted a member of the Leyden Guild of Painters. In 1650 he removed to Amsterdam, where he fell under the influence of Rembrandt. The large picture in the Louvre of "The Woman taken in Adultery," signed by Metsu and dated 1653, shows this fact. Metsu did not, however, adhere to religious subjects, but applied the lessons he learnt from the great master to subjects more congenial to his talent.

839. THE MUSIC LESSON.

A picture that might serve as an illustration of "the gamut of Hortensio" (see Taming of the Shrew, Act. iii. sc. 1).

840. A LADY FEEDING A PARROT.

This painter, the son of a goldsmith (one of twenty-three children) and the pupil of Gerard Dou, is known as "Old Frans," to distinguish him from his grandson of that name, who, like his son William (see 841), was also a painter. The works of Frans are very much superior to those of his successors. "Unlike William Mieris, he rarely cared to carry the eye from the beautiful painting of the figures by working up or covering the base of the casement with highly finished bas-reliefs. That kind of thing may be looked for in William Mieris's curiously[Pg 437] finished pictures, but certainly is not wanted in the works of Francis. His female figures, independently of being always well painted, are often graceful and pretty; he could paint a lady at her toilet with the delicacy and feeling of Metsu and Terburg, and was besides happy in varying the expressions and faces of his female beauties; he was fond of painting them in richly coloured jackets trimmed with fur. He was also a capital hand at painting birds" (Seguier). The elegance and high technical qualities of his productions brought him numerous and distinguished patrons. The Grand Duke of Tuscany visited him at Leyden, and the Archduke Leopold William desired to attract him to Vienna. Mieris, however, would not leave Leyden; nor did his large and lucrative practice induce any carelessness or neglect in his work.

841. A FISH AND POULTRY SHOP.

The son of Frans (see above, 840). He succeeded to his father's practice, but was an indifferent imitator. A comparison between him and the leading "Little Masters of Holland" will show the difference between true finish and laborious trifling.

Decidedly an "artistic" shop: notice the elaborate bas-relief (as also in 825), with marine subjects suitable to a fishmonger's, below the shop-window, and the handsome curtain ready to serve as shutters. The picture is sometimes called "The Cat," from the cat eyeing the duck whose head hangs from the window-sill.

842. A GARDEN.

This painter came of an Antwerp family, but he studied and afterwards settled at Amsterdam. He also studied and worked for some years in Paris. He confined himself to landscape; Lingelbach, A. van de Velde and others were employed to paint in his figures.

The figures here are ascribed to Adrian van de Velde.

843. BLOWING BUBBLES.

Netscher, one of the chief painters of Dutch "high life," had a somewhat eventful career. He was born at Heidelberg, which was then being besieged. His mother, after seeing her two elder children die of hunger before her eyes, escaped with Gaspard through the[Pg 438] investing lines to Arnheim. The boy was intended for a doctor, but took to painting and studied under Terburg. In 1659 he started on a tour to Italy, but at Bordeaux he fell in love with a girl from Liège, whom he married. He settled at Bordeaux, but his pictures, such as this, which are now so much valued, then brought him but slight remuneration; and after returning to the Hague, he turned his attention to portrait-painting. Several of his portraits are of English sitters, and it is supposed that he visited this country, but this is uncertain. Netscher's portraits are generally on a small scale, and very highly finished. He was patronised by William III., and was rapidly acquiring fame, when he died at the age of forty-five. His genre pieces resemble those of F. Mieris.

844. MATERNAL INSTRUCTION.

Notice in the background, over a cupboard, hanging in a black frame, a small copy of Rubens' "Brazen Serpent," now in this collection (59).

845. A LADY AT A SPINNING WHEEL.

846. THE ALCHYMIST.

Adrian, the elder of the two Ostades, was a pupil of Frans Hals. Later in life, he felt the influence of Rembrandt, and he painted some religious subjects. But he is best known for his scenes from peasant life. These are now greatly esteemed, and pictures which the painter himself probably sold for a few shillings now fetch hundreds and even thousands of pounds. Adrian Ostade is the contemporary of Teniers, and it is interesting to compare their respective delineations of rustic life. "The contrast lies in the different condition of the agricultural classes of Brabant and Holland. Brabant has more sun, more comfort, and a higher type of humanity; Teniers, in consequence, is silvery and sparkling; the people he paints are fair specimens of a well-built race. Holland, in the vicinity of Haarlem, seems to have suffered much in war; the air is moist and hazy, and the people, as depicted by Ostade, are short, ill-favoured, and marked with the stamp of adversity on their features and dress. The greatness of Ostade lies in the fact that he often caught the poetic side of the life of the peasant class, in spite of its ugliness and stunted form and mis-shapen features. He did so by giving their vulgar sports, their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoyment, the magic light of the sun-gleam, and by clothing the wreck[Pg 439] of cottages with gay vegetation" (Crowe). Ostade was especially fond of the foliage of the vine. He is often coarse, but sometimes shows a genuine sense of humour. He had, says Sir F. Burton, "artistic qualities of a high order—consummate skill in composition and taste in arrangement; subtlety of chiaroscuro and refined delicacy of colour; appropriate, and never overstrained action in the figures, and precision, combined with breadth, of handling. His earlier pictures are the coolest in tone; those of his middle period more golden, showing gradually the influence of Rembrandt. His drawings and etchings are extremely fine." His father, Jan Hendrik, was a weaver; the children adopted the name of Ostade from a small hamlet, near Eindhoven, which their parents left to settle at Haarlem. There Adrian lived and worked, being enrolled as a member of the Civic Guard in 1636, and becoming Dean of the Painters' Guild in 1662. He was twice married; the second time, to a daughter of Jan van Goyen.

Under the three-legged stool is a paper on which is written a warning of the vanity of the alchymist's labour—oleum et operam perdis: "you are wasting your cost and pains"—a warning not unjustified in a painter's mouth, for more than one old master devoted the end of his life to the fruitless task of making gold (e.g. Parmigiano, see 33). The English painter, Romney, too, dabbled in alchemy when he was a young man, and in his declining years sketched a melodrama representing the progress of an alchymist in quest of the philosopher's stone. The picture is signed (on a shovel hanging against the wall), and dated 1661. It is, says Mr. J. T. Nettleship in a comparison between Ostade and George Morland, "a marvellous example of the atmosphère de tableau. Everything takes its place, but is also a wonder of finish. The whole picture gives you a large feeling of space and tone. And there is no bogeydom, no straining after weirdness; the whole is a common workshop, the scene of the man's daily life; he feeds well, one is sure—if he has dreams his face does not betray them, it is just the face of a born craftsman. It is impossible to look at this picture without acknowledging the influence such work must have had on Morland. But Morland never achieved such delicacy united to breadth, such finish combined with harmony of effect, though before he took the wrong turn he came near achieving it" (George Morland, p. 23).

[Pg 440]

847. A VILLAGE SCENE.

Isaac, born at Haarlem, was the younger brother of Adrian van Ostade, with whom he remained as pupil till 1641, when he set up in business on his own account. There is a record of a transaction of his in that year which throws an interesting light on the picture-dealing world of the day. In 1643 a dealer summoned him for breach of a contract made in 1641 to deliver six pictures and seven "rounds" for twenty-seven florins. Part of Isaac's defence was that his pictures had since risen in value. The case was referred to the Painters' Guild, which decided that he must perform his contract, but that the number of the "rounds" should be reduced to five and the price of the whole be increased to fifty florins. It may be conjectured that the low value thus set upon the cottage scenes in his brother's manner induced Isaac to cultivate a different style of his own. This consisted largely of village inns (of which the present picture is a capital example), and winter scenes (among which No. 963 in our Gallery is a masterpiece). He combined a genuine appreciation of nature with great skill in the treatment of figures. He was fond, as will be seen, of introducing a white horse to serve as the principal light in his compositions.

This picture was bought by Sir Robert Peel for 400 guineas, and was esteemed, says Mrs. Jameson in her catalogue of his collection, "the masterpiece of the painter. The transparent, sparkling beauty of the execution was never surpassed. The figures, the foliage, the animals, the atmospheric effect, are all perfect."

848. A SKATING SCENE.

849. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.

Paul Potter, the best of the Dutch cattle painters, was the son of an artist (see 1008), and a remarkable instance of precocious talent, having been a clever painter and etcher at the age of fourteen. The environs of Enkhuizen, where he was born, did not offer scenes of surpassing beauty; but the rich brown and gold tints of the cattle contrasted pleasantly with the verdure of the flat fields. These Potter set himself to study and to paint; and so accurately did he master the anatomy of cattle that a writer on the natural history of Holland, in 1769-79, did not hesitate to utilise, in order to illustrate his work,[Pg 441] paintings and sketches by Potter, including geometrical drawings which he had made to demonstrate the proper proportions of cattle. His skill brought him much patronage at the Hague; and in 1650 he married the daughter of a distinguished architect in that city, who made some objections, it is said, to his daughter marrying a mere "painter of animals." But the painter of animals prospered better than many of his contemporary painters of men, and both at the Hague and at Amsterdam his works continued to be in great request. But a too close application to his art told on a weak constitution, and he died of consumption at the age of twenty-nine (Cundall's Landscape and Pastoral Painters of Holland, pp. 113 sq.). For a century after his death his works realised very small sums, but latterly they have been sought after at extravagant prices. Technically they are very accomplished; but Ruskin calls attention to a certain defect of feeling in his treatment. He "does not care even for sheep, but only for wool; regards not cows, but cow-hides. He attains great dexterity in drawing tufts and locks, lingers in the little parallel ravines and furrows of fleece that open across sheep's backs as they turn; is unsurpassed in twisting a horn or pointing a nose; but he cannot paint eyes, nor perceive any condition of an animal's mind except its desire of grazing" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 12). In estimating his work, it should however be remembered that he died very young, and died learning. The famous "Young Bull" of the Hague, painted in 1647 when he was twenty-two, is usually considered his masterpiece. Rather, says Fromentin, is it only a tour de force, a wonderful study. The portrait of the painter as he appeared in his last days, done by his friend Van der Helst, is in the Hague Museum.

Signed, and dated 1651, and therefore among the painter's later works.

850. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

Dated 1635. The sitter wears the typical "Rembrandt collar."

851. VENUS SLEEPING.

An unimportant work by a painter who worked for several years in this country, and covered many walls and ceilings with his facile compositions. Examples of his religious and mythological pictures may be seen at the Dulwich Gallery. Ricci, says Dr. Richter in his catalogue of that collection, "is one of the most attractive painters of the Italian decadence. His compositions are lively and ingenious, with[Pg 442]out, however, being profound." There are also several of his works at Hampton Court. He was born at Belluno in the Venetian State, and before coming to England was employed by the Duke of Parma and at the Viennese court in decorating the palace of Schoenbrunn. He left England in disgust on finding that the work of decorating the cupola of St. Paul's was to be entrusted to a native artist, Sir James Thornhill. "Ricci had great facility in imitating the style of other masters. His picture of the 'Apostles adoring the Sacrament' in the church of S. Giustina at Padua is painted in imitation of the cupola of S. Giovanni at Parma by Correggio; and his 'S. Gregorio' at Bergamo recalls the works of Guercino. But his most successful imitations were those of Paul Veronese, many of which he is said to have sold as by that master. He deceived the French painter La Fosse, who avenged himself by the sarcastic remark, 'For the future, take my advice and paint no more Ricci's'" (Bryan).

852. THE CHAPEAU DE POIL.

One of the best known and most be-copied pictures in the Gallery. Its fame among artists "depends to no slight extent on its being a tour de force. The head is painted in reflected light, so as to come as near as may be to Queen Elizabeth's shadowless ideal" (Armstrong: Notes on the National Gallery, p. 31). "No one who has not beheld this masterpiece of painting can form any conception," says Dr. Waagen, "of the transparency and brilliancy with which the local colours in the features and complexion, though under the shadow of a broad-brimmed hat, are brought out and made to tell, while the different parts are rounded and relieved, with the finest knowledge and use of reflected lights." The expression of the subject is as much a tour de force as the technical treatment—

[Pg 443]

The picture is a portrait of Susanne Fourment, an elder sister of Rubens's second wife, Helène Fourment. Susanne often sat to Rubens; other paintings and drawings of her by his hand exist. She afterwards married Arnold Lunden. The picture remained in the possession of the painter until his death, when it passed into that of Nicholas Lunden, who had married Isabella, a daughter of Rubens by his second wife, Helène Fourment. The picture remained in the Lunden family until 1822, when it was sold by auction for 36,000 florins and brought to England. After being offered in vain to George IV., it was bought by Sir Robert Peel for 3500 guineas. Why and when this picture of a lady in a beaver hat acquired the inappropriate title of "Chapeau de Paille" ("The Straw Hat"), by which it has hitherto been called, is unknown. Perhaps the title is a corruption of "Chapeau d'Espagne." An entirely different story about the picture was current in the Lunden family. According to this not very probable tradition, Miss Susanne had refused to sit to Rubens, so he painted her unawares whilst she was in her garden, wearing a large straw hat. When the picture was done, she pardoned the flattering indiscretion and accepted it as a gift. Rubens afterwards begged leave to take back the portrait, promising in return a work in which he would put all his talent. This was a replica of the same portrait, but instead of a straw hat (chapeau de paille) he introduced in the second version the beaver hat (chapeau de poil) that we see. The Lunden family had christened the original "Chapeau de Paille," and the present picture has ever since retained the same title. (See letter in the Times, August 6, 1886, from M. Jules Nollée de Noduwez, himself a connection of the Lunden family).

853. THE TRIUMPH OF SILENUS.

For the subject see under 93. "Rubens painted these subjects with a gusto in which there is something fearful, so wonderful is the skill, the felicity of execution, the life, the energy, the fancy displayed—so gross and so repulsive the sentiment. In Niccolo Poussin's Bacchanalian scenes we have the licence and the revels of gods and nymphs, and of the golden age. Rubens gives us, with perhaps a truer moral feeling but[Pg 444] more depraved taste, mere animal sensuality, with all its most brutal attributes" (Mrs. Jameson's Handbook to the Private Galleries of London, p. 362). This picture was in the artist's possession at the time of his death, and was then bought for Cardinal Richelieu. It was afterwards in the collection of Sir Robert Peel, who gave £1100 for it.

853. a-p.

These sixteen drawings by Rubens formed part of the rich collection of Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., after whose death they were acquired for Sir Robert Peel. They were purchased for the nation in 1871 with the Peel Collection of pictures. The subjects are as follows:—

853 a, b, c, and d. Four studies for the famous picture at Munich, representing the "Fall of the Damned." In black chalk, tinted slightly. "Inconceivably fine," says Mrs. Jameson.

853 e. THE MARTYRDOM OF A SAINT.—He kneels, and a woman is about to bind his eyes. Fifteen figures with angels.

853 f. THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST.—Study for the picture at Munich.

853 g. THE CRUCIFIXION.—Drawing from the great picture at Antwerp, done for the engraver to work from.

853 h. PORTRAIT OF A GIRL; with a cap and feather. Study from one of his own children.

853 i. PORTRAIT OF A LADY, with flowers in her hair. Probably a study from his first wife. "Extremely fine," says Mrs. Jameson, "and full of life."

853 j. HEAD OF A LADY, in chalk and sepia, wonderfully spirited.

853 k. SKETCH FOR MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE, or design for a frontispiece—with a figure of "Fame."

853 l. THE SAME, with figures of Moses and Aaron.

853 m. THE SAME, with satyrs.

853 n. THE SAME, representing the siege of Breda: Minerva and Hercules, prisoners, implements of war, etc.

853 o. STUDY OF A LIONESS, introduced into his picture of "Daniel in the Lion's Den."

853 p. SKETCH OF A LION HUNT.—Study for the great picture at Dresden.

[Pg 445]

854. A FOREST SCENE.

Of this picture, when it was in Sir Robert Peel's collection, Mrs. Jameson tells a pretty tale. "'I cannot express to you,' said the statesman, 'the feeling of tranquillity, of restoration, with which, in an interval of harassing official business, I look around me here.' And while he spoke, in the slow, quiet tone of a weary man, he turned his eyes on a forest scene of Ruysdael, and gazed on it for a minute or two in silence, as if its cool, dewy verdure, its deep seclusion, its transparent waters stealing through the glade, had sent refreshment into his very soul" (Handbook to the Private Galleries of London, p. xix.).

855. A WATERFALL.

856. THE MUSIC-MASTER.

It is in the collections of Holland, and especially in the Museum of Amsterdam, that the best works of this remarkable painter are to be seen—a painter whose talent and occasional grace made Reynolds name him in the same breath with Raphael, and who has by other critics been called the Molière of painting. This latter comparison happily expresses the dramatic and intellectual quality of Steen's best works. He drew not merely Dutch life, but human nature. He depicts the comedy of human life, for the most part, in a spirit of genial toleration, but sometimes with touches of almost Hogarthian satire. With regard to technical qualities, his best works are admirable for their skilful composition, brilliant touch, and harmonious colouring. "Steen when it pleased him was an artist of great ability. Unfortunately it did not always please him to be so, and then his colour became blurred, his execution trivial, and the general aspect of his figures heavy and monotonous; but whenever he exerts himself he becomes once more and remains a great master. It is the more astonishing to find these defects, as they are peculiar neither to the beginning nor to the end of his career, and therefore cannot be attributed to a hard apprenticeship or premature decay. They are to be explained by the irregular life which the painter led" (Havard). The number of his works, however,—of which more than 500 have been catalogued—seem to negative the stories in which some biographers accept of Steen's[Pg 446] drunken and dissolute life. He was the son of a brewer and was born at Leyden. He first studied under a German painter, Knüpfer, at Utrecht; afterwards with Adrian van Ostade, and Jan van Goyen whose daughter he married in 1649. In the previous year he had joined the Painters' Guild of Haarlem. That he was improvident is proved by records of executions for debt which have been discovered in the archives of that town. His pictures must have fetched small prices, for he contracted to pay the year's rent of his house for 1666-67 with three portraits "painted as well as he was able," the rent being 29 florins. In 1669 his wife and his father died, and Steen, who is supposed to have resided for some years at the Hague, returned to Leyden and opened a tavern, and for the rest of his life combined the businesses of painter and publican.

A work of some humour. The music-master is sadly bored with the exercises of his pupil at the harpsichord, but his disgust is fully shared by the young brother whose turn is to come next, and who is bringing a lute into the room. The picture is signed on the harpsichord.

857, 858, 859, 860. THE FOUR SEASONS.

Very interesting little pictures, as characteristic of the entire want of poetry in Teniers' art. Compare Mantegna's version of Summer and Autumn (1125), or recall Botticelli's lovely vision of Spring at Florence, and one sees in a moment the difference in art between poetical imagination and vulgarity. To Teniers, Spring—"the sweet spring, the year's pleasant king"—is only a man carrying a flower-pot. Summer—"all the sweet season of summertide"—suggests nothing but a man holding a wheat-sheaf. Autumn—"season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"—brings him only a first glass of wine; and Winter—"white winter, rough nurse, that rocks the dead cold year"—only a second. These pictures (which are painted on copper), were once in the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and Sir Robert Peel bought them in 1823 for £189.

861. A COUNTRY SCENE.

The man with the barrow is a portrait of Teniers' gardener.

[Pg 447]

862. THE SURPRISE.

Hardly an instance in which "vice itself loses half its evil by losing all its grossness." It is a very vulgar intrigue. The husband courts without passion; the maid-servant "stoops to folly" without grace; the wife surprises the lovers without dignity.

863. THE RICH MAN IN HELL.

The sequel to the story of Dives and Lazarus. "And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke xvi. 22, 23). A favourite subject with Teniers, giving him an opportunity for painting comic monstrosities.

864. THE GUITAR LESSON.

Terburg is the most refined of all the Dutch painters of "conversation pieces." He depicts with admirable truth, both in his portraits and genre pictures, the life of the wealthy and cultured classes of his time. His figures are well drawn and expressive, and the accessories are duly subordinated. He renders the texture of draperies with great skill, and his colouring is at once rich and quiet. He was the son of a wealthy man, a traveller and a connoisseur who himself imparted the rudiments of art to his son. Gerard afterwards studied in Amsterdam and Haarlem. In 1635 he visited England, and thence made the grand tour of the Continent, studying the works of Titian and others. On his return to Holland he remained some time at Amsterdam, learning much from the works of Rembrandt. In 1646 he was at Münster, where he painted the famous picture, No. 896 in our Gallery. This excited such admiration on account of the excellence of its portraits and general truth to nature, that the Spanish ambassador took Terburg with him to Madrid, where he was knighted by Philip IV. and had the opportunity of adding a study of Velazquez to his artistic advantages. Terburg settled eventually at Deventer, where he married and became burgomaster: a full-length portrait of him in that capacity is in the Museum at the Hague.

This is a characteristic example of the painter's conversation pieces. Sir Robert Peel bought it in 1826 for 920 guineas.

[Pg 448]

865. A COAST SCENE.

Of this painter, whose works have of recent years become popular with collectors, the Dutch writers have left no record. Nor has anything been discovered about him beyond the fact that, on the occasion of his marriage in 1653, he received the freedom of the city of Amsterdam. One may connect with this fact the state barge, introduced in some of his pictures,—or the corporation barge, it may be,—much resembling the barges belonging to the City and the City Companies which not long ago might still be seen on the Thames at London, and some of which survive, transformed into College barges at Oxford. Cappelle's works are comparatively rare; they show that he loved a calm sea, lit up with warm rays.

866. A STREET IN COLOGNE.

Van der Heyden (or Heyde), who has been called, from the minute neatness of his workmanship, "the Dou of architectural painters,"[192] was one of the first Dutch artists to devote himself to that class of subject. It was a result no doubt of the Italianising tendency of the time. "It would seem that they required to be initiated in this style by the views of foreign market-places and squares with which the Italianising painters had decorated the saloons of Amsterdam, and that in the presence of this invasion of forums and piazzas they exclaimed, 'Have we not streets, squares, and monuments to paint?'" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 238). Of course they had; and no works of the time are more interesting than these minute historical records. "A striking feature in Van der Heyden is the pencilling or dividing of the brickwork of the houses and walls by delicate white lines; so finely are these drawn that if it were not for the trouble, one might count the bricks in his buildings" (Seguier). But he had the art of combining this microscopic detail with breadth of effect. The division of labour in art work was in his time very fully applied; and Van der Heyden's range was very limited. He seldom turned his hand to anything but brick houses and churches in streets or squares, or rows along canals, or the moated granges common in his native country. He could draw neither man nor beast, and relied on Adrian van der Velde to enliven his street scenes with spirited figures. Van der Heyden was born at Gorcum, and was apprenticed to a glass-painter. He then moved to Amsterdam and studied architectural drawing. He visited England, Belgium, and the Rhenish Provinces. In the later [Pg 449]part of his life he varied the practice of art with the pursuit of mechanics, for which he had a strong turn. He invented various improvements in the fire-engine, introduced the use of street-lamps, and at the time of his death was superintendent of the lighting and director of the firemen's company at Amsterdam.

In the background is seen the then unfinished tower of Cologne Cathedral surmounted by the old vane. This was a favourite subject of the painter; there is another version of it in the Wallace Collection. The figures are attributed to A. van de Velde.

867. THE FARM COTTAGE.

Adrian, the son of William van de Velde the elder, the marine painter, first studied under his father, and next under Wynants, the landscape painter. He showed his talent very early. "Wynants," said that painter's wife, when the young Adrian entered his studio, "you have found your master." He afterwards studied the figure under Wouwerman. His talent was versatile, for he painted figures, animals, and landscapes with equal truth and refinement. His large canvases (e.g. No. 80 in the Wallace Collection) are hard, and leave the spectator cold; but his cabinet pictures are refined in outline and delicate in tone. He was fond of village scenery with cattle introduced, in which kind are several good examples in our Gallery. He was also successful in winter scenes. Of his sandy coast scenes there is a choice example in the Six Collection at Amsterdam. The value and interest of many pictures by Ruysdael, Van der Heyden, Hobbema, and other painters of the time, were enhanced by figures inserted by Adrian. He must have had wonderful facility and industry, for in addition to these insertions, and in spite of his short life, the catalogue of his own pictures includes nearly 200 items.

This picture is signed, and dated 1658. The effect is that of a fine warm summer afternoon.

868. THE FORD.

"The figures and faces," says Mrs. Jameson in her catalogue of the Peel Collection, "are finished with inexpressible delicacy; the animals are painted with characteristic truth; the foliage of the trees seems stirred by the breeze;—in short, it is a most rare piece of work in every part, and full of pastoral sentiment, though there is certainly nothing Arcadian in the[Pg 450] personages introduced." Sir Robert Peel bought the picture in 1840 for 760 gs.

869. A FROST SCENE.

This picture—known as "Les Amusements d'Hiver"—is signed, and dated 1668. The men are playing hockey. Other figures are occupied with a sledge. On the left is a refreshment booth.

870. SHIPPING IN A CALM.

A dogger, with hanging sail, in the foreground; behind it a frigate—"and a variety of vessels, at every different gradation of distance, carry the eye back to the horizon. The air and ocean are still as sleep. Signed, and dated 1657, when the painter was only 24."

871. BATHING AT LOW WATER.

Incidentally a good study in the "philosophy of clothes." The painter hits off with much humour the essential difference between those who regard man as "by nature a naked animal"—seen in the naked bathers—and those who regard him as emphatically "a clothed animal"—seen in the prim old gentleman who gets himself carried on a man's back. Intermediate between these two classes are those who use clothes as a convenience, but are not entirely subject to them—such, for instance, is the comfortable old fellow smoking his pipe and wading home, not without obvious contempt for the old gentleman riding, as aforesaid, in ignominious slavery to his "Sunday best." Dated 1661; bought by Sir Robert Peel from the collection of the Duc de Berri.

872. A SLIGHT BREEZE.

[Pg 451]

873. THE COAST OF SCHEVENINGEN.

"A scene well known to those who have visited the Hague, and frequently represented by Van de Velde. There are the high sand-hills to the left, and above them are seen a few fishermen's huts and the little church of Scheveningen. Along the beach are numerous figures, variously grouped and employed; the most conspicuous are several persons near a post-waggon. The sea is quietly rolling in to the shore, impelled by a light breeze. The figures are painted with exquisite finish and spirit by Adrian van de Velde" (Mrs. Jameson). Sir Robert Peel bought this picture from the Pourtalès Collection for £800. It is a characteristic specimen of the master, showing how his version of the sea was coloured by that "mixture of sand and sea-water" which belongs to his native coasts. "I have come," writes Fromentin, "to Scheveningen. Before me is the calm, gray, fleecy North Sea. Who has not seen it? One thinks of Ruysdael, of Van Goyen, of Van de Velde. One easily finds their point of view. I could tell you the exact place where they sat, as if the trace of them had remained imprinted for two centuries: the sea is on the left; the ridged sand-hills stand out on the right, stretch away, diminish and are lost insensibly in the dim horizon; the grass is poor; the sand-hills are pale; the sea-shore is colourless; the sea is like milk; the sky has silky clouds and is wonderfully aerial."

874. A CALM AT SEA.

A Dutch frigate and a small English cutter becalmed. "There is a repose in the air, a clearness in the still, smooth sea, quite indescribable" (Mrs. Jameson).

875. A LIGHT BREEZE.

Two doggers in the foreground; behind one of them, a Dutch frigate.

[Pg 452]

876. A GALE.

877. HIS OWN PORTRAIT.

That Van Dyck was at a very early age a portrait-painter of rare merit may be seen, from this likeness of himself while still quite young and beardless. In the Wallace Collection there is another early portrait of himself, in the character of Paris. Our picture is the portrait of an artist and a man of refinement. Notice especially the long, tapering fingers—delicate almost to the point of feminineness. They are very characteristic of Van Dyck's work, who, indeed, drew all his hands from one model: the same delicate fingers may be seen in the so-called "portrait of Rubens" (49). In giving this delicacy to all sitters Van Dyck fell no doubt into mannerism; in giving it to great artists such as himself he was entirely right. Palmistry assigns fine, tapering fingers to "artistic temperament," and rightly, for fine fingers are necessary for fine work. "The art of painting, properly so called, consists in laying on the least possible colour that will produce the required result; and this measurement, in all the ultimate—that is to say the principal—operations of colouring, is so delicate that not one human hand in a million has the required lightness" (Two Paths, Appendix iv., where much interesting matter on this subject will be found).

877 A. THE CRUCIFIXION.

877 B. RINALDO AND ARMIDA.

These drawings were bought with the Peel Collection. The former is the study for an altar-piece of the church of St. Michael at Ghent—"a most superb drawing," says Mrs. Jameson. The latter is a drawing prepared for the engraver, Peter de Jode, from the large picture of the subject in the Louvre. It was the sight of that picture that determined King Charles I. to secure the services of Van Dyck.

[Pg 453]

878. "THE PRETTY MILKMAID."

Wouwerman—whose pictures may nearly always be told by a white horse, which is almost his sign-manual—is selected by Ruskin as the central instance of the "hybrid school of landscape." To understand this term we must recall his division of all landscape, in its relation to human beings, into the following heads: (1) Heroic, representing an imaginary world inhabited by noble men and spiritual powers—Titian; (2) Classical, representing an imaginary world inhabited by perfectly civilised men and inferior spiritual powers—Poussin; (3) Pastoral, representing peasant life in its daily work—Cuyp; (4) Contemplative, directed to observation of the powers of nature and record of historical associations connected with landscape, contrasted with existing states of human life—Turner. The hybrid school of which Berchem and Wouwerman are the chief representatives is that which endeavours to unite the irreconcilable sentiment of two or more of the above-mentioned classes. Thus here we have Wouwerman's conception of the heroic in the officers and in the rocky landscape; of the pastoral in the pretty milkmaid, to whom an officer is speaking, and who gives her name to the picture. So again the painter's desire to assemble all kinds of pleasurable elements may be seen in the crowded composition of an adjoining picture (879). Wouwerman is further selected by Ruskin as the chief type of vulgarity in art—meaning by vulgarity, insensibility. He introduces into his pictures—see, for instance, 879—every element that he thinks pleasurable, yet has not imagination enough to enter heartily into any of them. His pleasure is "without a gleam of higher things," and in his war-pieces there is "no heroism, awe or mercy, hope or faith." With regard, finally, to the execution, it is "careful and conscientious," the tone of his pictures generally dark and gray, the figures being thrown out in spots of light (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii.). "There is no good painting," Ruskin says of a Wouwerman at Turin, "properly so called, anywhere, but of clever, dotty, sparkling, telling execution, as much as the canvas will hold" (ibid. § 8). Wouwerman was born at Haarlem; his father was a painter. From him Philips learnt the practice of art, afterwards studying landscape under Wynants. He worked for some time at Hamburg, in the studio of Everard Decker. In 1640 he returned to Haarlem, where he remained for the rest of his life. He had two brothers who were also painters. His productivity was enormous. He lived forty-nine years, and it has been calculated that even if we deny his authorship of one half the pictures ascribed to him, we leave him with at least 500, or about one for every three weeks during his productive years (Bryan's Dictionary of Painters). Few galleries are without several pictures by Wouwerman. In the Wallace Collection he is represented by six, in the Dulwich Gallery by ten.

[Pg 454]

The picture is known after the milkmaid whom the officer is chucking under the chin, whilst the trumpeter takes a sarcastic pleasure, we may suppose, in sounding all the louder the call "to arms."

879. THE INTERIOR OF A STABLE.

The profusion of pleasurable incident in this picture has already been noticed (see under 878) in connection with Wouwerman's bent of mind; but notice also how the crowded composition spoils the effect of a picture as a picture. Clearly also will it spoil the stable-keeper's business. He eyes the coin which one of his customers is giving him with all the discontent of a London cabman, and has no eye to spare for the smart lady with her cavalier, who are just entering the stable. This is a good instance of what has been called "Wouwerman's nonsense-pictures, a mere assemblage of things to be imitated, items without a meaning" (W. B. Scott: Half-hour Lectures on Art, p. 299).

880. ON THE SEA SHORE.

This picture was formerly in the collection of Queen Elizabeth of Spain, whose arms are stamped on the back. Sir Robert Peel bought it in 1823 for 450 guineas.

881. GATHERING FAGGOTS.

882. A LANDSCAPE.

883. A BEGGAR BY THE ROADSIDE.

Wynants—spelt also Wijnants—the painter of the sandy wayside, was one of the founders of the Dutch school of landscape, and was an artist of much originality. Out of a few docks and thistles, it has been said, a tree, and a sandbank, he could make a picture. "In the choice of his subjects Wijnants shows a preference," says Sir F. Burton, "for[Pg 455] open scenery, where, under a sky of summer blue broken by illuminated cloud-masses, the undulating soil reveals its nature through beaten tracks and rugged roads with their shelving sides of gold-coloured sand, while trees are scattered thinly on the slopes. Or he loves the borders of the forest, where mighty tree-trunks, smitten by past storms, still extend some gnarled branches across the sky, or a fallen stem lies half imbedded amongst tall grasses and large-leaved plants. In such scenes Wynants is particularly attractive. They give us the poetry of form and light, as Ruisdael's deep pine-forests give us that of gloom and solitude." Of his life little is known. He was probably born about the year 1615, as his earliest pictures bear the dates 1641 and 1642. He was still living in 1679, as one of his paintings in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg bears that date. In October 1642 the registers of St. Luke's Guild at Haarlem mention a Jan Wijnants as dealer in works of art; this probably refers to the painter. He resided at Haarlem, and afterwards at Amsterdam. Wouwerman and A. van de Velde were among his scholars, the latter artist and others inserted figures in his pictures, for Wynants painted only landscape. The visitor will find good examples of him at Dulwich and Hertford House.

The picture is signed (on the trunk of the felled tree) and dated 1659. The figures in this and the next picture are ascribed to A. van de Velde.

884. SAND DUNES.

It is not uninteresting to notice—as strangely in keeping with the poor and hard country here depicted—that in nearly every picture by Wynants (see 883, 971, 972) there is a dead tree. That Dutch painters were alive to the beauties of vegetation, the oaks of Ruysdael are enough to show; but to Wynants at least nature seems to have been visible only as a destroying power, as a rugged and conflicting force, against which the sturdy Hollander had to battle for existence as best he might.

895. PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR.

Francesco Ferruccio, of whom this is said to be a portrait, was the Florentine general whose skill and patriotism shed a lustre on the final struggle of Florence against the combined forces of the Pope and the Emperor. He was then in command[Pg 456] of the outlying possessions of Florence, and had there been a second Ferruccio within the city itself the fortune of war might have been different. Francesco was killed in a battle near Pistoia on August 3, 1530. In the background of this portrait there is a view of the Piazza della Signoria at Florence; and at the entrance door Michael Angelo's statue of David, which was placed there in 1504. The picture was formerly ascribed to Lorenzo Costa; the recognition of its true authorship is due to Dr. Richter and Dr. G. Frizzoni. The identification of the warrior with the celebrated general is considered doubtful by them (see Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 36; and Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, p. 252).

896. THE PEACE OF MÜNSTER.

One of the "gems" of the National Collection—"priceless" because not only of its great artistic merit, but of its unique historical interest. It is an exact representation by a contemporary Dutch painter of one of the turning-points in Dutch history—the ratification, namely, by the delegates of the Dutch United Provinces, on 15th May 1684, of the Treaty of Münster, with which the eighty years' war between Spain and the United Provinces was concluded, altogether to the advantage of the latter. The clerk (in a scarlet cloak) is reading the document. The plenipotentiaries are standing nearest to the table. Six of them, holding up the right hand, are the delegates of the United Provinces; two, with their right hands resting on an open copy of the Gospels, are the representatives of Spain. One of the Dutch delegates and one of the Spanish hold copies of the document, which they follow as it is being read by the clerk. The brass chandelier, it is interesting to note, still hangs in the hall at Münster. The painter has introduced his own portrait among the figures on the left, in three-quarter face, behind the officer who stands with one arm resting on the chair of the third Dutch delegate (counting from the left).

During his lifetime Terburg did not part with the picture. It passed at one time into the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and by a curious coincidence was hanging in the room of his hotel, under the view of the Allied Sovereigns, at the signing of the treaty of 1814. After several more changes of hands it was[Pg 457] bought in 1868 by the late Marquis of Hertford for £8800—equivalent, the curious in such things may like to know, to nearly £24 per square inch of canvas; at his death it came into the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, who presented it to the nation in 1871. A curious story is told in this connection. At the De Morny sale in 1865 the picture had been sold for £1805. At the San Donato (or Demidoff) sale, three years later, Sir William Boxall, Director of the National Gallery, bid up to £6000 for it; but his mandate went no further, and his mortification was great when he found himself far outbid by the Marquis of Hertford. Three years later, an unknown gentleman, not too smartly dressed, was announced at the National Gallery, and began to open a small picture-case. Sir William was busy, and "could not go into the matter now." "But you had better just have a glance—I ask no more," said the stranger. Sir William refused. The stranger insisted. Boxall, struck dumb at the sight of the picture it had been his dream to add to the National Collection, raised his eyes to those of the visitor. "My name is Wallace," said the stranger quietly, "Sir Richard Wallace; and I came to offer this picture to the National Gallery." "I nearly fainted," said Boxall in recounting the story; "I had nearly refused 'The Peace of Münster,' one of the wonders of the world" (M. H. Spielmann: The Wallace Collection, p. 107).

901. A LANDSCAPE.

Looten is said to have visited England in the reign of Charles II., in order (as a countryman of his explains) "to initiate the English into the beauties of Dutch landscape." The process was successful, for many large pictures by Looten are (or were) in English country-seats. The figures in his landscapes were sometimes painted by Berchem.

902. "THE TRIUMPH OF SCIPIO."

One of the grisailles, or pictures in gray and brown, of which Mantegna in his later years painted very many, and to multiply which he took to engraving. In its subject the picture is a piece of ancient Rome. No other works of the time, it[Pg 458] has been said, are so full of antique feeling as Mantegna's. Botticelli played with the art of the ancients and modernised it; Mantegna actually lived and moved in it (Woltmann and Woermann: History of Painting, translated by Clara Bell, ii. 378). Mantegna's classical scholarship, too, is abundantly shown in the details of this picture, which is full of allusions to Latin authors and history. The Triumph of Scipio, it may be briefly explained, consisted in his being selected by the Senate as "the worthiest man in Rome," by whom alone—so the oracle decreed—must Cybele, the Phrygian mother of the gods, be received. It was "an honour," says Livy, with the fine patriotism of Rome, "more to be coveted than any other which the Senate or people could bestow." On the left, the image of the goddess is being borne on a litter, and with it the sacred stone alleged to have fallen from heaven. It was an unusual fall of meteoric stones that had caused the Romans to consult the oracle in B.C. 204, during Hannibal's occupation of Italy, and the oracle had answered that the Phrygian mother must be brought to Rome. This goddess, worshipped under different forms in many parts of the world, was a personification of the passive generative power in nature, and from this time forward she was included among the recognised divinities of the Roman State. In the centre of the picture Scipio and his retinue are receiving her; whilst Claudia, a Roman lady, has thrown herself before the image. Some slur had attached to her reputation, but she had proved her innocence by invoking the goddess and then drawing off from a shoal in the harbour of Ostia, with the aid of only a slight rope, the vessel which bore the sacred image.

"The picture," says Sir F. Burton, "has a history of its own. It was undertaken towards the close of Mantegna's long and laborious career; and when that career terminated in the sadness and gloom which have too often awaited those whose imaginative powers had placed them above their fellow-men, it remained in his studio, probably not fully finished. It may have been the last, it was certainly one of the last, pictures which his pencil touched." An advance payment of 25 ducats had been made to Mantegna in 1504. His son Francesco made an unsuccessful claim to it as an inheritance from his father, offering to repay the amount received in advance. The picture, representing an event glorious in the history of the Scipios, was commissioned by a Venetian nobleman, Francesco[Pg 459] Cornaro, in order to throw lustre upon the genealogy of his family, which claimed to belong to the Roman gens Cornelia.

903. CARDINAL FLEURY.

Rigaud was a native of Perpignan, and the son and grandson of a painter. In 1681 he went up to Paris, and following the advice of Le Brun devoted himself to portraiture. He studied diligently the works of Van Dyck, whose disciple he always professed to be. He rapidly obtained fame as a portrait-painter, but it was not till 1700—on the completion of his "St. Andrew" now in the Louvre—that he was admitted as an historical painter into the Academy. He held various offices in that body, and painted all the great men of his day. His own portrait by himself is in the Uffizi.

A portrait of the famous tutor, and afterwards prime minister, of Louis XV. It is eminently the "pacific Fleury," who strove to keep France out of war and starved her army and navy when she was forced into it, that we see in this amiable old gentleman—the scholar and member of the Academy, who completed what is now the National Library of France—rather than the statesman. A similar picture is in the Wallace Collection (No. 130).

904. MADONNA AND CHILD.

905. THE MADONNA IN PRAYER.

Tura's type of the Madonna is perhaps the least pleasing in the whole range of Italian art.

906. THE MADONNA IN ECSTASY.

The latest of Crivelli's dated pictures in the Gallery (1492), and remarkable for the deep colours which mark the artist's highest powers. Notice the usual hanging fruit and the pot of[Pg 460] roses and carnations. The Virgin looks up to the Almighty and the dove, while two angels, with a scroll, support a crown over her head. On the scroll are inscribed (in Latin) the words, "As I was conceived in the mind of God from the beginning, so was I also made."

The masterpiece known as "The Virgin in Ecstasy," rather presents (as the text shows) the idea which is the foundation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, combined with the "Coronation" of the glorified mother. It is intended, in fact, to bring before us not the historical mother of Christ so much as that mediæval conception of the mystical being of Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom, existing from all time in the mind of God as the instrument of the Incarnation, and returning to share the glory of her divine Son. Crivelli has expressed with rare distinction that combination of humility and awe with a sense of personal dignity which befits this ideal of the Virgin. In herself she is an imposing figure, but she is absorbed in the divine influences which mould her destiny. Never did Crivelli come nearer to the grand style than in this magnificent conception (Rushforth's Crivelli, p. 75).

907. ST. CATHERINE AND ST. MARY MAGDALENE.

The figure of St. Mary Magdalene, with the vase of precious ointment, is characteristic of the painter's more affected style; notice especially the fingers elongated to the point of grotesqueness.

908. THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.[193]

"This painting is said to be unfinished. But even minute details, such as the pearls on the robes of the angels and on [Pg 461]the head-dress of the Virgin, have been worked out with an accuracy which excites astonishment. One of the two shepherds, standing on the right side and seen in front, appears to have no pupils to his eyes, and this strange fact might account for the theory of the unfinished state of the picture. On the other hand it seems to me to have suffered very much from repainting in all the flesh parts.... The restorer has, I believe, forgotten to paint in the pupils of the shepherd's eyes after having destroyed them by the cleaning of the original painting" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, pp. 16, 17). The beauty of the picture is in the choir of angels with their mouths in different attitudes of singing, making such music sweet

"The picture is a masterpiece" says Mr. Hipkins, "in musical delineation. It is the perfectly expressed singing of these characteristic angels that arrests attention first; but the archæologist in musical instruments values the two large lutes held by the outside angels of the group, who are accompanying the singers. The splendid lines and fine dimensions of these instruments suggest their sonorous tone. When this picture came from the Barker Collection, each lute had eleven strings, and the number of pegs in one of them seems to have this number; but in cleaning the picture the strings have disappeared. As the picture was not finished by the painter, it is supposed that the strings were a later addition. However, the number was right, according to the practice with large lutes at that time, to give six open notes; the highest, or melody, string being open"[194] (The Hobby Horse, No. 1, 1893). "The figures of the Virgin and Child are of the gentlest and fairest type, and show undoubted signs of the Flemish influence, [Pg 462]which made itself felt in Florence and throughout Central Italy after Hugo van der Goes set up his great altar-piece in the Ospedale of Santa Maria Novella" (W. G. Waters: Piero della Francesca p. 64).

This picture was formerly in the possession of the Marini-Franceschi family, of Borgo San Sepolcro, descendants of the painter. The wings and the predella once belonging to it are in the cathedral of that city.

909. THE MADONNA OF THE WHITE ROSE.

The earliest known work by this painter is an Annunciation, painted in 1466, in the church of S. Girolamo at Volterra. He executed some of the illuminations of the choir-books, and designed portions of the pavement, in the cathedral of Siena. He was the son of a mason.

A charming combination of older and newer "motives." There is the gold background, true to the old Sienese traditions, but there are also the little fiddling angels, so common in Venetian and other pictures of the time of Benvenuto's later years. In the compartments on either side are St. Peter, and St. Nicholas of Bari (with various adornments referring to his story: see under 1171).

910. THE TRIUMPH OF CHASTITY.

In the foreground Cupid on his knees is bound by maidens; in the distance there are other two groups, in one of which the god of love is being captured, in the other he is led away in triumph with his arms pinioned behind him. This painting is a fresco which was transferred to canvas from the wall of a palace at Siena. It was injured in the process, and has been badly restored. It is signed LUCAS CORITIUS, and according to the official catalogue, "the hand of the master is visible enough in the less damaged parts." According to other authorities, the inscription is forged, and the picture "a weak production by Genga," Signorelli's assistant at Orvieto (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 49).

[Pg 463]

911. ULYSSES AND PENELOPE.

Penelope was wife of Ulysses, King of Ithaca, whose wanderings after the Trojan war are told in Homer's "Odyssey," and shown in summary in the distance of this picture. Through the open window is seen the ship of Ulysses, with the hero bound to the mast; the sirens, whose coasts he passed unhurt, are sporting in the sea; and on an island near is the palace of Circe, who changed his companions into swine. In his absence Penelope was beset by many suitors, such as are here seen clad in joyous raiment, and was in sore straits to resist their importunity. But "some god put it into my heart to set up a great web in the halls, and thereat to weave a robe fine of woof and very wide; and-anon I spake among them, saying: 'Ye princely youths, my wooers, now that goodly Odysseus is dead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever to speed on this marriage of mine, till I finish the robe ... even this shroud for the hero Laertes, father of Odysseus, against the day when the deadly doom shall bring him low, of death that lays men at their length.' ... So spake I, and their high hearts consented thereto. So then in the daytime I would weave the mighty web, and in the night unravel the same" (xix. 138-150: Butcher and Lang's translation). And for the space of three years Penelope's web was still unwoven, and the suitors were deceived; but afterwards, when they chid her loudly, she finished the web, and could neither escape marriage nor devise any further counsel, for that her son too chafed while the suitors devoured his livelihood. But Ulysses then returned; he is now in the doorway just entering; and presently Penelope will take down her husband's bow—now hanging with a quiver of arrows above her head—which the suitors could not bend, but was bent by Ulysses.

The painter makes no attempt at archæological reconstruction; he gives us a picture of the costumes of his own day. This vivacious picture is a fresco transferred to canvas. It was painted in the Pandolfo Petrucci Palace at Siena, which also Signorelli's "Triumph of Chastity" once decorated (now 910 in our Gallery).

912, 913, 914. THE STORY OF GRISELDA.

[Pg 464]

On these three panels (formerly ascribed to Pinturicchio),[195] which were probably destined to serve as decorations to a chest, the story of Griselda is told with much naïve awkwardness of drawing, but also with much naïve playfulness of incident. The story, told in Boccaccio's Decameron, and by Petrarch, is also to be found in Chaucer's Clerkes Tale.

In the first picture (912) we see (1) on the extreme left the Marquis of Saluzzo, who is out hunting with a great retinue. He meets Griselda, a peasant girl, who is drawing water at the well, and falls in love with her. Next (2) on the extreme right is her humble barn-like dwelling, with the marquis serenading his love from below. (3) He carries her off with him; and note how Griselda, who is to be modest and humble to the end, hangs her head in "maiden shamefacedness." (4) Then the marquis has her attired in gold and fine linen, fit for a prince's bride. Her pattens and perhaps her garters are lying discarded beside her. And so (5), in the centre of the picture, all is ready for the wedding:

Before the second act (913) a few years are supposed to have elapsed. (1) On the left Griselda's two children—a boy and a girl—(in the likeness of two very wooden dolls) are being carried off, as if by a villain in a transpontine tragedy. They are supposed to have since died miserably. (2) The marquis tires of his love for Griselda, and is divorced: in the centre of the picture we see her giving back the wedding ring. (3) Then she is stripped of her fine clothes, and (4) sent away to her father's house, but

Two young gallants, in absurd attitudes, look on in half-pitying amusement, while nearer to us two serving-men are disgusted at the cruel shame. (5) On the extreme right she is at home again, tending, as before, her father's sheep.

[Pg 465]

In the last act (914), a grand banquet is prepared for the marquis's second wedding, and Griselda is sent for to the castle to do menial work. On the left we see her sweeping; on the right she is waiting at table. Then, on the left again, it is discovered that the marquis's new bride is none other than Griselda's long-lost daughter, accompanied by her brother. They had all the while been tended in a distant city with the utmost care. Griselda is thereupon affectionately embraced by her husband, publicly reinstated in her proper position, and presented to all the court as a model of wifely obedience and patience—

915. MARS AND VENUS.

So the picture is usually called—Mars, the God of War, asleep, and the young satyrs playing with his discarded armour, while one of them attempts to rouse him by blowing a shell. The subject is almost identical with that which Spenser draws in the Faërie Queene, where Sir Guyon, the Knight of Purity, overthrows the Bower of Bliss in which Acrasia (or Pleasure) dwells—the last and worst of Sir Guyon's trials, for "it is harder to fight against pleasure than against pain." Note especially the expression of the sleeping youth: he is overcome with brutish paralysis, and they cannot awaken him. Note also the swarm of hornets issuing from the tree-trunk by his head—significant of the power that sensual indulgence has of venomously wounding. Visitors who have been in Venice may remember similar details in Carpaccio's picture of St. George and the Dragon (J. R. Anderson in St. Mark's Rest, Second Supplement, p. 20).

It has been suggested by Dr. Richter that the subject of the picture is not mythological, but an illustration of Angelo Poliziano's poem, "Stanze per la Giostra," "The Song of the Tournament," written in 1476 in glorification of Giuliano de' Medici, who had entered the lists in the preceding year, at the tournament given in honour of Simonetta Cattaneo. In this poem, Giuliano appears as a youth enamoured of the chase, and contemptuous of women. Cupid determines that he shall fall a prey to a pair of lovely eyes, and leads him to the presence of Simonetta. But night falls and Simonetta vanishes, whereupon Venus sends Giuliano a dream in which he is exhorted to enter the lists in honour of his lady-love. He foreknows that victory will crown his arms, and that love will reward his valour, but these joyful tidings are black with the shadow of death, for early in 1476 Simonetta died. According to Dr. Richter's interpretation, Giuliano in the picture before us lies sunk in deepest sleep. The little satyrs are whispering dreams into his ears, dreams from the realms of Venus. In his dreams, Giuliano is overcome with fear, because his lady is clad in the armour of Pallas: he cannot brook the gleam of her helmet and her lance. But Cupid whispers: "Lift thine eyes, Giuliano, to that flame which with its radiance blinds thee like a sun; for she it is who quickens noble minds, and from the breast all evil thoughts expels." He dreams again; a goddess comes to his aid leading him to battle and to victory. She divests his lady of the armour of Pallas, and leaves her robed in white (Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 51). The poem[196] may thus be made to fit the picture. It may, [Pg 467]however, be questioned whether the action of the little Cupids is not more appropriate to the accepted theory which sees in the armour the discarded weapons of a Mars or a knight, and Count Plunkett (Sandro Botticelli, pp. 44-5) refers to a passage in Lucian, with whose dialogues Botticelli was familiar. In describing a picture by Aëtion of the "Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana," Lucian describes how "on one side of it little Cupids play among Alexander's armour; two are carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the handles of a shield, tugging it along with another reclining on it ... and then another has got into the breastplate.... All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in War."

916. VENUS WITH CUPIDS.

The expression of melancholy characteristic of Botticelli's Madonnas is not absent from his heathen goddesses either. Notice also the roses—the painter's favourite flower (see 226). This picture is probably only a work of his school; the figure of the goddess is a not very successful repetition of the one in 915. The subject of the picture recalls the description of Simonetta in Poliziano's poem:—

920. ORPHEUS.

Savery, a painter of Courtrai, was instructed by his brother at Amsterdam. His works show the influence of Jan Breughel. He visited France in the reign of Henry IV., by whom he was employed in the royal palaces. He was subsequently invited to Prague by the Emperor Rudolph II., in whose service he spent several years.

[Pg 468]

A not very poetical rendering of the poetical legend of the power of music:—

923. A VENETIAN SENATOR.

This picture "was ascribed to Giovanni Bellini before it entered the National Gallery, and dilettanti might well mistake it for a work of Antonello da Messina. There seems to be little doubt that the picture was painted by Solario at Venice, where he went in 1490 in company of his brother.... The firmly drawn portrait of the senator, with its minutely executed landscape in the background, reveals plainly that he there became an ardent follower of Antonello" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 99).

924. A GOTHIC INTERIOR

This eminent architectural painter belonged to a family of Antwerp artists. He was a pupil of Hendrick Steenwyck the elder. "He did for the Roman Catholic churches of Antwerp that which, thirty years later, and with greater talent, a more flowing brush, and a better understanding of chiaro-oscuro, Emmanuel de Witte (see 1053) was destined to do for the Protestant churches of Delft. Neeffs took special delight in the representation of night scenes, torchlight funeral services, and the like. Teniers and Velvet Breughel themselves often assisted him in these small canvases, thus bearing testimony to the high esteem in which Neeffs was held by his colleagues" (Wauters, The Flemish School, p. 342.)

A group of figures is inspecting a conspicuous Renaissance tomb. Notice the dogs among the visitors.

[Pg 469]

927. AN ANGEL ADORING.

This exquisite fragment once belonged to Sir Augustus Callcott, R.A.

928. APOLLO AND DAPHNE.

The Greeks, seeing the perpetual verdure of the laurel, personified it in the story of Apollo and Daphne (= laurel), which told how the sun-god was enamoured of her. But she, praying to be delivered from his pursuit, was changed by the gods into a laurel—her two arms are here sprouting, just as the god has caught her in his embrace; and he, crowning his head with the leaves, ordained that the tree should for ever bloom and be sacred to his divinity (see further for the story of Apollo and Daphne under 520). The fact that Phœbus Apollo was also the god of song has suggested a pretty adaptation of the legend to the case of poets who sing for love and earn the laurel wreath—

929. THE "BRIDGEWATER MADONNA."

This is an ancient copy, probably by a Flemish painter, of the original, which is in the possession of the Earl of Ellesmere at Bridgewater House. It belongs to Raphael's second or Florentine period, and its exquisite grace has caused it to be known by some writers as "La Plus Belle des Vierges."

[Pg 470]

930. THE GARDEN OF LOVE.

Certainly not by Giorgione,[197] but a characteristic example of a class of composition of which, as we have seen, he was the inventor—one of those Venetian pastorals in which young men and women "disport in the open air, amuse themselves at random" (Asolando).

931. THE MAGDALEN.

The Magdalen—she who had sinned much, but who was forgiven because she loved much—is represented at the Saviour's feet, laying aside her jewels, and thus renouncing the vanities of the world.

932. A KNIGHT OF MALTA.

Formerly ascribed to Sebastiano del Piombo.

933. BOY WITH A BIRD.

Contrast with this child caressing a dove Baroccio's Christ teasing a bird. Padovanino lived much at Venice, and shared perhaps the Venetian's fondness for pigeons—the sacred birds of St. Mark's, which are kept and fed in the great square to this day at the public charge.

934. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Carlo Dolci, the son of a Florentine tailor, is, like his contemporary Sassoferrato, a good instance of the affected religious school described in our introduction to the Later Italian Schools. He was of a very retiring and pious disposition, much given, we are told, to melancholy. Every one who looks first at the pictures of similar subjects by earlier Italian artists will be struck by something sentimental and effeminate [Pg 471]in Dolci's conceptions. Similarly in his execution there is an over-smoothness and softness, corresponding to "polished" language in literature (see Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. ix. § 7). In the Dulwich Gallery is a St. Catherine of Siena which is one of Dolci's chefs d'œuvre.

935. A RIVER SCENE.

936. THE FARNESE THEATRE, PARMA.

Ferdinando Galli, called Bibiena, was one of a family of artists who came from a place of that name in the Bolognese State. He was a celebrated architect and scenic artist. He was engaged at many of the European courts in the arrangement of state pageants. He executed several works for Ranuccio Farnese, Duke of Parma. His architectural and perspective views are to be seen in the principal galleries in Italy. In these the figures are usually painted by his brother Francesco. Ferdinando, who published several works on architecture, became blind in his old age.

A scene in the theatre with Othello being played. The pit is unseated; it is a kind of "promenade play."

937. VENICE: SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO.

The principal building is the Scuola of the religious fraternity of St. Roch—"an interesting building of the early Renaissance (1517), passing into Roman Renaissance," and, "as regards the pictures it contains (by Tintoret), one of the three most precious buildings in Italy" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index). From the adjoining Church of St. Roch, the Holy Thursday procession of the Doges and Officers of State, together with the members of the Fraternity, is advancing under an awning on its way to St. Mark's. Notice the carpets hung out of the windows—a standing feature, this, in Venetian gala decorations from very early times (see, for instance, No. 739).[199] Notice, also, the pictures displayed in the open air[Pg 472]—a feature which well illustrates the difference between the later "easel pictures" and the earlier pictures intended to serve as architectural decorations. "A glance at this picture is sufficient to show how utterly the ordinary oil painting fails when employed as an architectural embellishment. Pictures which were to adorn and form part of a building had to consist of figures, separated one from another, all standing in simple and restful attitudes, and all plainly relieved against a light ground" (Conway: Early Flemish Artists, p. 270). Apart from one of the conditions of early art thus suggested, the picture is interesting as showing how in the eighteenth century in Italy, as in the thirteenth, art was part and parcel of the life of the people. Cimabue's pictures were carried in procession; and here in Canaletto's we see Venetian "old masters" hung out to assist in the popular rejoicing.

938. VENICE: REGATTA ON THE GRAND CANAL.

A state regatta—a pastime which owes its origin to Venice—in honour of the visit to the city of the King of Denmark in 1709. In the centre of the canal are the gondoliers, racing; to the sides are moored the spectators, the gala barges of the nobles conspicuous amongst them. The variegated building on the left is a temporary pavilion for the distribution of prizes. These regattas at Venice took the place of our royal processions here. "Wherever the eye turned, it beheld a vast multitude at doorways, on the quays, and even on the roofs. Some of the spectators occupied scaffoldings erected at favourable points along the sides of the canal; and the patrician ladies did not disdain to leave their palaces, and, entering their gondolas, lose themselves among the infinite number of the boats" (Feste Veneziane: quoted in Howells's Venetian Life, ii. 69). Another custom in which we have begun to imitate the Venetians, and which may be seen in this picture, is that of hanging out carpets and stuffs by way of decorations. "The windows and balconies," says the same account, "were decked with damasks, stuffs of the Levant, tapestries, and velvets;" a very old Venetian custom: see under 937.

[Pg 473]

939, 940. VENICE: THE PIAZZETTA, AND THE DUCAL PALACE.

Canaletto's representation of the central spot of Venice. In 939 is the Piazzetta, the little Piazza or square, in front the church of St. Mark, with its bell towers; on the left are the mint and library; on the right is the ducal palace. This appears again in 940, with the famous column of St. Mark, patron saint of Venice, while beyond it is the Ponte della Paglia, the prisons, and the Riva degli Schiavoni.

941. VENICE: THE GRIMANI PALACE.

This palace, situated on the Grand Canal and used until lately as the post-office, was built in the sixteenth century by San Micheli, and is "the principal type at Venice, and one of the best in Europe, of the central architecture of the Renaissance schools—that carefully studied and perfectly executed architecture to which those schools owe their principal claim to our respect, and which became the model of most of the important works subsequently produced by civilised nations.... It is composed of three stories of the Corinthian order (i.e. in which the ornament is concave, distinguished from Doric, in which it is convex), at once simple, delicate, and sublime; but on so colossal a scale that the three-storied palaces on its right and left only reach to the cornice which marks the level of its first floor" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch. ii. §§ 1, 2). Buildings in the same style in London are St. Paul's and Whitehall.

942. ETON COLLEGE.

Painted during the artist's first English visit, 1746-1748, perhaps in the same year (1747) that Gray published his well-known ode—

[Pg 474]

943. A PORTRAIT.

This portrait, which is dated 1462, was formerly supposed to be Memlinc's portrait of himself, in the costume of the Hospital of St. John at Bruges, but is now called by others Bouts's own portrait. "It is," says Sir W. Armstrong (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 28), "pretty surely the work of Dirck Bouts. Compare it with the Madonna numbered 774, and ascribed to Van der Goes. In conception, in chord of colour, in technical manner, the similarity is so complete between them as to leave room, in my mind, for very little doubt as to the identity of their authors. And this Madonna is by Dirck Bouts, as no one who has examined his 'Last Supper' in the Church of St. Pierre at Louvain can doubt.... Sir Martin Conway, who was the first, I fancy, to recognise Bouts in all three of these pictures, drew my attention to a curious peculiarity of his: he goes out of his way to paint hands. In his 'Last Supper' many hands are displayed that might quite naturally have been hidden, and we find the same thing in this portrait." Whether of Memlinc or of Bouts, the face bespeaks a gentle, humble, pious, laborious soul. The painting of the hair is especially remarkable. It is touched with the utmost minuteness, and yet the silky, flowing texture is conveyed with the utmost freedom. This picture was formerly in the possession of Samuel Rogers.

944. TWO USURERS.

Marinus of Romerswael (his birthplace), also called "de Zeeuw" (the Zeelander), was fond of this subject, the composition of which he seems to have borrowed from Quentin Metsys, by whom also similar pictures are common. In early life Marinus was apprenticed to a glass-painter at Antwerp. Nothing is known of his later life till towards its close, when he was residing at Middelburg. "There, in 1566, in an iconoclastic outburst of the populace, the churches of the town were wrecked; and Marinus was accused before the tribunals of taking part in the spoliation of the Westmonsterkerk. Being held guilty, he was condemned on the 25th of June 1567 to perform an ignominious public penance and to be banished from Middelburg for[Pg 475] the space of six years. An aged man then, he can scarcely have survived his term of exile" (see authorities cited in the Official Catalogue).

One inserts items in a ledger; the other puzzles over the particulars of some business transaction. It is a powerful realisation of what Ruskin calls the New Beatitude, "Blessed are the merciless, for they shall obtain money." "The picture is remarkable," says Sir Edward Poynter, "not only for its marvellous finish, and the energy of the expressions, but for its luminous quality and the purity of the colour."

945. ST. AGNES ADORING.

St. Agnes, the young martyr virgin,—attired as a

kneels before the infant Christ, "for knowest thou not that Agnes has been a Christian from her infancy upwards, and the husband to whom she is betrothed is no other than Jesus Christ?" The infant Christ holds a coral rosary in his hand, for he would crown her with jewels compared with which all earthly gifts are as dross. "It chanced that the son of the prefect of Rome beheld her one day as he rode through the city, and became violently enamoured, and desired to have her for his wife. He asked her in marriage of her parents, but the maiden repelled all his advances. Then he brought rich presents, bracelets of gold and gems, and rare jewels and precious ornaments, and promised her all the delights of the world if she would consent to be his wife. But she rejected him and his gifts, saying, Away from me, tempter! for I am already betrothed to a lover who is greater and fairer than any earthly suitor. To him I have pledged my faith, and he will crown me with jewels, compared to which thy gifts are dross" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 356.)

946. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

On the back of this picture is the brand of Charles I., a crown with C. R.

[Pg 476]

947. A PORTRAIT.

Formerly hung with the French pictures. Now ascribed to the Flemish School of the 15th or early 16th century.

948. LANDSCAPE: A SKETCH.

949. LANDSCAPE WITH GIPSIES.

950. VILLAGE GOSSIPS.

951. THE GAME OF BOWLS.

This artist is less memorable for his own works, which are mediocre, than as the founder of a family of painters (see Wauters: The Flemish School, p. 299), and the father of the celebrated David Teniers (the younger). He was a member of the Antwerp Guild of Painters, but spent ten years at Rome, where he came under the influence of Adam Elsheimer. The elder Teniers was the master of his son, who carried on his style, so that it is not always easy to distinguish their several pictures. In their own time father and son were equally appreciated. There is a large number of works by the elder Teniers in the Dulwich Gallery. On the whole they are browner in tone than those of the younger painter.

952. "THE VILLAGE FÊTE."

So the picture is usually called, but the subject seems rather to be a pilgrimage to some holy shrine or miraculous well. A cross is seen on the right; the priest in charge of the pilgrimage stands somewhat lower down; on the left is a man selling little memorial flags with crosses on them. The hungry travellers are waiting for the meal which is being prepared for them in several huge cauldrons. The town of Antwerp is seen in the distance. This picture, dated 1643, is among the best works of Teniers, and includes 150 figures. "Truth in physiognomy, distribution of groups, the beautiful effect of light and shade, command," says Hymans, "our[Pg 477] warmest admiration." In the foreground are Teniers and his party, with his little boy leading a greyhound, and the girl of this party is almost the only pleasant face in the picture. The painter, one begins to suspect, had not much real sympathy with his "village scenes" after all; and perhaps the demand for such scenes on the part of his aristocratic patrons was only a kind of vicarious "slumming"—an anticipation of the fashionable craze of a later age.

953. THE TOPER.

This picture is signed with a T. within a D., which is the signature of the elder Teniers.

954. A LANDSCAPE.

This painter, whose pictures have for the most part become very dark, was born at Antwerp, the son of an architect. He studied the art of landscape under Jacques d'Arthois at Brussels, by which master we are told he was kept so closely to drawing that he could only practise painting by night. He took up his abode at Mechlin; but in 1702 removed to Antwerp, returning, however, to Mechlin fourteen years later. Favourable examples of his work may be seen at the Louvre.

955. WOMEN BATHING.

This painter was a native of Utrecht, where he studied under A. Bloemaert. He afterwards visited Italy and Rome, where he was in 1617, and where he studied the works of Elsheimer. He generally painted Italian landscapes, which he peopled with nude figures, goddesses, nymphs bathing, or antique shepherdesses. These works hit the taste of Royal and Grand Ducal patrons throughout Europe. On quitting Rome for Florence, he was employed by the Grand Duke. In 1627 he returned to Utrecht, whither his fame had preceded him.[Pg 478] Rubens is said to have visited him, and Van Dyck painted his portrait. He was invited also to London, and was employed both by Charles I. and James II. He was on three occasions appointed Dean of the Painters' Guild at Utrecht, where he died. He frequently helped his fellow landscape painters by inserting figures for them. Those in Both's "Judgment of Paris" (No. 209) are by him.

956. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

957. GOATHERDS.

958. OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF ROME.

959. A RIVER SCENE.

960. THE WINDMILLS.

961. DORT (THE "LARGE DORT").

962. DORT (THE "SMALL DORT").

Groups of Cuyp's favourite cows in the foreground. In the distance the Groote Kerk of Dordrecht, with its handsome tower.

963. A SKATING SCENE.

A scene such as Isaac van Ostade specially loved. (See Pater's Imaginary Portraits, cited under 1137.)

964. A RIVER SCENE.

965. RIVER SCENE WITH STATE BARGE.

966. A RIVER SCENE.

[Pg 479]

967. DUTCH SHIPPING.

968. THE PAINTER'S WIFE.

969. A FROST SCENE.

970. THE DROWSY LANDLADY.

971, 972. LANDSCAPES.

973. SANDBANK.

Formerly ascribed to Jan Wynants.

974. LANDSCAPE.

A view of the Scheldt and Antwerp Cathedral in the distance.

975. THE STAG HUNT.

976. A BATTLE.

In Wouwerman's battle-pieces, says Ruskin, there is "nothing but animal rage and cowardice"—with which he contrasts the noble battle-piece by Paolo Uccello (583). "It is very singular," he adds, "that unmitigated expressions of cowardice in battle should be given by the painters of so brave a nation as the Dutch. Not but that it is possible[Pg 480] enough for a coward to be stubborn, and a brave man weak; the one may win his battle by blind persistence, and the other lose it by a thoughtful vacillation. Nevertheless, the want of all expression of resoluteness in Dutch battle-pieces remains, for the present, a mystery to me. In those of Wouwerman, it is only a natural development of his perfect vulgarity in all respects" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii. §§ 8-10).

977. A SEA-PIECE.

978. A RIVER SCENE.

A state barge in the centre; trumpeters sounding a salute on either side in other vessels.

979. A STIFF BREEZE.

980. DUTCH SHIPS OF WAR.

"The best example we have of the painter—a delightful picture. The sky is so delicate and unobtrusive that it does not expose his weakness in cloud drawing" (J. Brett, A.R.A., on "Landscape at the National Gallery," in Fortnightly Review, April 1895).

981. A STORM AT SEA.

See also under 819. This picture is signed (on a floating spar) and dated London 1673.

982. A FOREST SCENE (dated 1658).

983. A BAY HORSE (dated 1663).

984. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.

[Pg 481]

985. SHEEP AND GOATS.

986. THE WATERMILLS.

987. A ROCKY TORRENT.

988. AN OLD OAK.

989. WATERMILLS, WITH BLEACHERS.

See note to No. 44.

990. A WOODED PROSPECT.

"This picture with its large shadows sweeping over the landscape and its faint gleams of sunlight, suggesting an imminent rain-storm, is one of Ruysdael's most poetical works" (Poynter: The National Gallery, ii. 174).

991. THE BROKEN TREE.

992. ARCHITECTURAL SCENE.

Classic v. Gothic. An interesting picture of the architectural tendency of the time—the classical Palladian architecture of stone rising over the ruins of the red brick Gothic of earlier times. The same mixture of the old and the new—in juxtaposition not altogether unlike what is here represented—may[Pg 482] be seen in the town of Abingdon (Berks), where Inigo Jones's market-hall, built about the time of this picture, towers above the red bricks of the humbler and earlier styles.

993. A HOUSE AMONG TREES.

994. A STREET IN A TOWN.

995. A WOODY LANDSCAPE.

996. A CASTLE IN A ROCKY LANDSCAPE.

Signed, and dated 1667.

997. SCOURING THE KETTLE

In pictures of this kind by Dou and his followers you fancy, it has been said, that "you see and hear the very grit as it cuts into the yellow metal."

998. SINGING A DUET.

A lover holds a guitar, his mistress some music; on the table is a rose—

999. BY CANDLE-LIGHT.

"To give the most natural effect to his candle-light pieces, Schalcken is said to have adopted the following system:—He[Pg 483] placed the object he intended to paint in a dark room, with a candle, and looking through a small hole, painted by day what he saw by candle-light" (Bryan's Dictionary).

1000. THE ESTUARY OF A RIVER.

1001. HOLLYHOCKS AND OTHER FLOWERS.

Notice the snail crawling along in front.

1002. FLOWERS, INSECTS, AND FRUIT.

A painter of fruit and flowers in the style of de Heem. His flowers are generally arranged in water-bottles, and are besprinkled with butterflies and other insects. He painted at Amsterdam from about 1667 to 1718.

1003. DEAD PARTRIDGES AND OTHER BIRDS.

Fyt—painter and etcher of animals—was a pupil of Snyders, whom in some respects he excelled. The sale catalogues of the greater part of the nineteenth century show that his works were little appreciated, but recent criticism has given him a very high place among the animal and still-life painters of his country. "Fyt's work," says Sir F. Burton, "is perfect in its kind, exhibiting the finest observation of nature, and an execution which unites the greatest mastery with the utmost delicacy. His composition is unconstrained, and the colouring and tone of his pictures are most pleasing." He was born at Antwerp, where, after some years' residence in Italy, he became Dean of the Painters' Guild.

1004. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

1005. PLOUGHING.

"There is in this small picture," says Sir Edward Poynter, "a genuine feeling for nature, which is generally somewhat[Pg 484] wanting in the works of Berchem, whose manner, founded on the study of Italian landscape art, gives frequently an artificial effect to his composition" (National Gallery, i. 44).

1006. HURDY-GURDY.

Berchem, as we have seen, was an "Italianiser," and here introduces us to one of the exports of that country—

1007. A ROCKY LANDSCAPE.

Wils, whose pictures are seldom met with, "would appear, from the style of most of his works, to have studied under Jan Both at Utrecht.... He was the father-in-law and one of the teachers of Nicolas Berchem, between whose works and some of those of Wils (as, for instance, the present picture) a great resemblance may be traced" (Official Catalogue).

The figures in this picture are supposed to have been put in by Wouwerman.

1008. A STAG HUNT.

Pieter Potter, the father of Paul Potter, was a native of Enkhuizen, and originally painted on glass. In one of his early signatures (1628) he describes himself as "glass annealer, also painter." Later on, he settled at Amsterdam and was director of a manufactory of gilt leather there. He formed his style, we are told, under the influence of Frans Hals, and painted various subjects, such as scenes in the guard-house, still-life, and landscape.

1009. THE OLD GRAY HUNTER.

[Pg 485]

1010. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE.

This painter was born at Heusden. He lived at Arnemuiden in Zealand, of which town he was burgomaster. He worked also at Haarlem, Delft, and Antwerp.

A picture by a rare master—interesting to students of the history of architectural taste. In 992 we are shown the struggle between the old Gothic style and the new Renaissance architecture; here we see the full victory of the latter. Dirk van Delen loved to depict the costly and variegated marbles on splendid palaces in the style of the late Renaissance. He will not be defrauded, even by considerations of distance, of any of his details, and every statue and ornament is shown us as minutely as if it were on the level of the eye. The classical style has pervaded too the fountain; note the gilt bronze group of Hercules and the Hydra.

1011. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

A faithful imitation on a reduced scale of Van Dyck's ideal of feminine "elegance." There is a certain artificial simplicity very characteristic of the time, in the combination of the lady, with her sumptuous white satin and the elaborate architecture behind her, and her pet lamb.

1012. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

This painter was the son of Matthew Merian, the elder, an eminent Swiss draughtsman and engraver. The father had established himself at Frankfort as a book and print seller, and on his death in 1650, the son assumed management of the business, and continued the publication of the "Theatrum Europæum," for which he arranged several plates. But the younger Merian was best known as a painter. He was born at Bâle, and at the age of 14 came to Frankfort, where he learnt to paint under Joachim van Sandrart, whom he accompanied to Amsterdam in 1637 and to England in 1640. In this country he came into friendly relations with Van Dyck, whom he took as his model in the art of portraiture. Merian also travelled in France and Italy. As a portrait-painter he was much patronised by the German princes and also by the Emperor Leopold I. He also painted religious and historical pictures, such as the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,"[Pg 486] for the high altar of Bamberg Cathedral, and the "Resurrection," in the Library of Bâle.

This picture was formerly ascribed to Van Dyck. The man's dress is of black velvet, of the fashion of about 1665-70.

1013. GEESE AND DUCKS.

1014. THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. LAWRENCE.

Elsheimer was the son of a tailor at Frankfort-on-Maine. He himself settled in Rome. "He inherited with his northern blood an intense love of nature and her varied aspects. Upon this he engrafted a careful study of the human form, and in Italy he profited by the example of the great masters of preceding generations. Thus, aided by a certain homely imagination, he formed a style of his own, combining landscape and figure in such a manner that each was the necessary complement of the other, and that subject and situation were in perfect harmony. The lonely, and at that time, wooded, depressions of the Roman Campagna, and the hills of Albano and Tivoli, were his favourite haunts, and in their scenery his imagination placed events in biblical or mythological story. He loved especially to paint the strange effects produced by diverse sources of illumination. The novelty of his aims, the beauty of his execution, and the geniality of his disposition, gained him admirers and friends" (Official Catalogue). His contemporaries Sandrart and Cornelius de Bie describe him as an extraordinary artist who had "a peculiar manner of his own. He was, indeed, the first who invented a style of small sceneries, landscapes, and other curiosities." He possessed, we are told, so extraordinary a memory, that it was sufficient for him to have looked at an object or scene once to draw it with the utmost precision. The extreme patience and labour with which he finished his pictures were such that the prices he received never sufficiently repaid him. Had he been paid but a fourth part of what his works have since produced, he might have lived in affluence instead of indigence and distress. Elsheimer usually painted on copper (as is the case with this picture). His etchings and drawings are well known; in the Städel Institute of his native town there is a large collection of them. There are also some in the British Museum. Elsheimer's works had a considerable influence on many succeeding Dutch painters. "Elsheimer," says Mr. Colvin in his Guide to the British Museum Drawings, "fills a very important part in art as the forerunner on the one hand of Claude and his group, by his delight in the composition and massing of the forms of hill, plain, and grove in the country round Rome, and on the other hand of Rembrandt and[Pg 487] his group, by his predilection for strong artificial contrasts of light, and for the dramatic and speaking action of his figures."

St. Lawrence (for whose legend see 747) is being prepared for martyrdom. Beside him there is an image of Cæsar, unto whom will be rendered Cæsar's due—the saint's life; but over his head is an angel from heaven, for unto God will go the saint's soul. The emperor is crowned on earth; the angel brings the saint a palm branch, an earnest of the martyr's crown in heaven.

1015. FRUIT, FLOWERS, AND DEAD BIRDS.

Born at Middelharnis, a most distinguished flower-painter in the manner of Van Huysum. He also painted marine pieces and wrote poetry. His wife drew portraits in chalk, and his two sons were painters.

Prominent amongst the flowers is the red cockscomb. A picture by the most distinguished flower-painter of his time, and characteristic, in an interesting particular, of Dutch pictures of this kind generally. "If the reader has any familiarity with the galleries of painting in the great cities of Europe, he cannot but retain a clear, though somewhat monotonously calm, impression of the character of those polished flower-pieces, or still-life pieces, which occupy subordinate corners, and invite to moments of repose, or frivolity, the attention and imagination which have been wearied in admiring the attitudes of heroism, and sympathising with the sentiments of piety. Recalling to his memory the brightest examples of these ... he will find that all the older ones agree—if flower-pieces—in a certain courtliness and formality of arrangement, implying that the highest honours which flowers can attain are in being wreathed into grace of garlands, or assembled in variegation of bouquets, for the decoration of beauty, or flattery of noblesse. If fruit or still-life pieces, they agree no less distinctly in directness of reference to the supreme hour when the destiny of dignified fruit is to be accomplished in a royal dessert; and the furred and feathered life of hill and forest may bear witness to the Wisdom of Providence by its extinction for the kitchen dresser. Irrespectively of these ornamental virtues, and culinary utilities, the painter never seems to perceive any conditions of beauty in the things themselves, which would make them worth regard for their own sake: nor, even in these appointed functions, are they ever supposed to be worth painting, unless the[Pg 488] pleasures they procure be distinguished as those of the most exalted society" (Notes on Prout and Hunt, pp. 10, 11, where Ruskin goes on to contrast with this Dutch ideal the simple pleasure in the flowers and fruits for their own sake which marks W. Hunt's still-life drawings).

Observe, as further characteristic of Dutch fruit-pieces, the butterfly, the fly, and the earwig: "There was a further tour de force demanded of the Dutch workman, without which all his happiest preceding achievements would have been unacknowledged. Not only a dew-drop, but, in some depth of bell or cranny of leaf, a bee, or a fly, was necessary for the complete satisfaction of the connoisseur. In the articulation of the fly's legs, or neurology of the bee's wings, the genius of painting was supposed to signify her accepted disciples; and their work went forth to the European world, thenceforward, without question, as worthy of its age and country. But, without recognising in myself, or desiring to encourage in my scholars, any unreasonable dislike or dread of the lower orders of living creatures, I trust that the reader will feel with me that none of Mr. Hunt's peaches or plums would be made daintier by the detection on them of even the most cunningly latent wasp, or cautiously rampant caterpillar; and will accept, without so much opposition as it met with forty years ago, my then first promulgated, but steadily since repeated assertion, that the 'modern painter' had in these matters less vanity than the ancient one, and better taste" (ib. pp. 14, 15).

1016. A PORTRAIT OF A GIRL.

Lely, the court painter of the reign of Charles II., by whom he was knighted, was a native of Holland; his father's name was Van der Vaes, but the son took the nickname of Le Lys or Lely (from the lily with which the front of his father's house was ornamented) as a surname. He was born in Westphalia, but settled in England in 1641, the year of Van Dyck's death, on whom he modelled his style. It was Lely who is said to have painted Cromwell, "warts and all," but he easily accommodated himself to the softer manners of the Restoration. The rich curls, the full lips, and the languishing eyes of the frail beauties of Charles II. may be seen at Hampton Court. Lely was "a mighty proud man," says Pepys, "and full of state." The painting of great ladies was a lucrative business, and his collection of drawings and pictures sold at his death for £26,000, a sum which bore a greater proportion to the fortunes of the rich men of that day than £100,000[Pg 489] would bear to the fortunes of the rich men of our time. He was struck with apoplexy while painting the Duchess of Somerset, and was buried at St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

The courtly affectation which distinguishes Lely's portraits is not absent from this little girl. She is feeding the parrot, but obviously takes no interest in it—not even troubling indeed to look at it. Her concern seems to be only to hold up her flowing frock (or "simar") prettily and to point her fingers gracefully.

1017. A WOODY LANDSCAPE.

The landscape is probably by Josse Mompers, an Antwerp artist who lived 1564-1635.

1018. A CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE.

A characteristic example of Claude's "classical compositions" as described in our chapter on the French School. It is one of his late works, being dated 1673; the names of Anchises and Æneas occur.

1019. THE HEAD OF A GIRL.

1020. GIRL WITH AN APPLE.

[Pg 490]

1021. PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN.

Among the Dutch portrait-painters, Hals stands second only to Rembrandt, while for mastery of the brush he is second only to Velazquez. Though born in Antwerp and a pupil of Karel van Mander (the Flemish painter and biographer), Hals is claimed as a member of the Dutch School, inasmuch as his father was settled at Haarlem in Holland, and he himself lived and worked there. In style, "though his vigorous drawing recalls by its boldness the masterly method of Rubens, his manner of giving to his work a sustained light, his style of composition, and the choice of his subject, place him unmistakably in the Dutch School.... No one, either before or after him, ever attained the marvellous exactness with which he places flesh tints in juxtaposition, without their mixing together, just as they come from the palette.... No artist ever manipulated his brush with such firmness, freedom, and life. In consequence of his extraordinary ability, Frans Hals has been called 'the personification of painting'" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 110). "We prize in Rembrandt," says another critic, "the golden glow of effect based upon artificial contrast of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals was fond of daylight of silvery sheen. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys. Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble." Rembrandt's portraits are the more profound, and there is in them an intensity of pathetic realism which was beyond the reach of Hals; but Hals seizes the brighter moments of lusty life with a force and truth which have never been excelled. Hals is best seen in the Haarlem Museum in a series of portrait groups. Of his single portraits, No. 1251 in our Gallery is a characteristic example, and at Hertford House is a famous and charming picture, "The Laughing Cavalier," which is full of what Fromentin well calls "the irresistible verve" of Frans Hals.

The life of Hals was irregular and improvident, but full also of work and energy. At a time when the Dutch nation fought for independence and won it, Hals appears in the ranks of its military guilds. He was also a member of the Chamber of Rhetoric, and president of the Painters' Corporation at Haarlem. In 1610 he married, and five years later was summoned before the magistrates for ill-treating his wife, and on that occasion was severely reprimanded for his violent and drunken habits. His first wife died prematurely, and he saved the character of his second by marrying her in 1617. With her he seems to have lived happily for nearly fifty years, and they brought up a large family. Financial troubles, however, befell the painter. In 1654 a forced sale of his pictures and furniture at the suit of his baker brought him to penury. A few years later we hear of the municipality paying his rent and firing for him, and[Pg 491] granting him a small annuity. His widow had to seek outdoor relief from the guardians of the poor. His four sons were all painters, and attained some distinction. Several of the best Dutch painters—Van der Helst, A. van Ostade, Metsu, Terburg, Steen, and others—were directly or indirectly his scholars. In the Haarlem Museum there is a picture by Job Berck-Heyde, dated 1652, of the studio in which Frans Hals is surrounded by his sons and pupils.

1022. AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN.

His left foot appears to have been wounded, for it is attached by a kind of stirrup and black cord to a band above the knee. It is interesting to compare this portrait with the closely corresponding one by Moretto which hangs near it (1025). Both are excellent examples of the several masters. Both were, no doubt, good likenesses; but there is a suggestion of poetry in Moretto's which one misses in Moroni's. Both are believed to be portraits of members of the Fernaroli family.

1023. AN ITALIAN LADY.

Said to be the wife of the subject of the preceding portrait. Not so happy a production; Moroni's strength lay in portraits of the other sex.

1024. AN ITALIAN ECCLESIASTIC.

The letter in his hand is addressed to himself, and tells us that he is Ludovico di Terzi, Canon of Bergamo, and an Apostolic Prothonotary. These latter functionaries, of whom there are still twelve in the Roman Church, are the chiefs of what may be called the Record Office of the Church. It is their business to draw up the reports of all important Church functions, such as the enthronements of new popes and public consistories. It is an office of much dignity—as this holder of it seems to be fully conscious, and the prothonotaries rank with bishops in the Church.

[Pg 492]

1025. AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN.

This picture, dated 1526, is one of Moretto's most elegant portraits. It is a true character portrait, a picture of a soul as well as of a face. It shows us an Italian nobleman with all the poetry and aspiration of chivalry. On his scarlet cap he bears his proud device—a medallion in gold and enamel of St. Christopher bearing the infant Saviour—the ideal of Christian chivalry: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of one of these, ye have done it unto me." The picture is no doubt a portrait of one of the Fernaroli family, from whose palace in Brescia it came.

1031. MARY MAGDALENE.

Savoldo, "an excellent amateur, who was apparently first a pupil of Romanino, then of Giovanni Bellini, and later of Titian"[200] (Morelli: Borghese Gallery, p. 246). "He visited Florence in 1508, and we find him enrolled as master in the Painters' Guild there; his stay cannot, however, have been of long duration, as none of his works known to us betray the slightest Florentine influence" (id. German Galleries, p. 408). "His works," says Sir F. Burton, "display a distinct individuality, the result of tendencies inherent in his nature. The romantic element, already developed in Venetian art, shows itself strongly in his passion for scenes of early dawn and late sunset and effects of night illuminated by fire. His human types are pleasing with a certain grave dignity. His colouring is on the whole colder than that of his contemporaries of the Veneto-Brescian School, and his flesh tints are adust and sombre, especially in his male figures; nor are his draperies generally brilliant in colour, although he delighted in the sheen of silken stuffs, contrasting it with the kind of twilight which pervades many of his pictures." "His landscapes in sacred subjects make a profound impression of silent wonder and devotion. They seem to palpitate in sympathy with the deeds they witness, instead of being mere scenic backgrounds. In the Berlin Deposition, for instance, the sky is lurid and blood-stained; in the Adoration at Turin the shepherds seem to be stealing noiselessly along, afraid of causing the least disturbance in the hush and awe of the morning" (Mary Logan's Guide to Hampton Court, in which collection there is a picture by [Pg 493]Savoldo of a Madonna and Child, dated 1527). Savoldo's pictures are rare, and often pass under other names. He was, says Vasari (iv. 535), "a fanciful and ingenious person, what he has accomplished well meriting to be highly commended." An important altar-piece, bearing his signature, is in the Brera at Milan, and a beautiful "Adoration of the Shepherds" is in the Church of St. Giobbe at Venice.

"A vein of realism, combined with the mystery of Savoldo's deep colours and half-lights, is seen in the picture of a woman shrouded in a mantle in the National Gallery" (Layard, ii. 585). The picture agrees with the description given by Ridolfi of a "Magdalene," "a celebrated work of which there are many copies." A very similar picture, signed with Savoldo's name, is in the Berlin Gallery. The Magdalen is here approaching the sepulchre, before which is a vase of ointment on a square stone—for she had "bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning ... they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun" (Mark xvi. 1, 2). Notice the daring anachronism in the Venetian background, which "gives with exquisite truth a very early dawn upon the Giudecca."

1032. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

Giovanni di Pietro, called Lo Spagna (the Spaniard), presumably from his nationality, was a pupil of Pietro Perugino—the best, perhaps, of all his pupils who remained untouched by other influences. Observe for the influence of Perugino's teaching the lovely flowers in the foreground and the attitude of the leader of the Roman soldiers on the left (like that of Perugino's Michael in 288). In 1516 Lo Spagna was made a citizen of Spoleto, and in the following year president of the Society of Artists there. The Madonna Enthroned, now in the Lower Church of Assisi, is considered his masterpiece.

An angel bearing a chalice flies towards Christ from above ("O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done"). On the right is Judas with a band of Roman soldiers. On the foreground are the three disciples sleeping ("What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak").

[Pg 494]

This picture was at one time ascribed to the young Raphael,[201] being identified with the work which he executed for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, and which is thus described by Vasari (iii. 8): "For the same noble, the master executed another small picture, representing Christ praying in the Garden, with three of the apostles, who are sleeping at some distance, and which is so beautifully painted that it could scarcely be either better or otherwise were it even in miniature." Vasari traces the history of the picture down to his time, when it was in the Hermitage of Camaldoli. Our picture was formerly in the possession of Prince Gabrielli at Rome. The greater portion of the original drawing for it is in the Uffizi, catalogued under Perugino.

1033. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

This picture[202] (like 592, q.v.) is often ascribed to Botticelli, from whom Filippino learnt his fondness for the circular form. Every one will recognise too the resemblance to Botticelli in the daintiness of the dresses, the trappings of the horses (especially in the middle of the foreground), and the other accessories (such as the head-dresses of the Magi on the right). Vasari, indeed, says of Filippino that "the ornaments he added were so new, so fanciful, and so richly varied, that he must be considered the first who taught the moderns the new method of giving variety to the habiliments, and who first embellished his figures by adorning them with vestments after the antique." Filippino and later painters give these embellishments to angels as well as to men; and Vasari, it will be seen, considered it altogether an improvement. Some remarks on the other side will be found in Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 14 ("Of the Superhuman Ideal"). "The ornaments used by Angelico, Giotto, and Perugino (see, e.g. 288) are always of a generic and abstract character. They are not [Pg 495]diamonds, nor brocades, nor velvets, nor gold embroideries; they are mere spots of gold or of colour, simple patterns upon textureless draperies; the angel wings burn with transparent crimson and purple and amber, but they are not set forth with peacocks' plumes; the golden circlets gleam with changeful light, but they are not beaded with pearls nor set with sapphires. In the works of Filippino Lippi, Mantegna, and many other painters following, interesting examples may be found of the opposite treatment; and as in Lippi the heads are usually very sweet, and the composition severe, the degrading effect of the realised decorations and imitated dress may be seen in him simply, and without any addition of painfulness from other deficiencies of feeling." In addition to the minor ornamentation, one may notice in this picture the crowded groups of spectators which Filippino was fond of introducing. But so harmoniously are they grouped in six principal groups that the spectator will at first probably be surprised to hear that there are as many as seventy figures in the picture.

1034. THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.

The family surname of Sandro (Alessandro, or Alexander) was Filipepi. "He was apprenticed when a lad to a goldsmith, called Botticello (for he obstinately refused to learn either to read, write, or sum); of which master we know only that he so formed this boy that thenceforward the boy thought it right to be called Botticello's Sandro, and nobody else's (in Italian Sandro di Botticello, abbreviated into Sandro Botticelli).[203] Having learned prosperously how to manage gold, [Pg 496]he took a fancy to know how to manage colour, and was put under the best master in Florence, the Monk Lippi" (see 666). Some characteristics of Lippi's art—its union of a buoyant spirit of life and enjoyment with simplicity and tenderness of religious feeling—are seen in the pupil. But he added in his turn marked characteristics of his own, which are noticed in detail under his several pictures here. "Where Fra Filippo was all repose, Sandro was all movement." Moreover, Botticelli's range of subject was very wide—embracing Venus crowned with roses and the Virgin crowned by Christ, the birth of Love (at Florence), and the birth of the Saviour. Botticelli, says Ruskin, is "the only painter of Italy who understood the thoughts of Heathens and Christians equally, and could in a measure paint both Aphrodite and the Madonna. So that he is, on the whole, the most universal of painters; and, take him all in all, the greatest Florentine workman" (Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii. 2). He was, we are told, persona sofistica, and lived on terms of intimacy with members of the Florentine Platonic Academy. The speculations which he shared with the poet Matteo Palmieri are enshrined in his "Assumption" (No. 1126), painted about 1475. In 1481 he executed a series of designs for Landino's edition of Dante: these wonderful drawings, formerly in the Hamilton Collection, are now at Berlin. "By this time," says Ruskin, "he was accounted so good a divine, as well as painter, that Pope Sixtus IV. sent for him to be master of the works in his new (Sistine) chapel—where the first thing my young gentleman does, mind you, is to paint the devil, in a monk's dress, tempting Christ! The sauciest thing, out and out, done in the history of the Reformation, it seems to me; yet so wisely done, and with such true respect otherwise shown for what was sacred in the Church, that the Pope didn't mind; and all went on as merrily as marriage bells." The history of Moses—the subject of his other fresco in the Sistine Chapel—"teems with his exuberant power and displays great grandeur of landscape." In the same chapel are also 28 portraits of Popes by Botticelli. "And having thus obtained great honour and reputation, and considerable sums of money, he squandered all the last away. And at this time, Savonarola beginning to make himself heard, and founding in Florence the company of the Piagnoni (Mourners or Grumblers, as opposed to the men of pleasure), Sandro made a Grumbler of himself, being then some forty years old; fell sadder, wiser, and poorer day by day; until he became a poor bedesman of Lorenzo de' Medici; and having gone some time on crutches, being unable to stand upright, died peacefully" (Ariadne Florentina, Lecture VI.; Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii. 2-6).

Few things are more curious in the history of taste than the vicissitudes of Botticelli's fame. In his own day he had been much esteemed, but his reputation was soon eclipsed. In 1602 a decree was issued by the Grand Duke of Tuscany prohibiting the inhabitants of Florence from removing important works of art, for "neither the city nor the land itself is to be despoiled of the masterpieces of eminent painters." The schedule of eccellenti pittori contains nineteen names, among which that[Pg 497] of Filippino Lippi, Botticelli's pupil, is included, but not Botticelli himself.[204] The rediscovery of Botticelli has fallen to our country and generation. The influence of Rossetti, the example of Burne-Jones, the famous essay of Pater, and the enthusiasm of Ruskin, have established a cult of Botticelli which in earlier generations would have passed for a mild lunacy.[205] Goldsmith, had he witnessed it, might have substituted the name of Botticelli for that of Perugino in his satire on fashionable æstheticism. The poetical imagination of Botticelli, his inventive design, the strong sense of life which glows through all his pictures, are truly admirable. But what lends additional force to his vogue is the seal of intimité which is set upon his work. Botticelli treats his themes, says Burton "with a verve, a naïveté, and pathos peculiar to himself." Besides the very greatest men, there is (says Pater) "a certain number of artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere, and these, too, have their place in general culture. Of this select number Botticelli is one; he has the freshness, the uncertain and diffident promise which belongs to the earlier Renaissance itself, and makes it perhaps the most interesting period in the history of the mind; in studying his work one begins to understand to how great a place in human culture the art of Italy had been called."

The other pictures by Botticelli in the National Gallery (see 275, 1126, and 915) adequately represent his earlier phases; this one completes the story of his life—painted as it was under Savonarola's influence—

[Pg 498]

This beautiful and curious picture is very characteristic of Botticelli's genius. It is full of highly wrought emotion—note "the fervour of the still Madonna as she kneels before the Child, the extraordinary nervous tension which the artist has managed to suggest in the seated figure of Joseph, the rapture and ecstasy of the angels"; the picture is full also, as we shall see, of mystic symbolism, but all is crowned and harmonised by a sense of pictorial daintiness and beauty. The centre of the picture is occupied by the familiar subject of the Nativity, and the accessories suggest in symbolic fashion the effects of Christ's Advent upon the good and the evil respectively. The theological symbolism may be seen in the gesture of the divine Child pointing to his mouth—typifying that he was the Word of God. So at the bottom of the picture there are devils running, at Christ's coming, into chinks of the rocks (those who are Christ's must put away "the works of darkness"); whilst the shepherds and angels embracing signify the reconciliation such as Savonarola wished to effect between heaven and earth. On either side of the central group angels are telling the glad tidings "of peace on earth, goodwill towards men." Note the symmetry in this part of the picture; the three Magi on the left, the three shepherds in adoration on the right; and in colour, the red frock of the angel on the right, the red wings on the left. Meanwhile in the sky above is a lovely choir of Botticelli's floating angels, dancing between earth and heaven, on a golden background suffused with light. The picture is, says Ruskin, "a quite perfect example of what the masters of the pure Greek school did in Florence.... The entire purpose of the picture is a mystic symbolism by motion and chiaroscuro. By motion, first. There is a dome of burning clouds in the upper heaven. Twelve angels half float, half dance, in a circle, round the lower vault of it. All their drapery is drifted so as to make you feel the whirlwind of their motion. They are seen by gleams of silvery or fiery light, relieved against an equally lighted blue of inimitable depth and loveliness. It is impossible for you ever to see a more noble work of passionate Greek chiaroscuro—rejoicing in light" (Lectures on Landscape, § 58). The introduction in the same[Pg 499] picture of the solemn teaching below, with these beautiful angel forms above, suggests precisely what Ruskin has defined to be Botticelli's position among pictorial reformers. "He was what Luther wished to be, but could not be—a reformer still believing in the Church; his mind is at peace, and his art therefore can pursue the delight of beauty and yet remain prophetic." "He was not a preacher of new doctrines, but a witness against the betrayal of old ones."

The first and more obvious intention of Botticelli's painted sermon was, as we have seen, to show the effects of the Advent upon the good and the evil. But he has also a particular application, an esoteric meaning. The clue to this is afforded by the Greek inscription at the top, which, being interpreted, is—

"This picture I, Alexander, painted at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the Second Woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him trodden down, as in this picture."

"In the troubles of Italy, at the end of the year 1500." Now, on May 12, 1497, exactly three years and a half before the date of Botticelli's inscription, Savonarola was burnt alive (as depicted on the little panel, No. 1301); and his death, says the historian, "meant for Florence the triumph of all that was most corrupt; vice was everywhere rampant, and virtuous living was utterly despised." But in the faith of Botticelli, the reverent disciple of Savonarola, this tyranny of the Evil One was doomed to pass away. He saw "in the troubles of Italy" a fulfilment of the awful words to which his inscription refers us in the eleventh chapter of the Revelation of St. John the Divine:—

The holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy. These are the two olive trees. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard[Pg 500] a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. The second woe is past. And there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

To the elect, then, Botticelli meant his picture to show the fulfilment of the prophecy by the Second Advent of Christ, and the final triumph of Savonarola. The men embraced by angels are in this reading of the picture the "witnesses" to whom the spirit of life was returned; they are welcomed back to earth by angels, ere they are rapt heavenward. They bear olive boughs, because in the Apocalypse olive trees are symbolical of the Lord's anointed ones. "There is but one point which seems at variance with the Biblical text: in it two witnesses are spoken of, here there are three. This deviation was doubtless intentional. When Savonarola died, two others shared his palm of martyrdom, Fra Domenico Buonvicini and Fra Silvestre Marussi. The three figures crowned with myrtle represent the three risen and glorified martyrs" (Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 61. See also Mr. Sidney Colvin's article in the Portfolio, Feb. 1879).

1035. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Francesco di Cristoforo Bigi (this picture is signed FRA CP = Franciscus Cristophori pinxit), commonly called Francia Bigio, was the son of a weaver at Milan, and "devoted himself to the art of painting, not so much (Vasari tells us) because he was desirous of fame, as that he might thus be enabled to render assistance to his indigent relations." He was at first the pupil of Albertinelli (645), and afterwards formed a close friendship with Andrea del Sarto, in conjunction with whom he produced his first important work in 1513, in the small cloister of the Servi. It was here that occurred the famous scene, described by Vasari, with the Friars, who, having uncovered Bigio's fresco of the Sposalizio before the painter considered it finished, so enraged him that he defaced some of the finest heads in it with a mason's hammer, and would have destroyed the whole but for forcible intervention. Neither he nor any other painter could be induced to repair the injuries, which remain to this day. Bigio was, as we may see from this picture, an admirable portrait-painter—an excellence which he owed, says Vasari, to his patient and modest industry. He was "a great lover of peace, and for that reason (adds Vasari drily) would never marry."

[Pg 501]

The young man wears on his breast the cross of the Knights of Malta. The letter in his hand bears the date 1514. On the parapet is an inscription: tar: vblia: chi: bien: eima (slowly forgets he who loves well)—

1036. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

A picture, it might be, of Hamlet with the skulls: "That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once." In his left hand he holds a flower: "there's pansies, that's for thoughts."

1041. THE VISION OF ST. HELENA.

St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, when a victory was gained by the emperor, to recover the very cross of which she had seen a mysterious symbol. Having reached the sacred city, she caused the soil of Calvary to be excavated, because the Jews were accustomed to bury the instruments of execution upon the spot where they had been used. And there she found three crosses, and that one which was the holy cross was distinguished from the others by the healing of a lady of quality who was sick. The empress divided the true cross into three parts, giving one of them to the Bishop of Jerusalem, and another to the church at Constantinople. The third she brought to Rome, where she built for it the great basilica of S. Croce.

Here we see the saint in devout reverie, while through the open window two cherubim bear a cross through the air. This beautiful picture, in which Veronese gives us an ideal and mystic composition, treated with a simplicity unusual to him, seems to have been derived from a plate by Marc Antonio, the founder of Italian engraving (1480-1534), supposed to be after a drawing by Raphael. The design is identical, though an exquisitely airy angel with a slender cross in Marc Antonio's engraving is replaced in Veronese's picture by chubby cherubs with a more solid cross. (The engraving is reproduced in the[Pg 502] Art Journal, 1891, p. 376, with some critical remarks. "This wonderful picture," says the writer, "is at once a delight and a puzzle. If Veronese was capable of efforts like the 'Vision of St. Helena,' why have we not more such, seeing how many treasures of his art have survived to us? The engraving offers an explanation, curiously exact, of this difficulty. Whatever in the 'Vision' is Veronese's own—the drapery and the colour—is not more remarkable than in many other pictures of his; on the other hand, whatever is not distinctively of Veronese is Marc Antonio's.... What more natural than that Veronese should essay to clothe in the glory of his own colouring[206] some creation of the great Italian who learnt from Dürer how to interpret the art of Raphael to Italy?") Veronese's picture once formed the altar-piece of a chapel dedicated to St. Helena at Venice, and was afterwards in the collection of the great Duke of Marlborough.

1042. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

Catharina was the daughter of a painter named Jan Sanders, called Jan van Hemessen from his native village. She married a musician of repute in the Low Countries, and with him went to Madrid, where she acquired celebrity and favour through her ability in portraiture.

1045. A CANON AND HIS PATRON SAINT.

This remarkable painter, who has been rediscovered in recent years by the researches of Mr. Weale, was born in Oudewater, a small town in the south of Holland. He settled in Bruges in 1483, passing through the various grades of the Painters' Guild in that town, until he became its Dean in 1501. He was also connected with the Guild of Illuminators of Bruges, and with that of painters at Antwerp. In 1496 he married the daughter of a Bruges goldsmith. In 1509 he painted and presented to the Carmelites of Sion at Bruges a beautiful altar-piece, in which he introduced his own portrait in the background to the right, and that of his wife to the left. This altar-piece was sold by the Carmelites in 1785, and is now in the Museum of Rouen. Other important works by the painter are now in the [Pg 503]Academy at Bruges, and in the church of St. Basil in that town there is a triptych by him. The present picture and No. 1432 were also painted for a church in the same place. David's works have often been confounded with those of Memlinc, and it is impossible to give them higher praise. He was a fine colourist. His faces show that he was an adequate interpreter of character. The details he executed with the utmost minuteness and skill; and he is remarkable also for his careful and truthful landscapes. In 1508 David entered a religious brotherhood; he was buried in Notre Dame at Bruges, where he was laid beneath the tower.

The canon kneels in adoration, with his patron saints around him—St. Bernardino of Siena behind, St. Donatian in advance of him, and St. Martin to the left. It was St. Martin who shared his cloak with the beggar, and here in the distance to the left—in compliment to the canon's generosity—is a beggar limping towards the group, asking alms. Notice the wood through which he walks. The subdued light beneath the thick foliage of the trees is admirably rendered. David "was the first painter to think of the shadow-giving nature of trees. Trees had for many years formed a favourite subject for backgrounds, but even by Memlinc they were rather conventionally rendered, one by one, not grouped into woods, and seldom brought into the foreground. Here we have a wood brought near us, with its domed canopy of foliage above, and its labyrinth of trunks buried in sylvan twilight below" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 298). Notice also the beautiful and elaborate work on the robes of St. Martin and St. Donatian. They are fully described in Mr. Weale's monograph referred to below. This will repay the most minute examination. The crimson-velvet cope of St. Martin is a masterpiece. The portrait of the donor is admirable.

The history of this beautiful picture, and of the changes and chances it went through before finding a permanent home in the National Gallery, is very curious. In 1501 a colleague of Richard van der Capelle (see 1432) and one of the executors of his will, namely, Canon Bernardin Salviati (illegitimate son of a rich Florentine merchant who traded or resided in Flanders), was secretary of the chapter of S. Donatian at Bruges. Having obtained leave to restore and embellish the altar of SS. John Baptist and Mary Magdalene, he commissioned Gerard David to paint the shutters of the reredos. These shutters, together with those[Pg 504] of several other altar reredoses in the nave of the church, were, at the request of the sacristan, who complained that they were always breaking the wax candles, sold in a lot by order of the chapter in 1787 for an insignificant sum of money. What became of the others is not known, but the one before us was, as we learn from the letters of Horace Walpole, bought in 1792, by Mr. Thomas Barrett, of Lee Priory, Kent, and it figures in the catalogue of that collection as "a group of saints by John Gossart of Maubeuge." At the sale of the Lee Priory Collection in May 1859, it was knocked down to the late Mr. William Benoni White for 525 guineas. Sir J. C. Robinson drew Mr. Weale's attention to the picture, which he at once recognised as being the right-hand shutter of the reredos of Salviati's chantry altar. "I tried hard," says Mr. Weale, "but in vain, to persuade the late Sir Charles Eastlake to purchase it for the National Gallery, but Mr. White would not part with it for less than £1000. Oddly enough the latter, who bore the character of being a most penurious and miserly man, by his last will and testament proved a generous benefactor to the nation, and left this panel in July 1878 to the National Gallery" (W. H. James Weale: Portfolio monograph on Gerard David, 1895, p. 18).

1047. A FAMILY GROUP.

"Supposed," says the official catalogue, "to represent the painter, his wife, and two children." This cannot be the case, for Lotto seems to have had no close domestic ties. The picture is, however, full of interest for its own sake. "The man and the woman are, it is true, both looking out of the picture, but nevertheless the feeling we have is that the group before us is not, as is usual in Italian family pictures, a mere collection of portraits, but that it is composed of people who are intimately related to each other, constantly acting and reacting one upon the other, and that it is presented in a way which, while giving the individuality of each, makes it hard to think of them except as conditioned, and even determined, by each other's presence." We may in fact find in this domestic group an anticipation of the spirit of the modern psychological novel. "Far from being painted as such groups usually were in Italy—a mere collection of faces looking one like the other,[Pg 505] but with no bond of sympathy or interest uniting them—it is in itself a family story, as modern almost as Tolstoi's Katia. Lotto makes it evident that the sensitiveness of the man's nature has brought him to understand and condone his wife's limitations, and that she, in her turn, has been refined and softened into sympathy with him; so that the impression the picture leaves is one of great kindliness, covering a multitude of small disappointments and incompatibilities" (B. Berenson: Lorenzo Lotto, pp. 194, 227, 322). Mr. Berenson calls attention further to the historical significance of this page from contemporary life and manners. The artist "opens our eyes to the existence in a time and in a country supposed to be wholly devoted to carnality and carnage, of gentle, sensitive people, who must have had many of our own social and ethical ideas." He "helps us to a truer and saner view of the sixteenth century in Italy than has been given by popular writers from Stendhal downwards, who too exclusively have devoted themselves to its lurid side. Lotto's charity helps us to restore that human balance without which the Italy of the sixteenth century would be a veritable pandemonium." The Venetian costumes, etc. may also be noticed. The little girl is dressed in as "grown-up" a way as her mother. On the table is a Turkey carpet, reminding us of Venetian commerce with the East. A Turkey carpet figures also in No. 1105.

1048. PORTRAIT OF A CARDINAL.

Painted on copper, a material which seems first to have been used for painting in the School of Antwerp. M. Auguste Cartan, of Besançon, in a paper by him in the Courrier de l'Art (June 25, 1886), points out the resemblance between this portrait and one, also on copper, in the museum at Besançon, ascribed to Scipione Pulzone, surnamed Gaetano (1550-1558), a painter who has been called "the Van Dyck of the Roman School." A contemporary biographer speaks of Gaetano's portraits as being so conscientious that every hair is painted, and of his skill in rendering various stuffs; both these characteristics may be observed in the present picture. In the same paper M. Cartan identifies the Cardinal as Cardinal Sirleto, Librarian of the Vatican 1570-1585, and tutor of S. Carlo Borromeo. There is a bust of Cardinal Sirleto in the[Pg 506] church of San Lorenzo at Rome, and M. Cartan declares the resemblance between the bust and this portrait to be unmistakable. There is also in the Corsini Palace at Rome a bust portrait of the same personage by Scipione Gaetano.

1049. THE CRUCIFIXION.

A good example of the strength and weakness of this German art. What is good are the clothes, which are very quaint and various. The figures show a ghastly enjoyment of horror and ugliness: notice especially the crucified thief on the left.

1050. A SEA VIEW.

1051. OUR LORD, ST. THOMAS, AND ST. ANTHONY.

Our Lord extends his hand and foot to the doubting St. Thomas: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; ... and be not faithless, but believing." To the right, resting his hands on the shoulder of the donor of the picture, is St. Anthony of Padua, another saint who doubted "till"—as the legend (painted by Murillo) describes—"in his arms," so it is told, "The saint did his dear Lord enfold, And there appeared a light like gold From out the skies of Padua." This picture appears to be by the same painter as No. 282, and both are now ascribed to Bertucci.

1052. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

1053. A CHURCH AT DELFT.

Witte was a native of Alkmaar, but settled at Delft, where he probably met another architectural painter, Dirk van Delen. "An exact knowledge of perspective, a perfect conception of light and shade, and[Pg 507] a delicacy of execution which reveals every detail without degenerating into dryness, figures well drawn and sufficiently picturesque ... are the qualities which distinguish his works" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 245). The picture before us is not a very favourable specimen of the painter's skill. In the gallery at Hertford House one of his masterpieces may be seen. His style, says Mr. Phillips in his catalogue of that collection, "is absolutely opposed to that of the somewhat earlier painters of the Flemish School, Steenwyck the Younger and Pieter Neeffs the Elder, who obtained their chief effects by accuracy of linear perspective, while De Witte realised his by broad and masterly chiaroscuro. In his treatment of light and colour he shows some affinity to Pieter de Hooch." The date of his birth is uncertain; it should perhaps be 1617.

Notice the anti-Pauline practice of the worshippers ("Every man praying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head"—1 Corinthians xi. 4, 5). Here it is the women who are "uncovered," the men who are "covered."

1054. A VIEW IN VENICE.

1055. A VILLAGE CARD PARTY.

Hendrick Rokes, a painter of Rotterdam, was the son of Martin Rokes, the master of the passage-boat from Rotterdam to Dordrecht. On account of his care and attention to passengers, Martin acquired the appellation of Sorgh, or Careful; the name descended to and was adopted by the son. Having shown an early talent for art, Hendrick was sent to Antwerp, where he was placed under the tuition of the younger Teniers. His style, however, rather recalls that of Adrian Brouwer. He painted Biblical subjects in a familiar manner, indoor scenes of humble life, village fairs, and, later, river and sea views. Some of his best works are in the Dresden Gallery.

The game rests with the woman, who is not going to play, it would seem, till the score is settled.

1056. "A KISS IN THE CUP."

[Pg 508]

1057. A RIVER SCENE.

1058. VENICE: THE CANAL REGGIO.

One of the principal waterways, after the Grand Canal, in Venice. The picture is a good instance of this painter's method of representing water. He "covers the whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed of a coat of well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green, covered with a certain number—I cannot state the exact average, but it varies from three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards, according to the extent of canvas to be covered, of white concave touches, which are very properly symbolical of ripple[207].... If it be but remembered that every one of the surfaces of those multitudinous ripples is in nature a mirror which catches, according to its position, either the image of the sky, or of the silver beaks of the gondolas, or of their black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the white marble, or the green sea-weed on the low stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would have something more of colour upon them than that opaque dead green.... Venice is sad and silent now to what she was in his time; but even yet, could I but place the reader at early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the market-boats, full-laden, float into groups of golden colour, and let him watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and under the shadows of the vine leaves; and show him the purple of the grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds, carried away in long streams upon the waves; and among them, the crimson fish-baskets, plashing and sparkling and flaming as the morning sun falls on their wet tawny sides; and above, the painted sails of the fishing-boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue,—he would [Pg 509]not be merciful to Canaletto any more" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. §§ 18, 19).

1059. VENICE: SAN PIETRO IN CASTELLO.

A humble church, typical of the humble origin of Venice, a city founded on the sands by fugitives. The church stands on one of the outermost islets, where, in the seventh century, it is said that St. Peter appeared in person to the Bishop of Heraclea, and commanded him to found, in his honour, a church in that spot. "The title of Bishop of Castello was first taken in 1091; St. Mark's was not made the cathedral church till 1807.... The present church is among the least interesting in Venice; a wooden bridge, something like that of Battersea on a small scale, connects its island, now almost deserted, with a wretched suburb of the city behind the arsenal; and a blank level of lifeless grass, rotted away in places rather than trodden, is extended before its mildewed façade and solitary tower" (Stones of Venice, vol. i. Appendix iv.)

1060. TWO VEDETTES ON THE WATCH.

1061. DELFT: SCENE OF AN EXPLOSION

Born at Delft; in 1650 entered as a member of the painter's guild there; afterwards moved to Rotterdam, where he died. "Although his name recalls fires especially—never did painter burn so many houses and farm cottages as Van der Poel—he painted also small scenes in the style of Ostade, as we see in his 'Rustic House' in the Louvre, and the 'Interior' in the Museum of Amsterdam. There are also a few pictures by him representing still life" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 156).

One of the many views painted by this artist of the explosion of a powder mill at Delft, October 12, 1654. One might think the mill exploded specially to be painted, so neatly and in order is everything represented. In this explosion, a well-known painter, Carel Fabrizius, lost his life.

[Pg 510]

1062. A BATTLE PIECE

1063. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

1074. AN OYSTER SUPPER.

"Dirk was the younger brother of Frans Hals (see 1021), and was born at Malines in 1589. He followed his elder brother to Haarlem, where he died in 1656—that is, ten years before Frans. Dirk was a clever artist, at least so far as may be judged by his works, which are extremely rare. His figures are amusing, graceful in manner, and especially interesting from their costumes, which belong to his own time, and now appear somewhat strange and extravagant" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 121). Dirk confined himself chiefly, says Burton, "to the representation of convivial parties, where cavaliers and ladies are seen enjoying themselves without much reserve at table, in the dance, or with music. His light pencil, his brilliant colour, laid on thinly over a greyish ground, and sharply accentuated, suited the themes and the small scale of his pictures."

The picture is signed (on the architrave above the open door), and dated 1626.

1075. VIRGIN AND CHILD, ST. JEROME, AND ST. FRANCIS.

A very "Peruginesque" example—full, that is, of the peculiar sentiment and apparent affectation which caused Goldsmith to make the admiration of him the test of absurd connoisseurship.[208] But "what is commonly thought affected in his design," says Ruskin, "is indeed the true remains of the great architectural symmetry which was soon to be lost, and [Pg 511]which makes him the true follower of Arnolfo and Brunelleschi," the great Florentine builders (Ariadne Florentina, § 72). The picture displays also in perfection "that quality of tone in which Perugino stands unsurpassed; and the rich and liquid, but subdued colour is steeped in a transparent atmosphere of pale golden glow" (Burton).

The history of this picture affords a good instance of that enrichment of the National Gallery with "graceful interludes by Perugino," saved from "the wreck of Italian monasteries," of which Mr. Ruskin speaks in his preface to this work. It was painted by Perugino in 1507, to be placed over an altar in memory of a master-carpenter at Perugia. It afterwards passed into the possession of the monks who owned the church. They sold it, with the chapel in which it was placed, to the Cecconi family, from whom it passed by inheritance to the family Della Penna. In 1822 the head of this family removed it to his palace, leaving a copy of it in its place in the church, and in 1879 the picture itself was bought from the Baron della Penna for the Nation.

1077. ALTAR-PIECE (dated 1501).

A picture of the "man of sorrows." On either side of the infant Christ are shown the scenes of his suffering[209]—

For sacrifice—but also for redemption, and so above the throne are the angels of God, playing the glad music of death swallowed up in victory. In the right-hand compartment is Christ bearing his cross; in the left his agony in the garden. The three disciples are here crouched asleep lower down, and behind a wall are the Roman soldiers, whilst from above an angel brings a cup with a cross, two spears, and a crown of thorns in it: "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And [Pg 512]there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him" (Luke xxii. 42, 43).

1078. THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS.

1079. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

These two pictures closely resemble in style and colouring the large altar-piece in the church of St. Bavon at Ghent, which is attributed to Gerard van der Meire.[210] That painter flourished at Ghent about the middle of the fifteenth century; entering the Guild of St. Luke in 1452, and becoming sub-dean in 1474. He is described in a chronicle of the time as a pupil of Hubert van Eyck, but the historian Van Mander says he began to paint after the death of Jan van Eyck, a statement which is confirmed by the date of his enrolment in the Guild. Nothing is yet really known about him except the bare fact of his existence, for no picture has been certainly identified as his.

(1079.) It is interesting to compare this representation of the scene, almost childlike in its simplicity, alike with the treatment by later painters (see, for instance, Rembrandt's, No. 47), and with the more decorative and symbolic treatment of the early Italians (e.g. Botticelli, No. 1034). The picture before us "shows no particular felicity of rendering, no depth or insight; it carries little conviction of reality, but it has a homely charm. The painter was thoroughly convinced of the actual truth of what he represented, and thought only of bringing the same home to everyday experience. In the background he has placed a village, in which men are discussing what is going on" (J. E. Hodgson, R.A., in the Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 42).

[Pg 513]

1080. HEAD OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

The introduction of children's faces—in the character of mourning angels—to so ghastly a subject is very characteristic of the love of horror common to the Flemish and German Schools.

1081. A MAN AT PRAYER.

Probably a portrait of the donor of an altar-piece, of which this picture formed one compartment.

1082. THE VISIT OF THE MADONNA TO ST. ELIZABETH.

1083. CHRIST CROWNED WITH THORNS.

1084. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

1085. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

A picture of the same school as 706, but the Flemish influence is here more discernible. In the background is a church lighted from within. The heads are very ugly (notice the saint in the left compartment), but the execution, especially of the accessories, is very delicate.

1086. CHRIST APPEARING AFTER HIS RESURRECTION.

Notice the empty tomb, visible through the half-opened door in the background—with the Roman soldier asleep beside, and an angel above it.

[Pg 514]

1087. THE MOCKING OF CHRIST.

Sir Martin Conway says of the Lyversberg Passion what is equally applicable to this picture, and indeed to most of the German art of the same period (cf. e.g. 1049). "The Passion, as conceived by this painter, was a scene for the display of brutality rather than the exhibition of heroism. The enduring Christ is not the subject of the pictures, but the torturing villains that surround him. The figure of Christ does not dominate the rest; the vile element seems always victorious" (Early Flemish Artists, p. 202).

1088. THE CRUCIFIXION.

An altar-piece in three compartments. On the side panels are two figures, probably the donor and his wife, kneeling.

1089. MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ST. ELIZABETH.

1090. PAN AND SYRINX.

Boucher, "the Anacreon of Painting," was the typical painter-decorator of the Louis-quinze period. He painted (as Mr. Dobson sings in Old World Idylls)—

Rose-water Raphael,—en couleur de rose, The crowned Caprice, whose sceptre, nowise sainted, Swayed the light realm of ballets and bon-mots; Ruled the dim boudoir's demi-jour, or drove Pink-ribboned flocks through some pink-flowered grove.

Made of his work a kind of languid Maying, Filled with false gods and muses misbegot;— A Versailles Eden of cosmetic youth, Wherein most things went naked, save the Truth.

Boucher is represented by no less than 21 canvases at Hertford House, some of them of considerable historical interest. For Boucher owed much to the favour of Madame de Pompadour, who purchased[Pg 515] in 1753 the two fine pictures of "Sunrise" and "Sunset" now at Hertford House. In the same collection are the idyllic and erotic subjects with which Boucher decorated the boudoir at the Hôtel de l'Arsenal in which the Pompadour was wont to receive her royal lover. He also painted several portraits of the all-powerful favourite, whom he instructed in the art of etching; one of these portraits is also at Hertford House. Boucher was the son of a designer for embroideries. He spent some years in Rome, but returned to Paris untouched by the great works he had seen. He suited his art to the taste of the time, and had his reward in reaping considerable wealth by his productions, which, including drawings for the engravers, he poured forth in thousands. In 1755 he became inspector of the Gobelins, an appointment which he resigned in 1765 on becoming first painter to the king. Sir Joshua Reynolds describes a visit to Boucher, whom he found "at work on a very large picture without drawings or models of any kind." Sir Joshua allows, however, to some of his earlier works, "grace and beauty and good skill in composition." His easy execution and often dainty colour are also admired. He was the idol of his day, but his meretricious art was the subject of very pungent criticism from the not very austere Diderot.[211]

For another version of the same subject, see 659.

1002. ST. SEBASTIAN.

The only known work by a master who signs himself Bernardino (of) Cotignola (in the Duchy of Ferrara). He was a brother of Francesco Zaganelli, and is believed to have worked towards the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.

This picture formed the chief panel of an altar-piece formerly in the church of the Carmine at Pavia, and thus described by Bartoli:

In the twelfth chapel (is) an ancient picture divided into six compartments, of which the three larger exhibit, in the centre St. Sebastian, and at the sides St. Nicholas and St. Catherine of Alexandria, while the three smaller which are above represent the body of the Redeemer supported by two angels in the centre, and at the sides the Virgin [Pg 516]Mary and the Announcing Angel. This (altar-piece) is the work of Bernardino da Cotignola, who has affixed to it his name on a feigned label.

For the story of St. Sebastian, see under 669.

1093. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS.

There is no more fascinating and illustrious name in the annals of art than Leonardo, of Vinci, a town in the Val d'Arno below Florence. He has been well called, from the many-sidedness of his efforts, the Faust of the Renaissance. The great public which knows him best by his few pictures and many drawings does not always remember that he was also musician, critic, poet, sculptor, architect, mechanist, mathematician, philosopher, and explorer. In a letter addressed to Ludovico il Moro, Prince of Milan, in whose service he lived for sixteen years (1483-1499), he enumerates as his chief qualification his skill in military engineering, and throws in his art as an incidental accomplishment. "I will also undertake any work in sculpture, in marble, in bronze, or in terra-cotta; likewise in painting I can do what may be done as well as any man, be he who he may." The range and amount alike of his theoretical discoveries and practical ingenuities were extraordinary. He divined the circulation of the blood. He anticipated Copernicus in propounding the theory of the earth's movement. He declared that "motion was the cause of all life." He forestalled Lamarck's classification of vertebrate and invertebrate. He takes his place, in virtue of his researches into rocks and fossils, with the masters of modern science who have proclaimed the continuity of geological causes. He was the first inventor of screw propulsion. He made paddle-wheels. He attacked the problem of aerial navigation. He invented swimming belts. He anticipated by many years the invention of the camera obscura. He was great alike as a civil and a military engineer. He watered the Lombard plain by the invention of sluices; he was one of the first to recommend the use of mines for the destruction of forts, and he anticipated the inventions of our time in suggesting breech-loading guns and mitrailleuses. He shrank neither from the highest speculations nor from the humblest contrivances. For centuries after his death the burghers of Milan minced meat for their sausages with machines invented by the painter of "Monna Lisa."

This marvellous curiosity in science and invention could not but profoundly influence Leonardo's work as an artist. One result is as obvious as it was unfortunate. He paid the penalty of versatility in undertaking more than he could fulfil. His dilatoriness is well known. He went once to Rome, but the Pope, Leo X., offended him by exclaiming, "Ah! this man will never do anything;[Pg 517] he thinks of the end before the beginning of his work" (He had made elaborate preparations for varnishing his picture before he began it.) Many of his works were thus unfinished, and others, owing to premature experiments in material, are ruined—especially his famous Last Supper at Milan, of which there is an original drawing at the Royal Academy. "Leonardo's oil painting," says Ruskin,—not, however, without a touch of exaggeration—"is all gone black or to nothing." "Because Leonardo made models of machines, dug canals, built fortifications, and dissipated half his art-power in capricious ingenuities, we have many anecdotes of him;—but no picture of importance on canvas, and only a few withered stains of one upon a wall" (Queen of the Air, § 157). But Leonardo's curiosity, his wide outlook, his sense of the immensities, added something to his art which otherwise it might not have contained, and which is intensely characteristic of it. Who, for instance, has ever penetrated the secret of Leonardo's smile?—of the ineffable, mysterious, plaintive, and haunting smile that has fascinated and perplexed the world century after century in the portrait of La Gioconda? That unfathomable smile, with so much of mystery and with something of weirdness in it, was the reflection of Leonardo's mind, which had explored the depths and heights, and ever came back from the pursuit with the sense of the inscrutable Mystery beyond. "What is that," he asks, "which does not give itself to human comprehension, and which, if it did, would not exist? It is the infinite, which, if it could so give itself, would be done and ended." In the "Last Supper," says M. Müntz, "he had realised his ideal." Leonardo himself would not have said so. His was one of those lofty minds before which an unattainable ideal ever hovers. "It is of a truth impossible," said a friend of the master to him, "to conceive of faces more lovely and gentle than those of St. James the Great and St. James the Less. Accept thy misfortune, therefore, and leave thy Christ imperfect as He is, for otherwise, when compared with the Apostles, He would not be their Saviour and Master." Leonardo took the advice, and never finished the head of Christ. But he fixed the outward type of Christ for succeeding generations. Apart from the credit due to Leonardo as an ennobler of style in art, he stands out further in the history of painting as the first who investigated the laws of light and shade. There are "three methods of art, producing respectively linear designs, effects of light, and effects of colour. In preparing to draw any object, you will find that practically you have to ask yourself, Shall I aim at the colour of it, the light of it, or the lines of it? The best art comes so near nature as in a measure to unite all. But the best art is not, and cannot be, as good as nature; and the mode of its deficiency is that it must lose some of the colour, some of the light, or some of the delineation. And in consequence, there is one great school which says, 'We will have delineation, and as much colour and shade as are consistent with it.' Another, which says, 'We will have shade, and as much colour and delineation as are[Pg 518] consistent with it.' The third, 'We will have the colour, and as much light and delineation as are consistent with it.' The second class, the Chiaroscurists, are essentially draughtsmen with chalk, charcoal, or single tints. Many of them paint, but always with some effort and pain. Leonardo is the type of them" (compressed from Ariadne Florentina, §§ 18-21).

To his artistic genius and intellectual alertness, Leonardo added great personal beauty ("the radiance of his countenance, which was splendidly beautiful, brought cheerfulness," says Vasari, "to the heart of the most melancholy") and great physical strength. He could bend a door-knocker, we are told, or a horse-shoe as if it were lead. He was left-handed and wrote from right to left. Besides his physical strength, Vasari mentions his kindness and gentleness, and tells us how he would frequently buy caged birds from the dealers, in order to give them back their liberty. Scandalous accusations were at one time brought against him, but researches made in the archives during the last few years have effectually disposed of the charge. One curious trait in the character of Leonardo remains to be noticed. In his art he created a feminine type of extraordinary and haunting beauty. "And yet," says his latest biographer, "Leonardo, like Donatello, was one of those exceptionally great artists in whose life the love of woman seems to have played no part.... The delights of the mind sufficed him. He himself proclaimed it in plain terms. Cosa bella mortal passa e non arte.' Fair humanity passes, but art endures.'" This extraordinary man was the son of a peasant-mother, Caterina, and was born out of wedlock, his father being a Florentine notary; and amongst Leonardo's manuscripts is a record of a visit to Caterina in the hospital, who soon after his father's death had married in her own station, and of expenses paid for her funeral. His life has three divisions—thirty years at Florence, nearly twenty years at Milan, then nineteen years of wandering, till he sinks to rest under the protection of the King of France. (1) Leonardo was the pupil of Verrocchio (see 296), "a master well chosen, for in his earnest and discursive mind were many points of contact with that of his illustrious pupil." Leonardo seems to have retained his connection with Verrocchio until 1477, but the records of his Florentine period are very scanty. His earliest undoubted work is the unfinished "Adoration" in the Uffizi. To this period also belongs the head of the "Medusa" in that collection, celebrated in Shelley's verses—a work, says Mr. Pater, in which "the fascination of corruption penetrates in every touch its exquisitely finished beauty." (2) In 1483 Leonardo removed to Milan to take service with Ludovico Sforza. He served his patron in those multifarious ways for which his talents fitted him,—as musician and improvisatore, as director of court pageants, as sculptor, painter, and civil and military engineer. To this Milanese period belong two of the master's most celebrated productions—the present picture and the "Last Supper," executed in oil colours on an end wall of the refectory in the Dominican Convent of S. Maria della Grazia. At Milan,[Pg 519] Leonardo founded the famous Vincian Academy of Arts over which he presided, which attracted so many pupils, and which may be said to have established a new Milanese School. For his Academy he made the elaborate notes for a Treatise on Painting which were posthumously published.(3) In 1500, consequent upon the flight of the Duke before the French army, Leonardo left Milan and returned to Florence. His stay, however, was not long, for he took service for a time with Cæsar Borgia as architect and military engineer. He was again in Florence in 1503, and was commissioned with Michelangelo to paint the Hall of Council in the Palace of the Signory. His subject was the Battle of Anghiari. The painting was begun but never completed. The cartoon, now lost, remained and excited the greatest admiration, "The man who had presented the solemn moment of the Last Supper with a dignity and pathos never equalled, who could portray feminine loveliness with a sweetness and grace peculiar to his pencil, was no less successful in bringing before the eye the turmoil of battle and the fierce passions inspired by the struggle for victory." One great work of his of this period (1504) happily survives—the famous portrait of Monna Lisa, known as La Gioconda, in the Louvre. For the next ten years (1506-1516), Leonardo alternated between Milan, Florence, and Rome. Other works of this period are the "St. Anne" and "St. John," also in the Louvre. In 1516 he accompanied the French King, Francis I., to France, who lodged him and his faithful friend Melzi in the Château de Cloux, near Amboise. Three years later he died, having made his will (the text of which has recently been discovered) a week before the end—"considering the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the hour, of its approach." He was buried, by his own instructions, in the church of St. Florentin at Amboise. Of Leonardo as a young man, no authentic portraits exist. In the Royal Collection at Windsor and at Turin there are portraits of himself in red chalk; and on the Sacro Monte at Varallo, one of Gaudenzio Ferrari's sculptured figures is a portrait of the great master. Leonardo's drawings are very beautiful and numerous—the Windsor Collection being the richest; they show us with what infinite searching the master drew near to his ideals. The picture before us makes upon the spectator the impression of rapid and spontaneous creation; but the drawings for it show that it was in fact one of the most laborious of Leonardo's works (see on this subject Müntz's Leonardo da Vinci, i. 162 in the English translation. This is the best life of the master. The most penetrative study of Leonardo remains Mr. Pater's, in his Renaissance).

This beautiful picture is very characteristic of Leonardo in its effects of light and shade, in grace and refinement of delineation, in felicity of gesture, and in the curious beauty of the types. Leonardo makes out of his subject a charming idyll, into which the spectator may read his own meanings. "In St.[Pg 520] John the Baptist," says Lomazzo, writing in 1584, "we may see the motive of obedience and child like veneration, as he kneels with joined hands and bends towards Christ; in the Virgin, the feeling of happy meditation as she beholds this act; in the angel, the idea of angelic gladness, as he ponders the joy that shall come to the world from this mystery; and in the Infant Christ we behold divinity and wisdom. And therefore the Virgin kneels, holding St. John with her right hand and extending her left, and the angel likewise supports Christ, who, seated, regards St. John and blesses him." A modern poet, adding to the picture a beautiful thought of his own, has suggested that in the valley of the shadow of death the Virgin brings the soul of a dead child for her son's blessing (see an interesting discussion of "The Louvre Sonnets of Rossetti," by W. M. Hardinge, in Temple Bar, March 1891):—

The landscape from which the picture takes its title is remarkable. Leonardo, a pioneer in so many other things, was a pioneer also in Alpine exploration, and has even been credited with a first ascent in the Monte Rosa range. However this may be, it is clear from his pictures and drawings that his mineralogical and geological studies attracted him to the curious rocks and peaks which he had observed among the [Pg 521]mountains of North Italy.[213] "In him," says Mr. Pater, "first appears the taste for what is bizarre or recherché in landscape; hollow places full of the green shadow of bituminous rocks, ridged reefs of trap-rock which cut the water into quaint sheets of light; all solemn effects of moving water; you may follow it springing from its distant source among the rocks on the heath of the 'Madonna of the Balances,' passing as a little fall into the treacherous calm of the 'Madonna of the Lake,' next, as a goodly river below the cliffs of the 'Madonna of the Rocks,' stealing out in a network of divided streams in 'La Gioconda' to the sea-shore of the 'St. Anne.' It is the landscape not of dreams or of fancy, but of places far withdrawn." Notice also the flowers of the foreground. "Leonardo paints flowers with such curious felicity that different writers have attributed to him a fondness for particular flowers, as Clement the cyclamen, and Rio the jasmine; while at Venice there is a stray leaf from his portfolio dotted all over with studies of violets and the white rose." "This work," says Ford Madox Brown, "seems to have been laid in entirely with ivory black, which, as its wont is, has come through the upper painting to the extent of leaving only to look at a picture in black, heightened, in the lights, with a little faint yellow. So much is true, and also that the rocks, from which the picture takes its name, are of the most singular formations, such as no modern geologist would care to lecture on, the herbage being much the same as to its botanical value. But in spite of these and other [Pg 522]objections, such is the intrinsic power of the work in style of drawing and beauty of expression, that nothing known, not by the greatest masters, can do more than hold their own against it. Just stand a little way off, study the heads, and see what they tell you—most supreme master of the human face divine" (Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 135).

There is, as everyone knows, a very similar picture to this in the Louvre; and during the last few years an Anglo-French dispute has raged furiously in artistic circles with regard to the authenticity, priority, and relative merits of the two pictures. The pedigree of our picture is singularly complete, and there can be no doubt that it is a veritable work by the hand of Leonardo. It agrees minutely with the description given by Lomazzo (in 1584) of a painting by Leonardo, which in his time was in the chapel of the Conception in the church of S. Francesco at Milan. The picture in the Louvre differs from Lomazzo's description in the one essential difference between the two pictures. In the Louvre picture the angel looks towards us and points to St. John, thus connecting the spectator with what is taking place. In our picture, on the other hand, there is no such connecting link. The action is complete within itself. The spectator is not invited to participate in what is to him a divine vision. It is clear therefore that our picture is the one which, in 1584, was in S. Francesco at Milan, and which passed for a work by Leonardo. External evidence has come to light during the last few years proving what had hitherto only been taken for granted, namely, that Leonardo did execute the central composition of the altar-piece for that church. This is a memorial from Ambrogio di Predis and Leonardo da Vinci to the Duke of Milan, praying him to intervene in a dispute which had arisen between the petitioners and the brotherhood "della Concezione" with regard to the price to be paid for certain works of art furnished by them for the chapel of the brotherhood in S. Francesco. The brotherhood had priced the oil-painting of Our Lady executed by Leonardo at only 25 ducats, whereas it was worth 100 ducats, as shown by the account and proved by the fact that certain persons were found willing to purchase it at that price. No evidence is forthcoming as to the settlement of the dispute. We have then these facts: that Leonardo painted a picture of Our Lady for S. Francesco, that such a picture was in the church in 1584, and that our picture precisely agrees with Lomazzo's description of it. The picture remained in the chapel until some time between 1751 and 1787. In the latter year Bianconi, in a guide-book to Milan, states that the two side panels (1661, 1662) were still there, but that the picture "by the hand of Leonardo" had been removed. In 1777 our picture was brought to England by Gavin Hamilton, and sold by him to the Marquis of Lansdowne, from whom it afterwards passed by exchange into the collection of the Earl of Suffolk at Charlton Park. From Lord Suffolk it was bought in 1880 for the National Gallery, the price being £9000.

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It will thus be seen that the external evidence in favour of this picture being a veritable work by Leonardo is unusually strong. Internal evidence is more difficult to bring to the test, resting as it does on æsthetic considerations, the force of which depends on the authority of the witness and the competence of the court to which he appeals. Several critics, it may be explained, had convinced themselves long ago that the Louvre picture was the original and ours a copy. The discovery of the new document above referred to seemed at first to strengthen the authenticity of our picture. But the point was ingeniously turned by the following gratuitous and entirely unsupported theory. Leonardo, says Dr. Richter, must have sold the original to the French king, and let the church have a copy at the low price agreed upon. Supporting this theory in turn by internal evidence, the enemies of our picture declare it to be "an entirely wretched performance" (Richter); "superficial," "insipid," "heavy," "woolly," "lacking in elevation," "feeble," in short, "a work in which we do not feel the real presence of the master" (Müntz). Those who thus disparage our picture suppose it to be a copy by Ambrogio di Predis. To this theory, an effective retort has been given by the purchase for the Gallery of the two wings that used to flank the central picture. It is impossible to suppose that the painter of No. 1662 was capable of producing our picture, of which the skilful delineation and mysterious beauty delight all spectators who have no preconceived theory in the matter. It should be stated that some of the faults found with our picture are admitted by the authorities of the Gallery. "The ill-drawn gilt nimbi over the heads of the three principal figures, as well as the clumsy reed cross which rests on St. John's shoulder, are additions of a comparatively late period, probably of the 17th century." Again, "the hand of the Virgin resting on St. John's shoulder is obviously the mere daub of a picture restorer."

Those who support the authenticity of our picture do not feel called upon to carry the war into the enemy's camp, though both Sir Frederick Burton and Sir Edward Poynter notice various defects and repaintings in the Louvre picture, and the former points out that its pedigree does not extend back beyond 1642. The fact seems to be that neither picture can properly be called a copy of the other. The most striking difference—that in the attitude of the angel—is fundamental, and not such as a copyist would venture to make. There are many other differences; indeed no single part of the groups is really alike; and those differences (as Sir Edward Poynter shows) are such as an artist would make in working from different studies. Studies for portions of both pictures exist. A further question in dispute is which of the two versions is the earlier. To Sir Edward Poynter "it seems that our picture shows traces of Leonardo's training in the school of Verrocchio, and that it is the Louvre picture which has more of the idealised refinement of type on which Luini formed his style." To Mr. Claude Phillips, on the other hand, the angel of the Louvre looking straight out of the picture seems to be essentially Florentine, and to belong specifically to the school of Verrocchio (see 296 in our Gallery). The[Pg 524] variation in the angel's attitude, as given in our version, is in conception a distinct improvement: it makes the picture more self-contained. "One can imagine," says Mr. MacColl, "Leonardo, on second thoughts, judging that the Louvre angel drew too much attention to himself by his pointing hand, and was better within the picture with downcast eyes than when inviting the attention of the spectator by his regard." (The very interesting discussion summarised above is contained in the following English publications: Dr. Richter, in the Art Journal for June 1894; replied to by Sir Edward Poynter in the same magazine for August, and by Sir F. Burton in the Nineteenth Century for July 1894. See also Eugene Müntz's Leonardo da Vinci, vol. i. ch. vi.; the Catalogue of Milanese Pictures at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1898, pp. li.-lvi.; Mr. Claude Phillips in the National Review, Dec. 1894; and "D. S. M." in the Saturday Review, May 28, 1898, and Feb. 18, 1899. The English articles contain references to the articles on Dr. Richter's side by Motta, Frizzoni, and others.)

1094. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Antonij Mor (commonly known in this country as Sir Antonio More, though when and by whom he was knighted does not appear) succeeded Holbein as the principal portrait-painter settled in England. "Mor's style," it has been said, "so much resembles that of Holbein as to frequently create a doubt to which of them a portrait is to be attributed; but he is not so clear and delicate in his colouring, perhaps from having painted so much in Spain, as that master." He was born at Antwerp and studied under Schorel (see 720). An example of his earlier manner, dated 1544, is in the Berlin Museum. Mor afterwards travelled in Italy, and quickly emancipated himself from the dry manner of Schorel, as his portrait of Cardinal Granvelle at Vienna, done in 1549, shows. His portraits from this time forward are remarkable for their "unpretentious dignity." Cardinal Granvelle introduced him to the service of Charles V., by whom he was sent to Portugal to paint some of the royal family. He was in the service of Queen Mary from 1554 to 1558. She presented him with a hundred pounds and a gold chain, and allowed him a hundred pounds a quarter. He was also largely employed by the Howards and the Russells and others, grandees of the court. One of his portraits of the Queen is in the Duke of Wellington's Collection at Apsley House. When Philip went to Spain to take possession of the throne, Mor accompanied him, and for some time basked in the full sunshine of royal favour. Suddenly he withdrew to Brussels, for some cause which has never been satisfactorily explained. According to one story, the king, visiting Mor's studio, laid his hand upon his shoulder as he stood at the easel—a familiarity which the artist returned by rudely rapping the royal knuckles with his maulstick, or daubing them with carmine. The[Pg 525] officers of the Inquisition took advantage of this incident, it is said, to vent their jealous wrath against the painter. He finally established himself at Antwerp, his declining years being spent in ease and opulence—the fruits of successful industry at the courts of England, Portugal, and Spain. He is described to us as "very much the courtier, and a gentleman of grave and majestic manners"—a description borne out by the fine portrait of himself at Althorp.

1095. PORTRAIT OF ANNA MARIA SCHURMANN.

Lievens, painter and engraver, "was a comrade of Rembrandt, but conceived a strong admiration for Van Dyck, traces of which are to be found in his portraits" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 115). From 1631 to 1635 he was in England, where he painted the portraits of Charles I. and his Queen, and of several of the nobility. He afterwards worked at Antwerp, Leyden, and Amsterdam.

This lady (born at Cologne in 1607) was one of the most remarkable personages of her time. So great was the renown of her learning that Queen Christina of Sweden went to visit her. She was familiar with German, Dutch, French, Italian, and English; and was a good scholar in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic. She corresponded with some of the most erudite men of the day, and excelled in many of the fine arts. Late in life she fell under the influence of the noted Pietist leader, Jean de la Badie, whose cause she persuaded the Princess Palatine Elizabeth to espouse. After his death (in 1674) she collected his disciples at Wierwerd, where she herself died four years later in complete destitution.

1096. A HUNTING SCENE.

Weenix, born at Amsterdam, was the son of an architect. His master in painting was Abraham Bloemaert. Early in life he married the daughter of Gilles de Hondecoeter; his nephew Melchior Hondecoeter (No. 202) was afterwards his pupil. In 1642 his desire to see Italy caused him to leave his young wife and to carry his palette and brushes beyond the Alps. He promised to be absent only four months. He remained in Italy four years. While there he studied the coast-scenes, the people, and the architecture; "the result of his observations being the stately scenes, half real, half conventional, of which good examples are to be found in the Wallace Collection." On his return to Holland, Weenix was largely employed, first at Amsterdam,[Pg 526] and afterwards at Utrecht. In this country his name is chiefly associated with pictures of dead game, but subjects of this class—in which his son (238) also excelled—were only the predilection of his later years.

1098. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

The Child lies asleep on a window-sill. The Mother stands in an attitude of devotion. A picture of fine feeling, and characteristic of the artist's "exalted naturalism."

1100. A SCENE IN A PLAY.

Pietro Longhi, who studied in Bologna, but afterwards settled in his native Venice, was one of the four masters who made a partial revival of Venetian painting in the eighteenth century—the other three being Tiepolo (1692-1769, see 1192), Canaletto (1697-1768, see 127), and Guardi (1712-1793, see 210). Longhi represented the Vanity Fair of Venice at his epoch with fidelity and kindly feeling. He has been called "the Italian Hogarth," but he is greatly inferior in every respect to that painter. Moreover he was not a satirist like Hogarth, and there is more truth in the description of him as "the Goldoni of painters"—Goldoni, the popular playwright, with whom Longhi was nearly contemporary, and who, like him, just reflects "the shade and shine of common life, nor renders as it rolls grandeur and gloom." "Longhi used to tell Goldoni that they were brethren in art. Longhi surveyed human life with the same kindly glance and the same absence of gravity or depth of intuition as Goldoni. They both studied nature, but nature only in her genial moods. They both sincerely aimed at truth, but avoided truths which were sinister or painful" (J. A. Symonds, in the Century Guild Hobby Horse, April 1889). Longhi was the son of a goldsmith, and as a lad showed unusual skill in designs for ornamental plate: hence the affectionate partiality in his pictures for the minutest details of decorative furniture, dress, and articles of luxury.

The engraved portrait on the wall is inscribed "Gerardo Sagredo di Morei," and perhaps the picture is a group of the Sagredo family, for whose palace in Venice Longhi painted some frescoes in 1734. The family preferred, perhaps, to be taken in the characters of a scene in a play of Goldoni's or some other popular writer—just as in the "Vicar of Wakefield" they resolved to be drawn together, in one large historical[Pg 527] piece. "This would be cheaper, since one frame would serve for all, and it would be infinitely more genteel; for all families of any taste were now drawn in the same manner."

1101. MASKED VISITORS AT A MENAGERIE.

A characteristic glimpse of Venetian life a hundred years ago. "At that time," it has been said, "perhaps people did not amuse themselves more at Venice than elsewhere, but they amused themselves differently. It is this seizing on peculiarities, on local and characteristic details, that makes Longhi's little canvases so curious." Here he shows us two ladies in dominoes, escorted by a cavalier, at a menagerie. The trainer exhibits a rhinoceros to them.

1102. THE CHEVALIER ANDREA TRON.

The portrait of "a procurator of St. Mark's," a dignity in the Venetian State second only to that of Doge. The procurators were charged with the legal administration of all the affairs of St. Mark's, and their official palaces (the Procuratie) adjoined the church. They were further charged with the care of orphans, and with the administration of others who cared to put themselves "in chancery." The office was thus not unlike that of an English Lord Chancellor, and there is a "grandmotherliness" about this procurator that makes one think he must have discharged some of his duties well. The broad golden stole over his shoulder shows him to have been also a knight of the order of the Stola d'Oro, as the Procurator's stole was of crimson velvet. The picture is in its original frame, surmounted by the armorial bearings of the Tron family.

1103. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

These are the dates not of his birth and death (which are unknown), but of the earliest and latest events recorded of him. In 1472 he was commissioned to paint an altar-piece, the principal parts of which may now be seen in the Pinacoteca of Perugia, and he was elected a member of the Town Council of Perugia. In 1521 he was commissioned to[Pg 528] value some works by another painter. The resemblance of his style to that of Benozzo Gozzoli may be seen by comparing No. 283. Fiorenzo's work is best seen in Perugia, where he reveals himself as an artist of great feeling and ability. Especially remarkable is the series of scenes from the life of Bernardino (some reproduced by the Arundel Society). (See for notices of this painter Morelli's German Galleries, p. 263, and S. Brinton's Renaissance in Italian Art, pt. iii. pp. 108, 141).

The accompanying figures are—in front of the throne, St. Francis (on the right of the Child), St Bernardino, a saint of Siena (on the left), and in smaller size the donor of the altar-piece. This is one of the earliest examples in the Gallery of the introduction of portraits in this way. In the left-hand compartment St. John the Baptist; and in the right-hand one St. Bartholomew, carrying his familiar attribute—a blood-stained knife, the instrument of his martyrdom. The compartments containing the figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Bartholomew were originally at one side of the central panel, but have been placed on each side for symmetry, the corresponding twin panels being lost. Notice the beautiful pattern engraved on the gold background.

1104. THE ANNUNCIATION.

Born at Città della Pieve, the native town of Perugino, whose pupil and assistant he became. Several of his works may be seen in the Pinacoteca at Perugia, of which town he was a magistrate. He also executed the frescoes in the chapel attached to the Sala del Cambio.

Notice the quaint "arabesques" on the Virgin's prie-dieu, or praying-stool; they are characteristic of this painter.

1105. THE PROTHONOTARY-APOSTOLIC, JULIANO.

See for the subject under 1024. "A smooth-shaven old man with a face that one would not be in the least surprised to see to-day anywhere, and least of all in England. As a portrait, it is the quietest of all those by Lotto known to me, and—if I may be allowed the word—the most 'gentlemanly'" (Berenson: Lorenzo Lotto, p. 189).

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1106. THE RESURRECTION.

Notice the classical sarcophagus of marble. The resurrection banner is affixed to a tall rod surmounted by a cross composed of golden balls.

1107. THE CRUCIFIXION.

The pietism, characteristic of the Umbrian School generally, is conspicuous in Niccolò, of whom Vasari remarks that "the expression of grief in his angels, and the tears they shed, are so natural that I do not believe any artist, however excellent he might be, could have done it much better." But he often overstrained this expression into grimace. He shows, says Morelli, the "tendency to exaggeration which marks the inhabitant of a small provincial town." He was capable, however, of giving grace and beauty to his female heads and heads of angels. Examples may be seen in the Brera at Milan, and in the Vatican Gallery. It is probable that Niccolò owed a good deal to Benozzo Gozzoli, who from 1452 to 1457 was working not far from Foligno (see Morelli's German Galleries, p. 258). Niccolò is often called Niccolò Alunno. The origin of this mistake, made first by Vasari, is that on one of his pictures he is described as "Nicholaus alumnus Flogging" (Niccolò, a native, or alumnus, of Foligno).

In this picture the artist seems to revel in the depiction of emotion, and (as it were) in "piling up the agony." There is the same pleasure here in the use of a new gift—that of expressing emotion—as in 583, in that of expressing perspective. The central scene of the Crucifixion is surrounded by the Agony in the Garden, Christ bearing his Cross, the Descent from the Cross, and the Resurrection. Note as characteristic of the genius loci in the Umbrian School that St. Francis of Assisi is kneeling at the foot of the cross.

The acquisition of this picture by the National Gallery (in 1881) had a curious history. It was formerly in the convent of Santa Chiara at Aquila, and on the suppression of the convent became the property of the State. But by the Archbishop's orders it was successfully secreted. On his death, some years later, it was conveyed to the house of one of the canons of the cathedral, by whom it was sold to a dealer in Rome. The dealer made a good thing out of it; he bought it[Pg 530] for £260, and sold it (with another small picture) to our National Gallery for £1200. The Italian Government instituted a prosecution for theft, which, however, was subsequently dropped for civil proceedings for damages against all the persons concerned, "except the Englishman who, it is believed, bought the picture in good faith."

1108. THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED.

1109. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN.

Of this painter, who worked and held several offices at Siena, none of the works is traceable except this signed picture and some fragments (also signed, and dated 1387) in a little village church near Siena.

"Remarkable, amongst other things, for the wonderful elaboration of the gold ornaments on the dresses, and the attempt to give an Oriental character to the scene by the introduction of the palm-tree, the carpet, and the dark-faced player on the kettledrums. It is interesting also for its notes from real life in the figure of the child, the faces of some of the spectators in the background, the window-openings with their poles, the figures on the right under the blind, and the flower-pot on the sill on the left" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 17). For some remarks on the subject, see under 1317.

1109a. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Anton Raphael Mengs, the son of a court painter at Dresden—a post to which the boy afterwards succeeded—was taken when a boy to Rome and set to study the works of the great masters. He became the most celebrated representative of the Eclectic School of painting in the eighteenth century, and played a great part in the early days of the classic revival of that period. In his writings, in Spanish, Italian, and German, he elaborated his eclectic theory—the attainment of perfection by the combination of diverse excellences, Greek designs with the expression of Raphael, the chiaroscuro of Correggio, and the colour of Titian. He was an intimate friend of[Pg 531] Winckelmann, who constantly wrote at his dictation. His work was eagerly sought after, both at Rome and at the courts of Dresden and Madrid, and his books enjoyed a very wide circulation.

A cartoon, executed in black chalk.

1113. A LEGENDARY SUBJECT.

This painter was the elder brother of Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1147), and first appears as an artist in 1305. Many of his works, or fragments of them, may still be seen in and around Siena. Among the best is a triptych in the sacristy of the Cathedral representing the birth of the Virgin. "A long series of frescoes, representing different incidents in the Passion, have recently been rescued from whitewash in the church of S. Francesco. They are remarkable for their vigour and harmony, and show Pietro to have possessed great talents both as a colourist and as a draughtsman" (Bryan's Dictionary).

Probably illustrative of some incident in the life of a saint—of Bishop Sansovino, perhaps, the patron saint of Siena—in which the forces of the Christian and pagan religions were opposed. On one side is a pagan priest bearing a statue, supposed, from the apple in its hand, to be that of Venus. On the other is a Christian bishop engaged in some ecclesiastical function.

1114-1118. THE FIVE SENSES.

Coques pays a pretty compliment to one of his fellow-artists Robert van Hoecke (who, like a greater man, Leonardo, was an authority on fortifications as well as a painter), in painting his portrait as typical of "Sight." The figures in the rest of the series, if portraits, have not been identified.

1119. MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS.

Of this painter, one of the best of the Ferrarese school, very little is known, beyond the fact that he was in the service of the ducal house at Este. The identification of his works is also very uncertain, for Vasari, unaware that two painters of the Grandi family had borne the name of Ercole (see 1127), classed the works of both under the same head. The present picture is not signed, and was first identified as[Pg 532] the younger Ercole's by Morelli. This Ercole, son of Giulio Cesare de' Grandi, studied under Francia and Lorenzo Costa, to the latter of whom, indeed, this picture was attributed in the foundling hospital of Ferrara, from which it comes. Like Francia, Ercole combined the practice of other arts with that of painting—being a gold-beater and modeller, as well as a painter—a conjunction which is seen in this picture, with its wealth of decorative accessories. He disputes with Garofalo the title of "the Raphael of Ferrara," a description which this splendid picture goes some way to justify.

A picture notable alike for its central idea and for its wealth of decorative detail. In the group of the infant Saviour (a very finely drawn figure) standing on the Virgin's knees in the act of benediction, with St. William on the right of the throne and on the left St. John the Baptist, is an imaginative representation of Christianity—the soldier of Christ, with his armour on him, but bareheaded, and with his hand on the sword, on one side; the saint, with the Cross and the Book, on the other. The accessories are full of decorative inventiveness, but every detail is full of thought; they are an epitome, as it were, of all the decorative arts of the time. Note first, in the walnut wood pedestal of the throne, that the frieze at the top is a graceful arrangement of dolphins, emblems of love and affection, and the base, of stags and swans ("As pants the hart for cooling streams, so pants my soul for thee, O God"). In its central panel is an alto-relievo in ivory, with Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of Knowledge. On each of the receding panels is a white marble medallion of the turbaned head of a prophet. On the predella below there are, (1) beginning on the spectator's right, the Nativity, (2) the Presentation in the Temple, (3) the Massacre of the Innocents, (4) the Flight into Egypt, and (5) Christ disputing with the Doctors. The ornamental details of the marble baldacchino (or canopy), like those of the throne, are all symbolic; thus the archivolt is composed of choiring cherubim separated by pots of lilies, and the spandrils of the arch are occupied by medallions of the angel Gabriel and the Virgin (G. T. Robinson in Art Journal, May 1886, p. 150).

1120. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

Another of the numerous St. Jerome pictures: see under[Pg 533] 694 and 227. The saint has his usual company of animals. His lion is frowning, somewhat with the same expression as in 227—as if to deprecate the penance which his master is about to inflict on himself. On the branch of the tree above is a hawk, looking on with the expression of a superior person—one quite too sagacious to countenance such madness. Notice also the serpent which crawls from beneath the rock on which the Cross is placed. The picture, says Mr. Gilbert, "is rich, even brilliant, in colouring, and if there is a touch of oddity in the house perched upon a crag, there is loveliness in the mountain range, and in the amber and lemon tints that streak the evening sky" (Landscape in Art, p. 340).

1121. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

This portrait, when it hung in Hamilton Palace, used to be called a Leonardo. Sir W. Armstrong (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 24) gives it unhesitatingly to Basaiti (see 599).

1122. ST. JEROME.

This artist, called "Il Greco," was of Greek descent and is supposed to have studied in Venice. He was said to have been a pupil of Titian, but his impetuous style seems rather to have been modelled on that of Tintoretto. He settled at Toledo in 1575, and there acquired a great reputation. His picture of "The Parting of Our Lord's Raiment," which still adorns the sacristy of the cathedral at Toledo, is, says Stirling-Maxwell, "truly admirable in drawing and composition; and the colouring is on the whole rich and effective, although it is here and there laid on in that spotted, streaky manner which afterwards became the great and prominent defect of El Greco's style." The picture in our Gallery No. 1457 in its energetic action but faulty drawing is characteristic of him. The exaggerated elongation of his figures is one of his common weaknesses. The "St. Maurice with his Theban Legion," which he painted for Philip II. in the Escorial is "little less extravagant and atrocious than the massacre which it recorded"; this was painted in 1580. A year or two later he executed the "Burial of the Count of Orgaz" in the church of St. Tomé at Toledo. This is usually esteemed his masterpiece. "The artist or lover of art who has once beheld it will never, as he rambles among the winding streets of the ancient city, pass the pretty brick belfry of that church without turning aside to gaze upon its superb picture once more." Theotocopuli has been described as "an artist who alternated between reason and[Pg 534] delirium, and displayed his great genius only at lucid intervals." His portraits, of which there are several in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, are often mannered; but occasionally very fine. Into the portrait of his daughter (now at Keir) he put all his skill; her face, with markedly Greek features, is "one of the most beautiful that death ever dimmed and that the pencil ever rescued from the grave." Il Greco was much employed both as sculptor and architect. He was a man of wit and learning, and is said to have written on the three arts which he professed (Annals of the Artists of Spain, ch. v.).

This picture passed when in the Hamilton Collection for the work of Titian. The inscription on the book, "Cornaro aet suae 100-1566," is interpolated. The picture appears to be one of those realistic representations of St. Jerome of which there are other examples by Theotocopuli.

1123. VENUS, ADONIS, AND MYRRHA.

A picture of the golden age, entirely in the Giorgionesque spirit, and often attributed to Giorgione himself[214]—a vision of a [Pg 535]land bathed in perpetual light and sparkling with golden sunshine. The legendary subject which forms the theme of this characteristic pastoral is the story of Myrrha, which may be read in Dryden's translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The principal group is Venus and her favourite Adonis (see under 34). He was the son of Myrrha, whose legend is the subject of several small groups. On the right is a woman fleeing from a man who pursues her, sword in hand; these represent Myrrha and her father Cinyras. Farther on the woman is on her knees; here Myrrha is praying to the gods to transform her—

A third group shows the answer to her prayer: she is transferred into the myrrh tree, whose "precious drops her name retain," while the wood-nymphs receive her new-born babe, Adonis. In the background on the left is represented the death of Adonis; Venus is lamenting over his body and changing his blood into the anemone. The group in the clouds may represent Cupid accidentally wounding his mother.

1124. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

By some ascribed to Botticelli.[215] "There is an unmistakable drawing for it in the Uffizi Collection (No. 210), which is there ascribed to Botticelli, and which I, for one, am not at all inclined to take away from him. My own opinion is that there was no painter of the time who could have given so poetically conceived a background as we have in No. 1124; the drawing of some of the figures also speaks of itself" (Mr. Maurice Hewlett in the Academy, January 9, 1892).

For two other more highly-finished pictures of the same subject also ascribed to this master see 592 and 1033. This picture, with others from the Hamilton Collection, was in the "Old Masters" Exhibition of 1873. "The 'Adoration of the Magi,'" wrote Ruskin to Mr. Fairfax Murray, "had prettiness in it, but was poor stuff."

[Pg 536]

1125. SUMMER AND AUTUMN.

Summer holds a sieve for sifting the corn which she ripens. Autumn raises a goblet of wine to her lips.

1126. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.

A picture with an interesting history. It was painted by Botticelli[217] when he was a young man, for Matteo Palmieri (a prominent Florentine citizen). This Matteo and his wife are here represented on either side of the tomb in the foreground. The patron assisted Botticelli in working out the design; and between them they made some modifications in theology, which brought them into trouble—so early did Sandro's reforming work begin. The story is thus told, and the picture described, by Vasari:—

"In the church of San Pietro (Florence) the master painted a picture for Matteo Palmieri with a very large number of figures. The subject [Pg 537]of this work, which is near the side-door, is the Assumption of Our Lady, and the zones or circles of heaven are there painted in their order. The Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins, and the Hierarchies; all which was executed by Sandro according to the design furnished to him by Matteo, who was a very learned and able man. The whole work was conducted and finished with the most admirable skill and care; at the foot of it was the portrait of Matteo kneeling, with that of his wife. But although the picture is exceedingly beautiful and ought to have put envy to shame, yet there were found certain malevolent and censorious persons who, not being able to affix any other blame to the work, declared that Matteo and Sandro had erred gravely in that matter, and had fallen into grievous heresy. Now, whether this be true or not, let none expect the judgment of that question from me; it shall suffice me to note that the figures executed by Sandro in that work are entirely worthy of praise, and that the pains he took in depicting those circles of the heavens must have been very great, to say nothing of the angels mingled with the other figures, or of the various foreshortenings, all which are designed in a very good manner" (ii. 233).

Matteo Palmieri was the author of a poem called "The City of Life,"[218] in which he adopted Origen's thesis that the human race was an incarnation of those angels who in the revolt of Lucifer were neither for God nor for his enemies, and explained how the soul of man could work its way back through the spheres to the very seat of deity. This "heresy" interprets (says Mr. Pater) much of the peculiar sentiment with which Botticelli infuses his profane and sacred persons,—neither all human, nor all divine (see above under 275). It was ingeniously suggested, as we shall see, in this picture, and was entirely in accord with those "Neo-Platonic" ideas in which Botticelli, as a member of the Medici circle, was well versed. Matteo seems to have been afraid that his poem might bring him into trouble owing to its heretical views on the nature of angels, for he presented his MS. to the Art of the Notaries in Florence, sealed and under the express condition that it should not be opened, "so long as he lived imprisoned in this body." He died in 1478, and his poem fell under the expected censure. Botticelli's picture, as Vasari says, shared this fate. The painting bears evidence of intentional injury, the faces of the donor and his wife having been scored through; nor did some of the apostles escape the wrath of these icono[Pg 538]clasts. Attempts at restoration were made at some subsequent period. As the portrait of a heretic might not be exhibited in a Roman Catholic church, the picture was covered up, and the chapel in which it stood was closed to public worship. Ultimately the book was declared innocuous, and the chapel was re-opened. The picture, however, had already been, or was afterwards, removed from the family chapel of the Palmieri to their villa. On the death of the last heir, it passed into the hands of a Florentine dealer who sold it to the 11th Duke of Hamilton. At the disposal of the Hamilton Collection in 1882 it was bought for the National Gallery.

The picture was doubtless designed as an illustration of the closing canto of "The City of Life," in which Matteo supposes himself conducted by the Cumæan Sibyl through the Elysian Fields to Heaven. The ostensible subject is the Assumption into Heaven of the Virgin. On earth the apostles are represented gathered around the Virgin's tomb, from which "annunciation lilies" are growing; while she is in heaven kneeling in adoration before the Saviour, who has an open book inscribed with the mystic letters Α and Ω: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." Around the Virgin and Christ are all the hierarchies of heaven, arranged, according to the scheme of the theologians, in three separate tiers. Nearest to Christ are the seraphs (red), cherubs (blue), and thrones (gold); these are conceived as absorbed in perpetual love and adoration round the throne of God, and are represented therefore as with heads only (the attribute of spirit) and wings ("swift as thought"). In relation with mankind come the remaining orders—the dominations, virtues, powers (these last with sceptres in their hands), and in the lowest of the three, tiers, archangels, princedoms, and angels (with their wands). "The black vases with golden borders in the hands of some of the angels are probably meant for the 'golden vials full of the wrath of God' (Revelations xv. 7). Near them there are other angels, who in the attitude of expectation point upward with their sticks; while those in the lowest circle point down, and at the same time seem to invite those who hold vials to pour them out upon the city of Florence" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 28). Everywhere amongst the angelic host are the blessed dead, and it is here that the views of Matteo's poem found expression. We have seen in Botticelli's "Nativity" (1034) the same inter[Pg 539]course of men and angels, with reference there to the reconciling power of the "Logos." Among the cherubs, we may decipher St. James with the pilgrim staff, St. Andrew with his cross, St. Peter with the key, and St. Mary Magdalen with the casket. It is interesting to note Botticelli's estimate of degrees in the scale of spiritual excellence. For instance, St. Catherine of Siena is in the lowest ring among the Angels, but St. Bernard is in the third with Principalities; Moses is among Powers, so are St. Lawrence, St. Stephen, and St. Catherine of Alexandria; Virtues hold St. Bonaventura, St. Dominic, and St. Paul; St. Francis with the Evangelists is higher, in Dominations; in the highest Triplicitie, as Spenser puts it, there are men—including the Baptist—mingled with the Cherubim. The angels are represented throughout as ministering spirits; and nothing in the picture is prettier than the way in which the angels are calling upon the saints to "enter into the joy of their Lord"; note, for instance, the white angel on the right in the lowest tier, and the saint in black and red. She will teach to him

There are many charming single figures; note, for instance, two angels in the lower tier in the centre; and all are characteristic of the new type of angels which Botticelli introduced—forsaking entirely the conventional idealism of earlier religious art, and substituting the waving garments and flowing hair (suggestive of atmosphere and swiftness of motion) which we see in Perugino and Raphael.

Finally, the picture is of topographical interest for the beautiful view of Florence and the Val d' Arno in the background—

The precise point of view has been identified by Miss Margaret Stokes in her Six Months in the Apennines, pp. 261-264. Turning off the high road, on the descent from the hill of Fiesole—

[Pg 540]

"I got among the lanes on Monte Rinaldi near La Lastra, on the Via Bolognese, and soon found myself among the ruined terraces of an ancient garden, where cactus and aloe grew side by side with brambles, periwinkles, and ivy. Having reached an open in the thicket into which I had strayed, I was startled to see the very scene represented by Botticelli about the year 1455 lying at my feet—the wide horizon reaching from San Domenico, and the Apennines beyond Monte Moro, Scala, and Monte Maggio, round the whole Val d' Arno, to San Lorenzo and the northern boundary of Florence. Seated on the same mountain side, where the great painter must have sat four hundred and thirty years ago, and holding my little copy of his landscape in my hand, it was intensely interesting to trace the objects still remaining on which his eye had rested, and which his conscientious pencil had outlined, and to note the changes wrought by time in the aspect of the scene."

Miss Stokes prints side by side with her copy of Botticelli's background a topographical plan of the present scene. The house on the hill above the Mugnone beyond the bridge is the Villa Palmieri, where Queen Victoria stayed in 1888. Boccaccio selected it for one of the homes of his fair storytellers in the Decameron. Matteo Palmieri bought it in 1450. There, no doubt, Botticelli was often a guest, and there the two friends may have planned this great altar-piece. "It is perfectly in keeping with the poetic instincts of sacred painters of the time that this great vision of Heaven should be represented as bursting on the poet in his own very home. Gazing upwards from his cypress groves into the unfathomable blue above, it is as if the sky had slowly opened, and the interior of a vast dome were revealed, rising above three iridescent bands of light, peopled with nine successive zones of sacred forms, all gazing in absorbed ecstasy on the figure of the Divine Mother, lowliest of women, kneeling at the feet of the Redeemer" (pp. 261-264).

1127. THE LAST SUPPER.

This Ercole is not to be confused with the younger painter of the same family (see 1119). Ercole Roberti was the son of Antonio Grandi, also a painter. A drawing attributed to him in the Louvre, representing the Massacre of the Innocents, in which he nearly approaches the grandeur of conception and masterly execution of Mantegna, seems to show that he had either studied under that great painter, or had experienced his influence. Mantua, where Mantegna[Pg 541] lived after 1468, is at no great distance from Ferrara. Ercole was employed at the latter place by the dukes, from whom he received a regular salary. Pictures by him are rare, and none is authenticated by his genuine signature. In the Dresden Gallery are two compartments of a predella by him, another being in the Royal Institution at Liverpool. In these and a few other works, including those in our Gallery, Ercole reveals himself as a thorough Ferrarese, in his energetic rendering of life and character, and in his careful study of details (Layard's edition of "Kugler," ii. 351, and Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 109-113).

A very dainty little work. Notice especially the painting of the bas-reliefs and of the decanters. The attitudes of the disciples betoken respect or veneration, except that of the nearest figure, Judas, who turns away his head.

1128. THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST.

Signorelli was born at Cortona, on the boundary of Umbria and Tuscany. By early teaching he is an Umbrian, but in style a Florentine. Indeed, his position in the history of art is that of forerunner of Michael Angelo. He was a pupil of Piero della Francesca, with whom, no doubt, he acquired a knowledge of the figure from anatomical study of the nude. His chief works, the frescoes in the cathedral of Orvieto,[219]—executed by the artist after his sixtieth year,—were ten years earlier than the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michael Angelo, who was largely influenced by Signorelli's example. Like Michael Angelo, Signorelli is intensely dramatic, and in pictures which do not allow of the violent action to be found in his frescoes, his figures seem to be instinct with suppressed action. "To no other contemporary painter," says Morelli, "was it given to endow the human frame with the like degree of passion, vehemence, and strength" (Roman Galleries, p. 92). "To this we may add," says another critic, "that no other painter has ever conceived humanity with the same stately grandeur and in the same broad spirit. The confident strength of youth, the stern austerity of middle life, the resolute solemnity of old age—these are his themes. Signorelli is, before all, the painter of the dignity of human life" (Maud Cruttwell, Luca Signorelli, p. 31.) He is a representative also of the literary and classical Renaissance. He is fond of architectural adornments in the style of his time—as in the present picture, where the ceremony takes place in a hall or porch enriched with bas-reliefs in circular panels and paved with square slabs of coloured marbles. He painted the usual religious pictures, but did not adhere to [Pg 542]the traditional modes, and often introduced a classical element (see 1133). It is interesting to note that in his picture of some nude Greek gods (at Berlin) the composition is the same as in his regulation church pictures of the Madonna and Saints. Of Signorelli's personal life there is a pleasant account in Vasari, whose kinsman he was. He was a person of consequence in his native city, going hither and thither to paint commissions, and then returning to the discharge of his civic duties. "He lived splendidly, in the manner," says Vasari, "rather of a noble and a gentleman than in that of a painter." Not that he despised his profession, for he expressly advised that his little kinsman should "by all means learn to draw, that he may not degenerate, for even though he should hereafter devote himself to learning, yet the knowledge of design, if not profitable, cannot fail to be honourable and advantageous." Of Signorelli's own devotion to his art Vasari tells another story, which has thus been versified—

Vasari tells that Luca Signorelli, The morning star of Michael Angelo, Had but one son, a youth of seventeen summers, Who died.... Still Luca spoke and groaned not; but he raised The wonderful dead youth, and smoothed his hair, Washed his red wounds, and laid him on a bed.... Naked and beautiful.... Then Luca seized his palette: hour by hour Silence was in the room; none durst approach: Morn wore to noon, and noon to eve, when shyly A little maid peeped in and saw the painter Painting his dead son with unerring hand-stroke, Firm and dry-eyed before the lordly canvas.

Symonds, Renaissance, iii. 281.

Our picture is thus described by Vasari,—for the fact that he calls it a fresco is no argument against the identification, since he often makes such mistakes: "In the church of San Francesco, in Volterra, this master painted a fresco, representing the Circumcision of Christ. This also is considered a wonderfully beautiful picture, but the Child having been injured by the damp, was repaired by Sodoma, whereby the beauty was much diminished. And, of a truth, it would often be much better to retain the works of excellent masters, though half-spoiled, than suffer them to be retouched by less capable artists." Vasari, however, seems to have been "anxious to place Sodoma in a bad light whenever he could. Damp was in all probability not the cause of the restoration of the infant Christ. It was very likely repainted because the public[Pg 543] of Volterra disliked the realism with which Signorelli seems to have treated the subject" (Richter, p. 48). Signorelli's children are curiously ugly: it seems as if he had no sympathy except in the painting of figures of powerful maturity. Of the fact of the repainting recorded by Vasari there is no doubt; for the position of the legs has been altered, their original action being distinctly shown by the incised outline still visible through the deep blue colour of the Virgin's robe. The painting of the other figures is "bold and resolute, the draperies sweep in broad folds round them. The attitude of the standing woman to the right is grand, and the earnest concentration of the faces on the ceremony, and the absence of any connecting link between them and us, give dramatic reality to the scene" (Cruttwell, p. 40). It is interesting to note that the figure of the operator is like the portrait of himself which Signorelli introduced into his frescoes of the Preaching of Anti-Christ at Orvieto: the figure is, moreover, clothed in the dress of the period and of the rich materials in which, Vasari says, the artist took much pleasure in dressing himself. Behind the central group is the aged Simeon, who blessed God and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word."

1129. KING PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN.

The king is younger here than in 745; hanging from his chain is the order of the Golden Fleece. Notice also that the head is not so minutely painted here as in 745; that being a bust portrait would be seen near, this being a full-length would naturally be placed above the level of the eye. The smaller picture might be called, in the art-slang of to-day, "a harmony in black and gold"; this, from the shimmer on its lace and the flashing on the rapier hilt, "a harmony in black and silver."

"Strange lot," exclaims a biographer of Velazquez, with reference to the painter's portraits of the king, "to be the Apelles of this inactive Alexander. For thirty-seven long years always painting the same effigy! For throughout all these years Philip's features preserved a marvellous, a startling uniformity. In the black silk court dress, in the hunting suit, in the military uniform, in the white satin robe of state, in the gilded steel armour, in the festive religious attire—kneeling,[Pg 544] standing, mounted—the same stereotyped head is still there with its everlasting steadfast gaze. It may change from lean to full, from the fresh smooth features of youth and those of manhood, marked by the lines of passion, to the leaden, swollen, and rigid lineaments of age; but even at a distance it is still instantly recognised. Who can mistake the long oval, with its pale whitish complexion, and cold phlegmatic glance of the great blue eyes under the high forehead, and light stiffly-curled hair, strong flat lips and massive chin, the whole overcast with an expression of pride that repels all advances and suppresses all outward show of feeling? He is said to have laughed but thrice in his life; and although the statement might be questioned, it was still good enough to point a sally in one of Calderon's plays" (Justi's Velazquez and his Times, pp. 107, 108).

1130. CHRIST WASHING HIS DISCIPLES' FEET.

Some remarks made by Ruskin on another version by Tintoret of the same subject are not inappropriate to this dark and probably faded picture.[220] "One circumstance is noticeable as in a considerable degree detracting from the interest of most of Tintoret's representations of our Saviour with his disciples. He never loses sight of the fact that all were poor, and the latter ignorant; and while he never paints a senator or a saint, once thoroughly canonised, except as a gentleman, he is very careful to paint the Apostles in their living intercourse with the Saviour in such a manner that the spectator may see in an instant, as the Pharisee did of old, that they were unlearned and ignorant men; and, whenever we find them in a room, it is always such a one as would be inhabited by the lower classes.... We are quickly reminded that the guests' chamber or upper room ready prepared was not likely to have been in a palace, by the humble furniture upon the floor" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index, under "Moisé, Church of St.") In front is St. Peter, placing his foot in a brazen basin and bending forward with a deprecating action—in contrast to which is the look of cheerful and almost amused alacrity on the part of Him who came not to be ministered [Pg 545]unto, but to minister. Behind are other disciples pressing forward with reverent curiosity. Another, in the right-hand corner of the foreground, has raised his foot on a bench and is drying it with a cloth. To the left a female attendant holds a taper, whilst in the background are other figures, one of whom reclines before a fire.

1131. JOSEPH AND HIS KINDRED IN EGYPT.

Jacopo Carucci, commonly called Pontormo, from his birthplace of that name (a town on the road from Pisa to Florence), was a scholar of Andrea del Sarto, and was employed with his master in decorating the outer court of the SS. Annunziata at Florence. His fresco there of the "Visitation" is, for the grandeur of the figures and beauty of the colouring, worthy of Andrea himself. Pontormo was one of the most original "characters" among those described by Vasari. His pictures were much sought after, but "he would never work but at such moments as he pleased, and for such persons as chanced to be agreeable to him, insomuch that he was frequently sought by gentlemen who desired to possess some work from his hand, but for whom he would do nothing; yet at that very time he would probably be employing himself zealously for some inferior and plebeian person. One of the Medici had been greatly pleased with a picture by Pontormo, and said that in reward for it he might ask whatever he pleased and should have his wish granted. But such was, I know not whether to say the timidity, or the too great respect and modesty of this man, that he asked nothing better than just so much money as would enable him to redeem a cloak which he had hastily pledged." Many other interesting tales of Pontormo will be found in Vasari—of his love of secrecy, his curious manner of life, and the dead bodies he kept in troughs of water, so to paint more realistically the victims of the Deluge. This last tale is characteristic of Pontormo's place in the history of art, which for the most part was that of an exaggerated mannerist after Michael Angelo. In the National Gallery we see him at his best. His portraits are uniformly excellent, and his "Joseph in Egypt" is mentioned by Vasari as his most successful work—"whether as regards the power of invention displayed, the grouping of the figures, the animation of the heads, or the variety and beauty of the attitudes."

This crowded and fantastic composition contains a drama in five acts describing incidents in the life of Joseph in Egypt (see Genesis xlvii. 1-6, 13-26; xlviii. 1-14). (1) On the left Pharaoh, in a white turban, and surrounded by attendants, is met by Joseph and his brethren, who stand before him in[Pg 546] attitudes of supplication. The youth sitting on the steps with a basket in his hand is a portrait (Vasari tells us) of the painter's pupil, Bronzino. (2) On the right of the foreground Joseph, seated on a triumphal car drawn by naked children, stoops forward towards a man who kneels and presents a petition. (3) In the middle distance there is an animated group of men ("Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land?"). (4) On the steps leading up to the circular building on the right, Joseph is leading one of his sons to see the dying Jacob; he is followed by the "steward of the house," a conspicuous figure in a long crimson robe. The other boy appears at the top of the steps and is embraced by his mother. (5) Inside the room Jacob is represented as giving his blessing to the two boys, Ephraim and Manasseh, who are presented to him by their father. The antique statues which adorn the building were often given by mediæval artists as characteristic of Egypt, from which the art of Greece was believed to have been derived (see Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, pp. 36-40).

The removal of this picture has been blasted by a woman's curse. It was painted for a Florentine noble, named Borgherini; and when he was exiled, the civic authorities sent to his house to buy up all its works of art, which were to be sent as a present to the King of France. But Borgherini's wife received the official with "reproaches of intolerable bitterness," says Vasari, "such as had never before been hurled at living man: 'How then! Dost thou, vile broker of frippery, miserable huckster of twopences, dost thou presume to come hither with intent to lay thy fingers on the ornaments which belong to the chambers of gentlemen? despoiling, as thou hast long done, and as thou art for ever doing, this our city of her fairest ornaments to embellish strange lands therewith? Depart from this house, thou and thy myrmidons.'" The lady's anger preserved the picture—only to be afterwards seduced away, by English gold, into the Duke of Hamilton's Collection, from which it was bought for the National Gallery in 1882. Borgherini's commission for the works in question is thus described by Vasari:—

"It chanced that Pier Francesco Borgherini had at that time caused rich carvings in wood to be executed by Baccio d' Agnolo for the decoration of coffers, backs of chairs, seats of different forms, with a bedstead in walnut wood, all of great beauty, and intended for the[Pg 547] furnishing forth of an apartment. He therefore desired that the paintings thereof should be equal to the rest of the ornaments. To that end he commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint the history of Joseph in figures of no great size, and these our artist was to execute in competition with other artists,"—Ubertino and Pontormo among the number (Vasari, iii. 201, iv. 353).

Ubertino's paintings for this sumptuous bedroom as well as that of Pontormo have now found their way into our Gallery (see 1218, 1219).

1132. THE VESTIBULE OF A LIBRARY.

The elder painter of this name was one of the first to give us those architectural interiors, which later became a specialty among various painters (see Havard's Dutch School, p. 53). His son, the younger Steenwyck, adopted the same line of art. He came to London before 1629, and was much employed in supplying architectural backgrounds to the royal portraits by Van Dyck and to other pictures. He died in London after 1649.

A picture for architects to look at. It is the interior of a vestibule giving access to a library, and is full of inventiveness. Notice, too, how beautifully the accessories—the tablecloth, the vase of flowers, etc., are painted.

1133. THE NATIVITY.

A dramatic representation in one canvas of the Gospel story told in Luke ii. 1-17. Scene 1. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled." This is represented by the Roman portico behind the central group, under which, at a long table, is seated a row of scribes, who are entering the names of the people. Scene 2. "And Joseph went up ... to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife ... and she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in the manger." This is the subject of the central scene. But the artist, no longer bound by conventional rules, treats his text freely. There is no manger, but the stable is suggested by the heads of the ox and the ass at the side; and instead of the Babe being found "wrapped in swaddling clothes," it is naked. Joseph, in orange and[Pg 548] crimson robes, is full of benevolence. The shepherds on the left are in deep reverence. The Virgin is robed in deep blue and green, typical of the depth and mystery of her divine love. In the interstices of the central group are three angels with golden hair and rainbow-hued wings—"calm shining sons of morn." Scene 3. On the left is a group of shepherds: "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night." The angel of the Lord is appearing unto them from heaven, and they are sore afraid, shielding their eyes from the heavenly light. Scene 4. On the right of the spectator, and seen through an arch of natural rock, is a shepherd playing on the pipe. This figure suggests the antique; he is crowned with ivy leaves and might almost be Orpheus. Thus, instead of representing the "Glory to God in the highest" being sung by "a multitude of the heavenly host," Signorelli gives us a Greek singer—a variation thoroughly characteristic of the classical revival of his time.

The landscape is also thoroughly characteristic of the mediæval mind, which loved the fields but dreaded the mountains. See here, for instance, how lovingly the flowers in the foreground are painted, and note the trailing ivy in the centre of the picture, as well as the flowers and ferns; whereas the rocks upon which these latter grow are altogether impossible in form and position (see Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. chs. xiv. and xv., where the landscape of Dante, of whom Signorelli was a close student, is analysed). The artist's signature is inscribed on the frieze of the portico. Some, however, have questioned its authenticity and declare the picture to be a weak imitation of the master.

1134. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Liberale di Giacomo, of Verona, was brought up as a miniaturist, and his works in that sort, executed before he was out of his teens, are much admired for their fancy and sumptuous colour. The choral books which he executed for Monte Oliveto are now in the cathedral of Chiusi. Returning to Verona, Liberale took to painting on a large scale, and became one of the most esteemed artists of the Veronese School. "One of his best works is the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian in the Brera, in which he has introduced an interesting architectural background with Venetian palaces on a canal, designed with much spirit and[Pg 549] minuteness. In consequence of his bold and vigorous style his works are occasionally attributed to Mantegna" (Kugler). Many of his pictures are still at Verona.

One of "the small spiritless Madonna pictures which he produced carelessly and hastily in his old age, and supplied for niggardly pay to the citizens of Verona. They served as wedding presents, and Liberale has only himself to thank if this degenerate practice should have spoilt his reputation" (Dr. Richter in the Art Journal, Feb. 1895).

1135, 1136. THE CLEMENCY OF TRAJAN.

These two panels, which clearly formed two sides of an ornamental box, represent a favourite subject with Italian painters of the period. The story is that an ancient widow of Rome stopped the Emperor Trajan as he was about to proceed on one of his foreign expeditions, and asked for justice against the murderers of her son, who is here seen lying dead on the roadway. Trajan suggested that she should wait till his return. She replied that the emperor might be killed in battle. "Then," said Trajan, "my successor will attend to the business." "But why," she urged, "not decide the case at once?" The emperor on second thoughts did so, and the second panel shows him on the judgment seat. He called the culprits before him, spared their lives, but made them pay heavy damages to the widow. This incident was engraved, together with the record of his victories, on Trajan's column.

1137. PORTRAIT OF A BOY.

This painter was born at Bruges, and his pictures are very numerous in his native town. He painted principally religious subjects in the style of the Carracci, whose works he had studied in Italy. Of his portraits, this work—signed with his monogram,[221] and dated 1650—is the best.

A boy of eleven—so the inscription on the right-hand corner states—Mr. Pater's Sebastian van Storck, it might be.

[Pg 550]

"It was a winter scene, by Adrian van de Velde, or by Isaac van Ostade.... Sebastian van Storck, confessedly the most graceful performer in all the skating multitude moving in endless maze over the vast surface of the frozen water-meadow, liked best this season of the year for its expression of a perfect impassivity, or at least of a perfect repose. The earth was, or seemed to be, at rest, with a breathlessness of slumber which suited the young man's peculiar temper.... Yet with all his appreciation of the national winter, Sebastian was not altogether a Hollander. His mother, of Spanish descent and Catholic, had given a richness of tone and form to the healthy freshness of the Dutch physiognomy, apt to preserve its youthfulness of aspect far beyond the period of life usual with other peoples. This mixed expression charmed the eyes of Isaac van Ostade, who had painted his portrait at one of those skating parties, with his plume and squirrel's tail and fur muff, in all the modest pleasantness of boyhood" (Imaginary Portraits, p. 92).

1138. THE CRUCIFIXION.

There is a rough vigour in this picture which agrees well with what we know of the painter. His father was a labouring man. Left an orphan in his boyhood, Andrea herded the cattle of an uncle at the hamlet of Castagno (whence the painter's name). He was first stimulated to study art by chancing to come across an itinerant painter at work on a rustic tabernacle. He began to draw upon the walls with charcoal or his knife, and showed therein so much ability that he attracted the notice of Benedetto de' Medici, who took the youth to Florence and placed him under proper tuition. Such is Vasari's story. But Benedetto's patronage did not save Andrea from a hard struggle with adversity. At the age of forty he is found declaring that he had neither bed, board, nor lodging in Florence, and was so poor that in illness he had to take shelter in a public hospital. These declarations were made, however, in a taxing return. Subsequently Andrea received various commissions in the palaces and churches of Florence, and from the Government. For the latter he painted on the wall of the palace of the Podestà the gibbeted bodies of those who were declared rebels on the recall from banishment of Cosimo de' Medici. Most of Andrea's works have perished; the few that remain in Florence display "a rude and coarse energy and an independent and original spirit, but are seldom attractive, either in form or colour" (Kugler). He is said to have painted in oil, but no work by him in that medium exists. Vasari's story in this connection, that he assassinated Domenico Veneziano, is demonstrably false (see under 766).

[Pg 551]

This picture is impressive in its solemn gloom. The impenitent thief writhes in agony, the suffering Christ casts his last glance at his mother, who, with St. John the beloved disciple, stands below in speechless grief. "The most beautiful in colour of all early works" (Ford Madox Brown in Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 134). Andrea's treatment of the subject, as also Antonello's (1166), is remarkable for simplicity and realism. In most representations of the Crucifixion the central tragedy is partially lost in the large groups of bystanders (e.g. 718, 1048, 1088), and various symbolical figures are introduced—as, for instance, flying angels around the cross. Even in Giotto's fresco at Padua this feature is introduced. Indeed "in all the pictures of the Crucifixion by the great masters, with the single exception perhaps of that by Tintoret in the church of San Cassiano at Venice, there is a tendency to treat the painting as a symmetrical image, or collective symbol of sacred mysteries, rather than as a dramatic representation" (Ruskin's Giotto, p. 149). For an example of a symbolic representation, in contrast to the severe simplicity of the picture before us, see No. 1478.

1139. THE ANNUNCIATION.

This picture shows us the side of Duccio on which the early School of Siena still adhered to the traditions of Byzantine art. For instance, the Greek method of symbolising light on drapery is seen in the gold lines of Mary's dress, a decorative method which Duccio was the last to use. So, too, in the gold background, which was universal in Byzantine mosaics. This survival may be seen in all the early Sienese pictures in the Gallery. In 1188, for instance, all the landscape background is gold; so in 1140 are all the spaces between the houses; whilst 1113 resembles a brilliant mosaic with gold for its groundwork.

We have here the earliest representation in our Gallery of one of the most frequent subjects in mediæval art, and a few remarks on its development may be interesting. The subjects which artists had at their disposal in those days were prescribed to them by religious uses and religious conventions. Not in novelty of subject, but in individuality of treatment, was scope for the artist's ingenuity to be found. Hence a comparison of[Pg 552] pictures of the same subject by different artists and different schools affords a suggestive study in the evolution of art. One may trace by such comparisons something of the same process of "descent with modification" that Darwin has exhibited in the case of fish and insect, fern and flower.[222] Thus we may compare the present picture—the earliest and simplest "Annunciation" in our Gallery—with Crivelli's (739), which is the most ornate, and which was painted 200 years later. Two pictures of the same subject could hardly be more unlike. Duccio's is severe and simple; Crivelli's, florid and picturesque. The one is rigidly confined to the main matter in hand; the other is crowded from corner to corner with dainty detail and lively incident. Halfway, as it were, between the two stands Lippi's "Annunciation" (666); there also there is much lovely detail, but we see in a moment that "in the Florentine, the detail is there for the sake of the picture; in the Venetian, the picture is there for the sake of the detail." Crivelli's picture shows us the furthest point of departure from the original type. Yet observe how much of the original survives. First, and this point is absolutely fixed in all mediæval representations of the subject, the angel Gabriel occupies the left-hand side, and the Blessed Virgin the right-hand side of the picture. Often (as in Giotto's frescoes in the Arena at Padua) the subject is divided into two halves by the intervention of the choir arch. In Italy, the Annunciation was always the subject employed for the decoration of the main entrance of church. For this purpose, the convenient architectural arrangement was to place a relief of the angel on one side, a relief of the Madonna on the other, and the doorway between them.[223] Similarly inside, the Annunciation was constantly employed to decorate the blank space beside an archway, and hence arose the custom of dividing the treatment. We may see examples in our Gallery in the wings (interior [Pg 553]side) of the "Coronation" by Justus of Padua (701), and in the terminal panels of Landini's altar-piece (580A). To this peculiarity is perhaps due the wall, barrier, or column which so often marks off the figure of the Virgin from that of the angel. We find it here in the Duccio; also in Fra Angelico's picture (1406), and again in Crivelli's. Sometimes, however, there is no such division. See, for instance, Lippi's picture (666), and Manni's (1104). There is a reason for this difference. Lippi's, no doubt, was painted to fill the space over a doorway; Manni's was the apex of an altar-piece. The decorative function of the pictures governed their composition. Returning to the Duccio, we may notice as a third and nearly constant element, the angel's lilies—Annunciation lilies, as the Italians call them. Sometimes they are in a vase as here; sometimes (as in the Crivelli), the angel bears a lily in his hand. Next, it is noticeable that the action almost invariably takes place in a loggia—an arcade or cloister. The lectern or prie-dieu, which in Crivelli's picture and in very many others of the subject stands beside the Madonna, is a refinement on the earliest type as seen in Duccio and Fra Angelico. But whether with lectern or without, the Virgin is always represented with a book engaged in her devotions. Visitors who desire to trace the evolution of this subject should conclude their studies at the Tate Gallery, where, in Rossetti's "Ecce Ancilla Domini" and Mr. Hacker's "Annunciation," modern versions of the old subject are given. Rossetti's is one of the most imaginative in the whole range of art (see Ruskin's analysis cited in vol. ii. of this handbook, No. 1210).

1140. CHRIST HEALING THE BLIND.

The departure from conventional forms, which was characteristic of Duccio, is conspicuous in this picture. Each of the disciples has an individual character, the entire group representing not conventional forms but living types of men. There is a piece of symbolism in the blind man who has already been healed which should not escape notice. Duccio is not content to represent the bare act of healing, but insists further upon the efficacy of the touch of Him who was the Light of the World, by making the blind man drop the staff of which he has no longer need. There is another piece of symbolism[Pg 554] in the gradated scale by which he draws attention to the respective dignities of his characters—Christ being the tallest in the picture, the blind man the shortest (A. H. Macmurdo in Century Guild Hobby Horse, 1886, p. 119).

1141. SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.

A portrait in Antonello's second or Venetian manner. The portrait is the more interesting from the probability that it is of the painter himself. The inscription which so stated is said to have been sawn off by a former owner to fit the picture into a frame.[224] "It is the likeness of a man who is entirely self-possessed, nowise an idealist, yet one who would never be prompted to impetuous action. He has plenty of intelligence; nothing would escape those clear gray eyes;—scarcely, however, do they seem as if they would penetrate below the outward show of things. Considered from a technical point of view, the same subdued feeling is apparent. In the Louvre masterpiece (which this picture at once recalls), Antonello evidently braced himself for a supreme effort; in the National Gallery portrait we have an excellent example of his powers at his best period" (Times, May 31, 1883).

1143. THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY.

Ridolfo Bigordi, called Ghirlandajo, was the son of Domenico Ghirlandajo (see 1230), who gave him his first instruction in art. On the death of Domenico, Ridolfo was taken charge of by his uncle David, and perhaps received instruction also from Domenico's favourite pupil, Granacci. In 1503 Leonardo da Vinci came to Florence, and seems to have exercised a strong influence on the young Ridolfo. To this Leonardine period of our artist, the present picture, executed in 1505, belongs: some of the heads (which are of great force and beauty) seem to have been copied or imitated from Leonardo. To the same period and influence Morelli ascribes the "Annunciation," No. 1288 in the [Pg 555]Uffizi, there attributed to Leonardo himself, and the "Portrait of a Goldsmith," similarly attributed in the Pitti. In Ridolfo's works after 1506 the influence of Raphael is discernible. Raphael was his fellow-student and contemporary, and between the two congenial youths an ardent friendship, Vasari tells us, sprang up. Raphael employed Ridolfo to fill in part of the blue drapery of the "Belle Jardinière", and invited him to Rome; but Ridolfo, "who had never, as the saying is, 'lost sight of the cupola' (of the Duomo), and could in no wise resolve on living out of Florence, would accept no proposal which might compel him to abandon his abode in his native place." At Florence Ridolfo found ample and congenial employment, not only in the production of pictures, but in artistic catering for the pageants of the Republic, and in the service of the Medici. He did not disdain, says Vasari, "to paint banners, standards, and matters of similar kind. He was an exceedingly prompt and rapid painter in many kinds of work, more particularly in the preparations for festivals; when the Emperor Charles V. arrived in Florence, he constructed a triumphal arch in ten days, and another arch at the gate of Prato was erected by this artist in a very short space of time, this work being constructed for the marriage of the most Illustrious Lady the Duchess Leonora." Among his pictures, the "St. Zenobio restoring a boy to life" and the burial of the same saint, in the Uffizi, are considered Ridolfo's masterpieces; they are remarkable for force of colour, and fine modelling in the heads. Ridolfo employed a number of young painters, and from this workshop issued many pictures which were sold to England, Germany, and Spain. He lived to be nearly eighty years old; and "though heavily afflicted with the gout, he still bore much love," says Vasari, "to all connected with art, and liked to hear of, and when he could to see, whatever was most commended in the way of buildings, pictures, and other works." He was buried with his forefathers in S. Maria Novella.

One of the pictures in the Gallery which are additionally interesting from being mentioned and praised by Vasari—who, by the way, was himself a friend of Ridolfo:

"In the Church of S. Gallo he depicted our Saviour Christ, bearing his Cross and accompanied by a large body of soldiers; the Madonna and the other Maries, weeping in bitter grief, are also represented, with San Giovanni and Santa Veronica, who presents the handkerchief to our Saviour; all these figures are delineated with infinite force and animation.[225] This work, in which there are many beautiful portraits [Pg 556]from the life, and which is executed with much love and care, caused Ridolfo to acquire a great name; the portrait of his father is among the heads, as are those of certain among his disciples, and of some of his friends—Poggino, Scheggia, and Nunziata, for example, the head of the latter being one of extraordinary beauty" (v. 5).

It is interesting in this connection to notice that the procession to Calvary was one of the regulation subjects with mediæval painters (see for a picture of it, some two hundred years earlier, 1189), and familiarity bred contempt for the pathos of the scene; it became a mere opportunity for variegated compositions, and curiously enough two of the brightest pictures in the Gallery (this and 806) are of this subject. For the story of St. Veronica see 687.

1144. MADONNA AND CHILD.

The confusion in the use of the word "school" is illustrated in the case of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (sometimes wrongly given as Razzi), called also Il Sodoma. He spent most of his life at Siena, and is often grouped therefore with the Sienese School. But he was born at Vercelli, in Piedmont—being the son of a shoemaker—and "ripened into an artist during the two years he spent at Milan with Leonardo da Vinci" (1498-1500). Sodoma is therefore, says Morelli (German Galleries, p. 428), to be reckoned as one of the Milanese-Lombard School. "Nay, I believe I should not be far wrong were I to maintain that the majority of the better works ascribed to Leonardo in private collections are by him.... Young Bazzi while at Milan seems to have taken Leonardo for his model, not only in art, but even in personal appearance and fancies. All his life he loved to play the cavalier, and, like Leonardo, always kept saddle-horses in his stable, and all kinds of queer animals in his house."[226] Vasari gives an amusing, though probably apocryphal, account of his excesses, and represents him as a lewd fellow of the baser sort, with whom no respectable person would have anything to do. But Raphael so respected Bazzi and his work that he introduced his portrait (erroneously called Perugino's) by the side of his own in his celebrated fresco of the "School of Athens." But at any rate Sodoma was a careless, jovial fellow—[Pg 557]dividing his time between the studio and the stable; and when cash ran short or a horse ran wrong, he would meet his liabilities with a hastily dashed-off picture. This very Madonna may perhaps have paid off a racing debt.

"Sodoma," says a distinguished German critic, "had a poetic soul, full of glowing and deep feeling, a richly endowed creative mind, but no inclination for severe earnest work" (Jansen). His execution is unequal, but at his best he is one of the most attractive of all the Italian painters. No one will deny this who recalls the fresco, in the upper floor of the Farnesina Palace, of "The Marriage of Alexander and Roxana"—"one of the most enchanting pictures of the whole Renaissance," or who has studied the painter's work in the churches, the Gallery, and the Palazzo Publico of Siena. The figure of "St. Ansano" in the latter place may be taken as an example of the dignity which Sodoma was capable of imparting to his types. The "Christ bound to the Column" in the Siena gallery is a fine example of his power as a colourist and his command of pathetic expression; while in the figure of Eve in the "Limbo" in the same gallery, and in more than one Holy Family, we may see his innate sense of feminine beauty and grace. It is supposed that Sodoma went as a young man to Milan and there imbibed the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, but this theory (maintained by Morelli) of a close connection between Leonardo and Sodoma is not accepted by all critics. In 1501 he went to Siena, where, in the stagnation of the local school, he found ample openings for his abilities. To this period belong the series of frescoes representing the history of St. Benedict in the Convent of Monte Oliveto. In 1507 Sodoma was taken by the Sienese merchant, Agostino Chigi, to Rome. He began to decorate the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican, but the Pope transferred the commission to Raphael. Sodoma was again in Rome in 1514, when he painted for Chigi the frescoes already referred to. In the interval he had returned to Siena, where he married the daughter of an innkeeper. From 1515 onwards he made Siena his headquarters. Copies of some of the works mentioned above may be seen in the Arundel Society's Collection.

This picture, which is hardly a satisfactory example of the painter, is one of those supposed by some critics to have been painted in the years 1518-20, during which he is believed to have revisited Milan. Others place it later in the artist's career. "Probably one of his late 'pot-boilers.' It was originally in the Rossini Collection at Pisa, and may have been painted there during the last years of the artist's life, while he was working at the choir decorations in the cathedral" (Sodoma, by the Contessa Priuli Bon, 1900, p. 92).

[Pg 558]

1145. SAMSON AND DELILAH.

Samson, whose giant's strength lay in his hair, fell into the toils of Delilah (Judges xvi.), who delivered him to his enemies by cutting off his hair as he lay asleep. On the trunk of the olive tree behind, Mantegna has carved the moral he drew from the tale: "Foemina diabolo tribus assibus est mala peior" (woman is a worse evil than the devil by the three pennies which bind you to her).[227] But though Mantegna has taken his subject from the Bible, his treatment of it is in the classical spirit. "Apart from the fact that her attention is directed to the mechanical operation, Delilah's expression is one of absolute and entire unconcern. Look of cunning, or of deceit, or of triumph there is none. Mantegna was not the man to shirk expression when he deemed the subject required it; probably, therefore, he left the features impassive in obedience to the formula of a certain school of antique sculpture, that all violent emotion should be avoided" (see Times, June 18, 1883).

1147. HEADS OF NUNS.

Ambrogio, the younger brother of Pietro Lorenzetti (see 1113), was the greatest of the early Sienese painters. His series of frescoes in the Sala della Pace in the Palazzo Publico of Siena, typifying good and bad government, are known to every traveller. They are full both of artistic beauty and historical interest (see the description by Symonds in his Sketches and Studies, iii. 43). The heads of many of Ambrogio's allegorical figures are of great beauty and grandeur—especially that of Peace, which is of classical dignity and may possibly have been modelled on the lines of some antique sculpture.

The work before us is a mere shattered fragment of fresco (from a church in Siena), but it is enough to show the artist's feeling for the true portraiture that identifies character with likeness. The nuns' faces are typical of the strong yet tender qualities developed in a life of seclusion and self-sacrifice.

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1148. CHRIST AT THE COLUMN.

An intensely dramatic rendering of the central lesson of Christianity. The scene depicted is an episode from the Passion between the scourging and the crowning with thorns—a scene not given in the Gospels, and invented to produce a more vivid effect than representations of familiar scenes. The absence of all decorative accessories concentrates the attention at once on the figure of the Divine sufferer—bound by the wrists to the column. His hands are swollen and blackened by the cords; the blood has trickled down the shoulder—so terrible was the punishment—and the scourges and rod have been flung contemptuously at his feet. Yet abnegation of self and Divine compassion are stamped indelibly on his countenance, as he turns his head to the child who is kneeling in adoration. The guardian angel behind bids the child approach the Redeemer in prayer (hence the alternative title that has been given to the picture, "The Institution of Prayer"). From the wise and prudent the lessons of Christianity are often hidden, but Christ himself here reveals them unto babes. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." A thin white line, a ray, reaches from the position of the heart to the Saviour's ear—

The angel is a portrait (a preparatory study from a model is included amongst the collection of drawings made by Cean Bermudez). The downcast eye, the slightly pouting lips, as if about to weep, betray the harrowing expression of the moment. This expression shows fine invention, for it might have been more natural for the eye to follow the hand directing the child's attention to the figure. But the angel fears himself to look, lest he be overcome with grief. The tone of the picture is in keeping with its theme. There probably exists no other painting executed in such a decidedly gray, blackish-gray tone, although it is by no means colourless, as seen in the orange-brown and dull crimson of the angel's costume, which are peculiar to Velazquez. It is as if, after the terrible event that[Pg 560] has here taken place, mourning Nature had strewn the scene with a fine shower of ashes, as after some tremendous volcanic outburst (Justi's Velazquez and his Times, pp. 241-248).

1149. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Marco, called Oggionno from the village near Milan in which he was born, was one of the pupils and imitators of Leonardo. He made several copies of the master's "Last Supper," one of which is in the collection of the Royal Academy. His best original work on a large scale is the "Triumph of the Three Archangels over Satan," in the Brera. Among his smaller works, the "Infant Christ caressing St. John," at Hampton Court, is more successful than most. His works, says M. Müntz, "are wanting in vivacity of feeling and purity of drawing, and intensity of colour does duty for intensity of sentiment."

This is a characteristic example of the painter's work. He succeeded in catching a little of Leonardo's smile, "chilled as it were on the way" (Logan). The study in chalk for the Virgin's head is in the Dyce Collection in the South Kensington Museum.

1150. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

1151. THE ENTOMBMENT.

A copy, in colour, of an engraving by Martin Schongauer (see 658).

1152. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Martino and his brother Albertino were painters at Lodi, where they worked both together and separately; there are many altar-pieces in the churches of that place by them. This picture is a signed work of Martino alone. The brothers belonged to the school which was established in Milan and its neighbourhood before the arrival of Leonardo; but in many of Martino's work the new influence is discernible. "The curly hair, his high finish and chiaroscuro, derived from a study of Leonardo, are distinctive traits" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. lxxvi.).

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Compare the type of countenance and form of the rocks with those in Leonardo's picture, 1093. For the subject of this picture see under 25.

1154. GIRL WITH A LAMB.

An unfinished study—characteristic of the touch of affectation often visible in Greuze's pictures of simplicity. Children fondling pet lambs are a favourite motive in art, but its treatment is seldom free from affectation. See, for instance, Murillo's St. John, 176.

1155. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.

Matteo, the son of Giovanni di Bartolo (a mercer),—called also Matteo di Siena—was the best Sienese painter of his time, and in this picture, which is perhaps his masterpiece, we have an epitome of all the most characteristic qualities of the earlier Sienese school—"its warm, delicate, and transparent colouring, its graceful outline, its religious sentiment, and its somewhat miniature-like execution. Matteo was the last of the series of painters who developed the art of Duccio, adhering to the traditions of the school of which that great master was the founder" (Layard). In the expression of passion and dramatic action that school was never successful, struggling to disguise weakness by overstraining expression. This weakness is conspicuous in Matteo's pictures of the "Massacre of the Innocents" (in S. Agostino and S. Maria de' Servi in Siena), and is not absent from his "Ecce Homo" and "St. Stephen" in this Gallery (247 and 1461). His best pictures at Siena are the "Madonna della Neve" in the chapel of that name, and the "Coronation of S. Barbara" in S. Domenico. He also designed one of the Sibyls (the Samian) on the marble pavement of the Duomo.

A picture in which the artist concentrates all he could command of gaiety and joyousness in colour, expression, action, and sentiment; and thus typical of the personal feeling, approximating to that of a lover to his mistress, which entered into Madonna worship. These pictures of coronations and assumptions of the Virgin are not merely tributes of devotion to the mother of God, but are poetic renderings of the recognition of women's queenship, of her rule not by force of law but by tenderness and sacrifice—

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One may read the same spirit, perhaps, in the legend of St. Thomas and the Madonna, introduced in this picture—of St. Thomas, who ever doubted, but whose faith was confirmed by a woman's girdle. For the story is that the Virgin, taking pity on his unbelief, threw down to him her girdle, which he is here raising his hands to catch, as it falls from her throne, in order that this tangible proof remaining with him might remove all doubts for ever from his mind—

1157. THE NATIVITY.

This painter was a pupil of Massimo Stanzioni (a rival of Spagnoletto), and showed such ability that "at first he created a jealous feeling in Massimo himself. Finding afterwards that his talent lay more in small figures than in large, he pursued that department and became very celebrated in his school. In the galleries of the Neapolitan nobility are to be seen by him, on canvas and copper, subjects both sacred and profane. Life was alone wanting to him, which he unfortunately shortened by his irregularities" (Lanzi, ii. 41).

A characteristic work in the "naturalistic" manner.

1159. THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM.

A very impressive picture in spite of the somewhat grotesque angel who accosts Abraham and points him to the Almighty seated in the clouds above (Genesis xii.). And indeed it is in his skies that Gaspard points us to the Infinite—in the open[Pg 563] sky, stretching far away into that yellow horizon. To what does this strange distant space owe its attractive power?

"There is one thing that it has, or suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is—Infinity.... For the sky of night, though we may know it boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit—we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light.... Of the value of this mode of treatment (i.e. the rendering of open sky) there is a farther and more convincing proof than its adoption either by the innocence of the Florentine or the ardour of the Venetian, namely, that when retained or imitated from them by the landscape painters of the seventeenth century, when appearing in isolation from all other good, among the weaknesses and paltrinesses of Claude, the mannerisms of Gaspar, and the caricatures and brutalities of Salvator, it yet redeems and upholds all three, conquers all foulness by its purity, vindicates all folly by its dignity, and puts an uncomprehended power of permanent address to the human heart upon the lips of the senseless and the profane"[228] (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. §§ 5, 12).

1160. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

This picture—ascribed by Morelli and others to Catena (see 234)—is by some connected with the name of Giorgione. It displays, says Sir Edward Poynter, "the qualities which we should expect to find in a picture by Giorgione, and does not seem so far removed from the only absolutely authenticated work by him—the altar-piece at Castelfranco—as to make it impossible to attribute it to his hand. In qualities of drawing and composition it is superior to what we know of the work of Catena" (The National Gallery, i. 23). "The figures are Bellinesque, yet with that added touch of delicacy and refinement which Giorgione always knows how to impart. The richness of colouring, the depth of tone, the glamour of the whole, is far superior to anything we can point to with certainty as Catena's work; and no finer example of his 'Giorgionesque' phase is to be found than the sumptuous 'Warrior adoring the Infant Christ' (234) which hangs close by. Catena's work seems cold and studied beside the warmth and spontaneity of Giorgione's little panel" (Herbert Cook's [Pg 564]Giorgione, p. 54). "Whoever painted it, it is worth many much larger canvases. The simple, flowing cast of the drapery, the general scheme of colour, and the quality of individual tints, such as the mellow yellow shaded with red, and the greenish-blue of the Virgin's mantle, are not like what I know of Catena. The lively, well-drawn child, with its supple limbs; the faces of the women, with full faces, short noses, and square jaws; the straight-necked horses, and many other things in this charming picture,—seem to me to proclaim a distinct, if unknown, master. Above all things distinct, perhaps, is the particular tone of reverence—naïve, quiet, but deep—that pervades the picture, a feeling which can scarcely have been imitated, but must have proceeded from the very character of the painter himself" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 224).

1165. ST. HIPPOLYTUS AND ST. CATHERINE.

Two saints who were not divided in the manner of their martyrdom, and who are united therefore on the painter's canvas. Each holds the martyr's palm. St. Catherine places her left hand on the hilt of a sword—the instrument by which she was ultimately beheaded, whilst her foot rests upon the wheel on which she was to have been torn to death, had not an angel from heaven broken it. St. Hippolytus's death was not unlike that which had been devised for St. Catherine. He is clad in armour, for he was the soldier stationed as guard over St. Lawrence (see 747), but he is represented as bareheaded, and with his face upturned in reverence, for that "he was so moved by that illustrious martyr's invincible courage and affectionate exhortations that he became a Christian with all his family." Wherefore he was tied to the tails of wild horses and torn to death. On the fragment of stone in the foreground is an inscription in Latin, telling by what death the two saints glorified God—"Membris dissolvi voluerunt ne vinculis divellerentur aeternis:" they chose to be torn limb by limb rather than by renouncing their faith to be thus torn hereafter by eternal chains. The members of the body are the chains of the soul, and the martyrs freed themselves from temporary fetters rather than submit to the fetters of everlasting punishment.

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1166. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Signed, and dated 1477, two years later than the very similar picture at Antwerp. Notice the harmonious colouring, and the expression of abandon and lassitude, following more poignant grief, in the Virgin's attitude, with her arms falling down on each knee. "The subject was never more truly felt, and the little figure of the Virgin at the foot of the cross contains in it an expression of concentrated grief I never saw equalled. The eyes are shut, the hands simply rest on the knees, but this very simplicity gives it a truth which far surpasses the extravagant attitudes of the later painters" (from a letter by Louisa, Lady Waterford, from whom the picture was purchased in 1884; see Hare's The Story of Two Noble Lives, iii. 77). This picture shows, says Mr. Gilbert, "the dawning loveliness of Venetian colour, as distinguished from the vivid beauty of the early Flemish. Instead of the minute definition of every object characteristic of the Van Eyck School, we find, spread over a scene of the utmost simplicity, a delicious silvery haze, melting into the warm tones of a shadowless foreground. In this small picture we may see already what Venice owed to Flanders—how Venice would enrich the gift" (Landscape in Art, p. 311).

1168. PORTRAIT OF A JESUIT.

Works by this artist are rare and very little known. He belonged to Delft—a town as active in painting as in pottery. This picture is signed and dated 1631.

An admirable portrait. The Jesuit father, here depicted with so much quiet truth and skill, is a good representative of the great order which had at that time saved the Papacy. He is a student, but the crucifix is ever on his books. "The Jesuits appear," says Macaulay, "to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation." But he turns round from his book and looks with a smile of tender sadness on the spectator—he is ready to read your heart and to give you sympathy in return for confidences.

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1169. MRS. ROBERT HOLLOND.

An artist who once enjoyed a great vogue (a version of this picture was bought in 1845 by the ex-Queen of the French for £1000), and whose pictures are historically interesting for their extraordinary absence of the colour-sense. Ary Scheffer's pictures, says Ruskin (Academy Notes, 1858, p. 40), are designed "on the assumption that the noblest ideal of colour is to be found in dust," and what he said in 1846 of the German School is equally true of Ary Scheffer:[229] "Brightness of colour is altogether inadmissible without purity and harmony; and the sacred painters must not be followed in their frankness of unshadowed colour, unless we can also follow them in its clearness. As far as I am acquainted with the modern schools of Germany, they seem to be entirely ignorant of the value of colour as an assistant of feeling, and to think that hardness, dryness, and opacity are its virtues as employed in religious art; whereas I hesitate not to affirm that in such art, more than in any other, clearness, luminousness, and intensity of hue are essential to right impression" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 15). Ary Scheffer, whose father was court painter at Amsterdam, was born at Dordrecht. On the death of his father in 1809 his mother removed to Paris, and he became a pupil of Pierre Guérin. In 1826 he became drawing master in the Orleans family, and for the rest of his life he was attached to them. In 1830, in company with Thiers, he brought Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to Paris; in 1848 he helped the king to fly, and went with him to Brussels. The events of the next few years shocked him so much that for a time he "could neither paint, eat, nor sleep," and he ceased altogether to exhibit. His best known works are "Paolo and Francesca" (1822), and "Dante and Beatrice" (1839). The former of these sold in 1842 for over £2000; but at the posthumous exhibition of his works, held shortly after his death, his reputation suffered greatly, and at subsequent sales the prices paid for his pictures went down with a rush. Their sentimentality made them popular for a while, but it could not save them from the condemnation due to their commonness of thought and poverty of colour.

A portrait of the lady—an English resident in Paris, and a friend of Ary Scheffer—who sat to him for St. Monica. The two pictures were bequeathed to the Gallery by her husband.

1170. ST. AUGUSTINE AND ST. MONICA.

To illustrate the popularity which Ary Scheffer enjoyed [Pg 567]forty years ago, it may be interesting to cite what Mrs. Jameson said of this picture: "I saw in the atelier of the painter, Ary Scheffer, in 1845, an admirable picture of St. Augustine and his mother Monica. The two figures, not quite full-length, are seated; she holds his hand in both hers, looking up to heaven with an expression of enthusiastic undoubting faith;—'the son of so many tears cannot be cast away!' He also is looking up with an ardent, eager, but anxious, doubtful expression, which seems to say, 'Help thou my unbelief.' For profound and truthful feeling and significance, I know few things in the compass of modern art that can be compared to this picture" (Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, p. 186).

1171. THE "ANSIDEI MADONNA."

The genius of Raphael Santi (or Raffaello Sanzio, as the modern Italians write his name) is an example of the force alike of hereditary transmission of gifts and of surrounding circumstances. He was the second son (born April 6) of Giovanni Santi (see 751), a painter and poet of Urbino. The son inherited the father's aptitude for painting; but as Giovanni died when Raphael was only eleven, the boy's actual teacher was Timoteo Viti, of whom there is a portrait in chalks by Raphael in the British Museum. The young Raphael's hereditary gifts were nurtured by the artistic atmosphere in which he lived. Urbino, the Athens of Umbria, was at this time one of the chief centres of artistic and intellectual life in Italy; the ducal palace contained a fine collection of pictures both by Italian and Flemish painters. Amongst the latter were some by Van Eyck, and it is perhaps to this influence that we may attribute the miniature-like care of Raphael's earliest work, which is conspicuous in the "Vision of a Knight," and may be seen again in the jewel painting here. An intense power of assimilation—of learning all things from all men—characterised Raphael throughout his life, and is one of the main causes of the width of range and catholicity of taste to which he owes his universal popularity. Thus when he went (probably not before 1500) to study under Perugino, he so quickly assimilated the style of that master that he has been credited with some of the design and even of the work in Perugino's masterpiece, just as some of his pictures were, says Vasari, mistaken for Perugino's. In 1504 he went to Florence, which was his headquarters for the next four years. He at once took a leading part in the artistic fraternity there, and put one great artist after another under contribution for some special power of drawing, beauty of colour, or grace of composition. Thus from Signorelli and Michelangelo he[Pg 568] learnt to study the human form; it was at Florence, says Vasari, that Raphael began to study the nude and to make anatomical drawings from dissected corpses. From Leonardo da Vinci (sketches from whom by Raphael may be seen at Oxford) he learnt soft beauty of expression, and it is to this master's influence perhaps that the smile of his Madonnas may be traced. In 1508 Raphael was invited by the Pope Julius II. to Rome, and there he spent the greater part of his life—painting, besides innumerable altar-pieces and cabinet pictures, his famous cartoons and frescoes. And yet he was only thirty-seven when he died. His time was partly occupied too with portraiture, in which he excelled. In 1514 he accepted the responsible office of architect of St. Peter's, left vacant by the death of his friend Bramante. A year later he was installed as director of the excavations then in progress among the ruins of ancient Rome, and flung himself into the work with devoted ardour. In the heavy and multifarious work thus crowded upon him, Raphael employed many assistants, among whom were Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine, and Perino del Vaga, and in some of the pictures of his Roman period the master's own hand executed little more than the finishing touches. All that we know of Raphael's private life and character reflects that innate love of beauty which fused all he borrowed into something of his own. "All were surpassed by him," says Vasari, "in friendly courtesy as well as in art; all confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious disposition, which was so replete with excellence and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he honoured by men but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps and always loved him." In morals he was pure, and might indeed be called almost immaculate, judged by the lax standard of his age. The Cardinal Bibiena designed his niece for Raphael, but—

Rafael made a century of sonnets, Made and wrote them in a certain volume Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil Else he only used to draw Madonnas: These, the world might view—but one, the volume. Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.

He lived a painter among princes—"a model," says Vasari, "of how we should comport ourselves towards great men," but also a prince among painters—jealous of none, kindly to all. "Whenever any other painter, whether known to him or not, requested any assistance, he would invariably leave his work to do him service; and his school—consisting of some fifty painters, all men of ability and distinction—continued in such unity and concord that all harsh feelings and evil dispositions became subdued and disappeared at the sight of him." And so when he died—having impaired his constitution by a life of ceaseless toil—Rome went into a paroxysm of grief, and flocked, as he lay in state, to catch a last sight of the "divine painter." He died[Pg 569] on his birthday, April 6, and was buried in the Pantheon with great solemnities.

With regard to Raphael's position in the history of art, it is important to distinguish between his different "periods," which correspond, as will be seen, with the divisions of his life. The National Gallery is fortunate in having specimens of all the periods, and the importance of the pictures from this point of view is noted under the several numbers, but it may be convenient to summarise the matter briefly here. (1) First, or Perugian period, down to 1504—which again may perhaps be subdivided as explained under 213. During this period his works closely resemble Perugino's—the most typical of them are the "Sposalizio," at Milan, copied from Perugino's painting of the same subject, now at Caen; and the "Crucifixion," in Mr. L. Mond's Collection, of which Vasari says: "If it were not for the name of Raphael written upon it, it would be supposed by every one to be a work of Pietro Perugino." (2) Second, or Florentine period: 1504-1508. To this period belong the "Madonna del Granduca" at Florence, "La Belle Jardinière" at the Louvre, and in this country the Madonna at Lord Cowper's (Panshanger), the Bridgewater Madonna (929), the St. Catherine (168), and this "Ansidei Madonna." The importance of this picture in the history of art is that it shows the transition from the first to the second period, being dated (on the border of the Virgin's robe below her left arm) MDVI, 1506. A glance at the Perugino No. 288 will show how much of that master's influence remains. "To his earlier Perugian manner we ascribe," says Waagen (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, iii. 128), "the head of the Virgin, which, however, is the most beautiful and noble development of this whole style, the rather too round body of the otherwise very lovely child, the expression of ardent yearning in St. John, as well as the position of his feet, resembling that of St. Joseph in the 'Sposalizio,' the cast of the draperies of the Virgin and St. Nicholas, the use of several colours which have turned very dark, such as the blue in the robe of the Virgin, the green in the canopy, in the upper garment of St. Nicholas, and in the landscape, and the use of gold in the hems, in the glories, in the two Greek borders, and in the inscription SALVE MATER CHRISTI on the wooden throne." Another point of special value in this picture is that, like the Sistine Madonna, it is entirely by Raphael's own hand, no pupil or assistant having touched it. (3) Third, or Roman period, 1508-1520. The chief works of this period are the frescoes in the Vatican. But in this country there are the famous cartoons (at South Kensington), and in the National Gallery the portrait of Julius II. (27), and the Garvagh Madonna (744). The characteristics of this period are, besides the perfection of executive power, the substitution of classical for religious motive, and the straining after dramatic effect.

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From the technical point of view, this division into three (or four) periods is instructive, but from the point of view of motive a better division is that between his earlier and his later work, the turning-point being his arrival in Rome. "In his twenty-fifth year," says Ruskin (Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, p. 213), "one half-year only past the precise centre of his available life, he was sent for to Rome, to decorate the Vatican for Pope Julius II., and having until that time worked exclusively in the ancient and stern mediæval manner, he, in the first chamber which he decorated in that palace, wrote upon its walls the Mene, Tekel, Upharsin of the arts of Christianity. And he wrote it thus: On one wall of that chamber he placed a picture of the World or Kingdom of Theology, presided over by Christ. And on the side wall of that same chamber he placed the World or Kingdom of Poetry, presided over by Apollo. And from that spot, and from that hour, the intellect and the art of Italy date their degradation.... And it was brought about in great part by the very excellences of the man who had thus marked the commencement of decline. The perfection of execution and the beauty of feature which were attained in his works, and in those of his greatest contemporaries, rendered finish of execution and beauty of form the chief objects of all artists; and thenceforward execution was looked for rather than thought, and beauty rather than veracity.... The mediæval principles led up to Raphael, and the modern principles lead down from him." The position of Raphael in the history of art is thus closely parallel to that of his great contemporary Michael Angelo (see 790). In Michael Angelo the art of Florence reached its culmination and fell rapidly to Giulio Romano and Venusti. In Raphael the art of Umbria was perfected and led down to the conventional sentimentalities against which the "Pre-Raphaelites" have in modern times revolted.

The "Ansidei Madonna," so called from having been painted for the Ansidei family at Perugia,[230] was bought from the Duke of Marlborough by the nation for £70,000—more than three times the highest price ever before paid for a picture, and equal to more than £14 per square inch. The importance of the picture to the student has been partly described above; but to this must be added its unusual size and excellent state of preservation, and the fact that whilst on the one hand the National Gallery had before no chef d'œuvre of Raphael, the number of such works not already placed in foreign galleries was very small.[231] On its own merits the [Pg 571]"Ansidei Madonna" is by common consent one of the most perfect pictures in the world. It has all the essentials of the greatest art. First it is "wrought in entirely consistent and permanent materials. The gold is represented by painting, not laid on with real gold, and the painting is so secure that nearly four hundred years have produced in it no harmful change." "The exquisite purity of the colour and the silvery and luminous quality of its tones"[232] are as remarkable to-day as they must have been when the panel left the painter's easel. Secondly, "the figures are in perfect peace. Those are the two first attributes of the best art. Faultless workmanship and perfect serenity; a continuous, not momentary, action, or entire inaction; you are to be interested, in the living creatures, not in what is happening to them. Then the third attribute of the best art is that it compels you to think of the spirit of the creature, and therefore of its face, more than of its body. And the fourth is that in the face you shall be led to see only beauty or joy—never vileness, vice, or pain" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, pp. 14, 15). In fulfilling these essentials of the highest art, the picture becomes also one of the noblest embodiments of Christianity. Raphael is above all the painter of motherhood and childhood—of the self-[Pg 572]forgetting love of the one, and the fearless faith of the other—the human relationship which of all others is the most divine. On either side are two saints—types both of them of the peace of Christianity. In the figure of St. John the Baptist on the left—with his rough camel skin upon him, and an expression of ecstatic contemplation on his face—the joy that comes from a life of self-sacrifice is made manifest; in that of the good Bishop Nicholas of Bari, the peace that comes from knowledge. The three balls at his feet are a favourite emblem of the saint; typical partly of the mystery of the Trinity, but referring also to the three purses of gold which he is said to have thrown into a poor man's window that his daughters might not be portionless. Further we may notice how the same impression of infinite peace is conveyed by the landscape, and especially by the open sky visible on either side of the throne. This open sky "is of all visible things the least material, the least finite, the farthest withdrawn from the earth prison-house, the most typical of the nature of God, the most suggestive of the glory of His dwelling-place. For the sky of night, though we may know it boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit: we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. § 5).[233]

It has been said above that the Ansidei Madonna is "by common consent one of the most perfect pictures in the world." Criticisms which have been published since its acquisition by the National Gallery require that statement to be modified. Thus, Mr. G. A. Storey, R.A., in the course of a public lecture, has remarked that "as compared with Raphael's other works, the Ansidei Madonna lacked the touch of nature, the play and harmony that were characteristic of the master. All the heads were looking in the same direction, and the figure of the Virgin was scarcely graceful. Nor was there the unity necessary to a complete composition, for each figure seemed unconnected with the rest, and, indeed, they seemed to be almost unconscious [Pg 573]of each other's existence." Mr. Ford Madox Brown (Magazine of Art, Feb. 1890) is more severe still. "The Bishop saint of Bari," he says, "is certainly a fine figure, worthy of the master it is attributed to. The Virgin and Child, however, are for sentiment just like two wax doll lay figures, making it hard to conceive how the same mighty hand can have produced anything so tame; while the figure of the Baptist, with ill-drawn legs, is positively repulsive both for pose and for expression of countenance. Surely Raphael could have had no hand in it." Mr. Pater, on the other hand, commends the Ansidei Madonna to students of Raphael as more worthy of admiration than any other work of the master: "I find there, at first sight, with something of the pleasure one has in a proposition of Euclid, a sense of the power of the understanding, in the economy with which he has reduced his material to the simplest terms. He is painting in Florence, but for Perugia, and sends it a specimen of its own old art—Mary and the babe enthroned, with St. Nicholas and the Baptist in attendance on either side. The kind of thing people there had already seen so many times, but done better, in a sense not to be measured by degrees, with a wholly original freedom and life and grace, though he perhaps is unaware, done better as a whole, because better in every minute particular, than ever before. The scrupulous scholar, aged twenty-three, is now indeed a master, but still goes carefully. Note, therefore, how much mere exclusion counts for in the positive effect of his work. There is a saying that the true artist is known best by what he omits. Yes, because the whole question of good taste is involved precisely in such jealous omission. Note this, for instance, in the familiar Apennine background, with its blue hills and brown towns, faultless, for once—for once only—and observe, in the Umbrian pictures around, how often such background is marred by grotesque natural, or architectural detail, by incongruous or childish incident. In this cool, pearl-gray, quiet place, where colour tells for double,—the jewelled cope, the painted book in the hand of Mary, the chaplet of red coral,—one is reminded that among all classical writers Raphael's preference was for the faultless Virgil. How orderly, how divinely clean and sweet the flesh, the vesture, the floor, the earth and sky! Ah, say rather the hand, the method of the painter! There is an unmistakable pledge of strength, of movement and animation in the cast of the Baptist's coun[Pg 574]tenance, but reserved, repressed. Strange, Raphael has given him a staff of transparent crystal. Keep, then, to that picture as the embodied formula of Raphael's genius. Amid all he has here already achieved, full, we may think, of the quiet assurance of what is to come, his attitude is still that of the scholar; he seems still to be saying, before all things, from first to last, 'I am utterly purposed that I will not offend'" (Miscellaneous Studies, p. 53).

1172. CHARLES THE FIRST.

This famous picture was one of many equestrian portraits of Charles I. which Van Dyck painted at his court. It is, however, unique among them. In all the others,—the Windsor picture, the replica at Hampton Court, and the pictures in the Earl of Warwick's and the Marquis of Lothian's Collections, the king faces the spectator, and rides, as it were, straight out of the picture, the horse being white. The size, proportions, and composition of this picture are different. The horse is dun-coloured, and the king is seen in profile. A small picture at Buckingham Palace was probably the original design or sketch of it. It was sold after Charles's death for £150 by the Parliament, and in 1885 was bought by another Parliament—from the Duke of Marlborough—for the great price of £17,500 (see under 1171).

It is a courtier's portrait of the idol of the cavaliers—a portrait of the good side of a bad king. Notice first the prominence given to the noble horse (cf. under 156), almost to the point of clumsiness. Then in Charles himself, note the stately bearing, the personal dignity, the almost feminine refinement. It is a portrait of personal courage—with no suspicion of any fatal want of presence of mind; of dignity—with the obstinacy, which was its reverse side, left out. In such a portrait "of a Cavalier by a Cavalier" Van Dyck's work is invested with an enduring pathos for all Englishmen. One remembers only, in looking upon this picture of him, Charles's graces, not his faults. One thinks of him as the man who "nothing common did, nor mean, upon that memorable scene." And so considered, how eloquent becomes the isolation in which the painter has here left him. With him, indeed, is Sir Thomas[Pg 575] Morton, his equerry, but the king does not see him. Bareheaded he sits, gazing into futurity.

1173. AN UNKNOWN SUBJECT.

Another picture of the golden age (cf. 1123) such as Giorgione, we are told, loved to paint,—"men and women enjoying the golden tranquillity; here is seen the haughty lion, there the humble lamb; in another part we behold the swift flying hart, with many other terrestrial animals." The picture before us precisely agrees with this general description, but the particular subject of it is unknown.[234] A child, it would seem, is being initiated into some order of the golden age—he is being dedicated, perhaps, to a life of song, for the stately personage on the throne wears the poet's crown of wild olive, whilst the young man on the steps below him lightly touches a lute, and has books by his side. The page bears a rich dish of fruits and herbs, for the golden age is vegetarian; whilst fawns and a leopard, with a peacock and other birds, attend the court of the king of song. When in the Bohn Collection, this picture was ascribed to Giorgione. For some interesting remarks on its possible authorship and subject, see the Times, [Pg 576]December 22, 1885, where resemblances in this picture to pictures of Carpaccio and Pordenone, as well as of Giorgione, are pointed out. Sir Edward Poynter says that the picture "has considerable affinity with the two pictures attributed to Giorgione in the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence, but is weaker in execution and effect, especially in the landscape" (The National Gallery, i. 26). "True," says Mr. Herbert Cook, "the landscape has been renovated; true, the Giorgionesque depth and richness is gone, the mellow glow of the 'Epiphany' (1160) is sadly wanting; but who can deny the charm of the picturesque scenery, which vividly recalls the landscape background elsewhere in the master's own work? who can fail to admire the natural and unstudied grouping of the figures, the artlessness of the whole, the loving simplicity with which the painter has done his work? Sincerity and naïveté are too apparent for this to be the work of any but a quite young artist, and one whose style is so thoroughly 'Giorgionesque' as to be none other than the young Giorgione himself. In my opinion, this is one of his earliest essays into the region of romance, painted probably before his twenty-first year" (Giorgione, p. 92).

1188. THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST.

1189. THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY.

Ugolino was one of the founders of the Sienese School. So great was his reputation that he was unanimously chosen by the Florentines, in preference to their own artists, to paint the altar-pieces of their two great churches; whilst another picture that he painted for them was credited with miraculous powers. These little pictures are portions of the one painted by him for the high altar of Sta. Croce. "He always adhered," says Vasari (i. 138), "in great part to the Greek manner, as one who, having grown old in that method, was induced by a sort of obstinacy to follow the manner of Cimabue, rather than that of Giotto." The points which have been already noticed as characteristic of his contemporary, Duccio (see 566), may be traced equally in Ugolino.

Notice in 1188 that the disciples are not mere conventional types, but that an attempt is made to give them each an individuality, and to express their characters on their faces. The same expressions may be noticed again in 1189. It is[Pg 577] interesting, too, to observe how the first attempts of painting (as of poetry) to express action were epic, rather than dramatic. The painter tries to tell the whole story at once; here is Judas giving the traitor's kiss, there is Peter cutting off the ear of the high priest's servant, and beside them are all the other characters of the story (cf. under 579). As art advances, it becomes on the other hand dramatic; the painter seizes on the essential point and makes his picture out of that. The difference may be seen by contrasting Ugolino's picture with one of the same subject at Florence by Giotto, which Ruskin thus describes: "See what choice Giotto made of his moments. Plenty of choice for him—in pain. The Flagellation—the Mocking—the Bearing the Cross; all habitually given by the Margheritones, and their school, as extremes of pain. 'No,' thinks Giotto. 'There was worse than all that. Many a good man has been mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted on, slain. But who was ever so betrayed?' ... He paints the laying hands on him in the garden, but with only two principal figures—Judas and Peter, of course: Judas and Peter were always principal in the old Byzantine composition,—Judas giving the kiss, Peter cutting off the servant's ear. But the two are here not merely principal, but almost alone in sight, all the other figures thrown back; and Peter is not at all concerned about the servant, or his struggle with him. He has got him down, but looks back suddenly at Judas giving the kiss. 'What!—you are the traitor, then—you!' 'Yes,' says Giotto; 'and you, also, in an hour more'" (Mornings in Florence, ii. 41).

1190. A BOY'S PORTRAIT.

This picture was presented to the Gallery by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., and it is interesting to note the sage-green background which Mr. Watts has himself sometimes employed.

1192, 1193. SKETCHES FOR ALTAR-PIECES

Tiepolo, one of the leaders in the revival of Venetian art (see under 1100), was the Paul Veronese of the eighteenth century. "Living," says Sir F. Burton, "in the era of periwig in art as a dress, he was[Pg 578] at a sore disadvantage as compared with his great prototype of the sixteenth century; but he steered a pretty clear course between vapid classicality and buckram fashion. Gifted with a brilliant fancy, and master of all the resources of his art, Tiepolo formed a style which, whatever its shortcomings, is splendidly decorative. In his easel pictures, he is at his very best. Here he was not tempted by vast surfaces into that looseness of composition and hastiness of execution that often lessen the value of his frescoes; here, therefore, he could indulge his feeling for compact architectonic arrangement, display force of harmonious colour, and exercise a brilliant method of handling akin to that of Paul Veronese." Tiepolo worked for most of his life at Venice; but went also to execute commissions at Milan, Wurzburg (where his paintings in the Archbishop's Palace may still be seen), and Madrid, in which latter city he died. Of his frescoes at Venice the finest are those of "Antony and Cleopatra" in the Palazzo Labia. Copies of these are in the Arundel Society's Collection.

"Touched in with all the brilliant, flashing, dexterous bravura of the last of the rear-guard of the Venetians. The pictorial art of Venice finished with Tiepolo, and it seemed as if he was resolved that it should not die ignominiously, for in spirit and gaiety he was little inferior to Veronese himself. He had not the stronger qualities of his model; Veronese's grasp of character, his air of nobility, his profound and imaginative harmonies of colour, are wanting in the eighteenth century painter" (Times, December 22, 1885).

1194. CHRIST DRIVING OUT THE TRADERS.

Venusti, a native of Como, was a pupil of Perino del Vaga, but best known as assistant to Michelangelo, of whose works he supplied copies with variations to suit different patrons. In the oil copy of "The Last Judgment," now at Naples, he introduced in the left-hand corner a portrait of the master himself. He was also employed to put into colour designs made by Michelangelo.

There are drawings by Michelangelo in the British Museum for the figures in this composition. Notice how everything is sacrificed to violent action and contorted position—the money-changers whom Christ is driving out of the Temple are composed as it were for a ballet of limbs. Notice also the "debased" architectural background—the absurdly distorted pillars with their puerile capitals.

[Pg 579]

1195. THE BIRTH OF VENUS.

A finished study for a salver which was executed in silver for Charles I.

"The central oval shows a goddess borne along and attended on the surface of the waves by nymphs and tritons; sea gods and goddesses, riding on aquatic monsters, disport themselves in the broad flat border surrounding the central panel. Rubens may be said to have here surpassed himself in those qualities of movement and brilliant execution in which he was unrivalled. His form, often florid in contour, although always supple, has here a grace and beauty entirely in harmony with the classic theme, and the personages are inspired with that immortal gaiety which has so rarely found expression, save in the work of the master's contemporary, our national poet, since it vanished at the final decay of Greek art and literature. Of a piece with the delightful imaginative qualities so prodigally lavished on the present panel is the truly marvellous execution. The hand has played over the surface with a lightness and delicacy surprising even to those familiar with the touch of the master in his first sketches for important compositions. The method employed is simple and direct; the figures have been outlined in pen and ink, then a general glaze has been spread over the entire surface, on which the forms were modelled in white and gray, the ultimate result being a warm silvery tone" (Times, December 22, 1885).

This design, which was sold at the Hamilton sale (1882) for £1680, was bought for the nation three years later at the Beckett Denison sale for £672.

1196. A COMBAT BETWEEN LOVE AND CHASTITY.

Probably by some unknown disciple of Botticelli. Formerly ascribed to Botticelli himself—an ascription which, owing to the absence of that master's predominating facial type, as well as to the accuracy of landscape such as he never attempted, has now been abandoned. But the exquisite workmanship—visible only in a good light—of the shield and the quiver indicates the hand of one of the goldsmith painters, whilst the allegorical invention and the atmosphere of imaginative poetry have "the true Botticellian ring" (see Times, December 22, 1885; see also Morelli's Borghese Gallery, p. 87 n.). The picture is one of a series which were probably painted for furniture-panels. The one giving the sequel to our story, and repre[Pg 580]senting Chastity on a triumphal car, with Love sitting bound in front, is in the Turin Gallery.

Chastity clothed only in white innocence is assailed by Love. She receives his arrows on a shield of polished steel; the points of the arrows break and burst forth into tiny golden flames—each temptation only causing the sacred fire of Chastity to burn more brightly. The scene is laid in a romantic landscape where everything is pure and beautiful. The field is enamelled with flowers—

Beyond, in the bend of a river, two swans float on its tranquil surface: a tall oak sapling rises straight and firm, and over all rests a clear blue sky. The picture recalls the scene in Milton's Comus—

1199. MADONNA AND CHILD.

On the right is St. John; on the left an angel crowned with a chaplet of roses and bearing the annunciation lily. Notice that the frame ornamented with modelled stucco forms part of the picture, and is indeed part of the same panel.

1200, 1201. GROUPS OF SAINTS.

Macrino was born at Alba in Piedmont. "There is no foundation for the belief that his name was Giangiacomo Fava. His early Lombard training was considerably modified by a visit to Rome, and a study of the Florentine masters and Ghirlandajo's influence is to be seen in his work. His pictures are easily recognisable from the[Pg 581] frequent recurrence of similar types and attitudes" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. lxxvii.). The dates on his works range from 1496 to 1508. They are to be found in the Certosa of Pavia, at Alba, and in the Turin Gallery. He belongs to the pre-Leonardo school of Lombardy, and was perhaps a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa (729).

In the first group (1200) are St. Peter Martyr (for whom see 812), with the knife and plenty of blood on his head, and a bishop in full robes. In the second (1201), St. Thomas Aquinas looking with an almost comic squint at a crucifix, and John the Baptist. On the pages of St. Thomas's book are the words in Latin, "I have kept the commandments of my father"; on those of St John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world."

1202. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

Morelli disentangles from the confusions of art-historians and critics three different painters of this name, whom he calls respectively Bonifazio Veronese I., Bonifazio Veronese II., and Bonifazio Veneziano (see German Galleries, pp. 184-194). The elder Bonifazio Veronese, the painter of this picture, was a pupil of Palma Vecchio, and one of the most brilliant of the later Venetian painters. "His bright conception," says Morelli, "and the light gracefulness of his figures seem to me never to belie his native home, Verona; yet, as a technician, he is an out-and-out Venetian. While the chords of his colouring are neither so delicate and startling as in Giorgione, nor so profound and powerful as in Palma and Titian, nor so ingenious as in Lotto, yet they wield a peculiar charm over the eye of the spectator by their bright, cheerful, and harmonious lustre." Bonifazio's earlier works have been frequently ascribed to Palma. Such was the case with the present picture, a work of gorgeous colour and in admirable preservation. In his later works the influence of Giorgione makes itself felt. A much-damaged picture by Bonifazio at Hampton Court, "Diana and Actæon," was long ascribed to Giorgione. Venice possesses many works of this "God-made painter," as Ruskin calls him. None is finer than the "Dives and Lazarus" in the Accademia, a picture of sumptuous colour and exquisitely poetical sentiment. In the Brera at Milan is another splendid work by Bonifazio, long attributed to Giorgione—the "Finding of Moses," a subject of which he was fond, and into which he introduced numerous figures in the gorgeous Venetian costumes of his day.

A composition belonging to a class which Palma Vecchio[Pg 582] brought into favour, and which the Italians call Sante Conversazioni—groups, in restful attitudes, framed in sunny landscapes, with blue mountain distances. Bonifazio's landscape backgrounds are very fine, and he was fond, like Titian, of introducing into them the scenery of the Dolomite mountains. On the right is St. Catherine holding a fragment of her wheel, while the youthful St. John the Baptist, standing on another fragment, stoops to kiss the infant Christ's foot—an action symbolical of the kingship of the Saviour ("Thou hast put all things under him"). On the left is St. James—with his staff, borne always by him as the first of the apostles who departed to fulfil the Gospel mission, and dressed as a pilgrim—Campostella, where his body was reputed to be, being in the middle ages a favourite place of pilgrimage. Behind St. James is St. Jerome. Notice the significance of the incident in the middle distance—a shepherd asleep, while a wolf is devouring a sheep ("But the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep").

1203. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Of Giovanni Busi, called Cariani, no personal details are known. He was born near Bergamo, and many works by this fine colourist are in the galleries of that town. Others may be seen at the Brera in Milan. Cariani, who seems to have resided at Venice, is supposed to have been a pupil of his fellow-countryman, Palma Vecchio. Morelli thus distinguishes Cariani's style from that of Bonifazio Veronese (see 1202), who was also a pupil of Palma: "The type of the Madonna in Cariani is rustic, but more energetic and serious, less worldly than in Bonifazio, whose holy virgins and female martyrs, with their soft, sweet expression and gentle grace, often border on the sentimental. These masters also differ in the harmony of their colours: the Bergamese is pithy and powerful, but often heavy and dull; the Veronese, clear, lovely, and brilliant; Bonifazio's landscapes are the lightest among those of the Venetians, those in Cariani's pictures are brownish, and the lines far from beautiful" (Italian Masters in German Galleries, 1883, p. 193).

Notice the rustic type of the Madonna; she is a daughter of the mountains—the mountains above Bergamo, from which the painter came, and which figure in the background. The picture is a characteristic piece of provincial art; the expression of "a simple, sturdy, energetic mountain-folk who do not[Pg 583] always know how to unite refinement and grace with their inbred strength and vigour" (Morelli, ibid. p. 4). The picture is "interesting mainly," says Mr. Monkhouse, "for its costumes, its light-heartedness and florid colour, and as another of those Sante Conversazioni of which his master, Palma, was the inventor, and which took the place of the more holy 'Holy Families' of an earlier art,—pictures in which the Virgin became a simple woman of a wholly mundane beauty, and the saints but her friends in rich costumes, enjoying themselves somewhat sadly in the open air" (In the National Gallery, p. 248).

1206. LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES.

A good example of Salvator's scenic effects in landscape. The sense of power in the painting, the "vigorous imagination, the dexterous and clever composition" of Salvator are well shown; but "all are rendered valueless by coarseness of feeling, and habitual non-reference to nature." (See for further examination of Salvator's deficiencies in this respect Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 5, sec. iii. ch. iii. § 7, sec. vi. ch. i. § 11; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 19.)

1211, 1212. SCENES AT A TOURNAMENT.

Domenico Morone was in 1493 called upon by the Veronese authorities in conjunction with Liberale (1134) to adjudicate upon an artistic dispute. It seems, therefore, that he was recognised as a leading painter of the day. This also is Vasari's estimate: Domenico, he says, was in higher repute than any other painter of Verona, Liberale alone excepted. Little, however, is known to us about Domenico. Only two pictures are known to bear his signature; one of these, a "Madonna and Child," is in the Berlin Gallery. He was the father of the better known Francesco Morone (285).

Possibly scenes from the fêtes at the marriage of Isabella d'Este and Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua.[235] Domenico [Pg 584]Morone, called Pellacane, the dog-skinner, from his father's occupation, may have been present at the marriage ceremony, which took place in 1490; but at any rate these little pictures are of historical interest as contemporary illustrations. The scene in both is a tilt court, with its seat of honour in the middle. In the first the knights are tilting, the marquis being on his throne and the seats filled with ladies. In the second the tilting is over, courtiers and ladies are dancing in the side compartments; whilst in the centre a knight in full armour, but bareheaded, awaits his award of victory from Isabella and her husband, who are standing on the dais. There is much artistic merit in the sprightly way in which such momentary actions as that of the page going to spring over the partition in 1212 are rendered (see Times, July 24, 1886).

1213. PORTRAIT OF A PROFESSOR.

Gentile was the elder brother of Giovanni (189), and was named after Gentile da Fabriano under whom his father had studied. In 1464, after severe training in his father's school, he moved from Padua to Venice, and was employed by the State. His high reputation is shown by the fact that, when in 1479 the Sultan Mahomet II. applied to the Venetians to send him a good painter, he was deputed by them to go to Constantinople. His visit there was marked by a well-known incident. He showed the Sultan a picture of Herodias's daughter with the head of John the Baptist. The Sultan objected to the bleeding head as untrue to nature, and to prove his point ordered a slave to be beheaded in Bellini's presence. The painter fled from the scene of such experiments, but the influence of his visit is to be seen in the oriental costumes which he was fond of introducing into his pictures (as in the studies in the British Museum and the library of Windsor Castle). The portrait of the great Ottoman conqueror acquired by the late Sir Henry Layard is an autograph replica of the work painted by Gentile at Constantinople. On his return to Venice he was taken into the permanent employment of the State, and executed many works in the Ducal Palace and elsewhere; some were destroyed in the fire of 1577, others remain. In 1486 Titian, then a boy of nine, entered Gentile's studio. Easel pictures by him are very scarce. His principal works are at Venice, and are the most valuable record extant of the city as it was in his time. They are described and highly praised by Ruskin in his Guide to the Academy at Venice. In the same style is the "St. Mark preaching at Alexandria," now in the Brera at Milan. This work, left unfinished when Gentile died, was completed, as his will enjoined, by Giovanni.

[Pg 585]

Supposed to be a portrait of Girolamo Malatini, Professor of Mathematics in Venice (notice his brass compasses), who is said to have taught Gentile and his brother Giovanni the rules of perspective. "The portrait fully justifies the fame that Gentile had acquired as a painter of portraits, and shows him the forerunner of Titian" (Layard's edition of "Kugler," i. 306). The prominence given in this picture to the sitter's hands should be noticed. The older tradition strictly limited portraiture to the representation of the head only, or at most to the bust. Afterwards the expressiveness of the human hand per se came to be recognised (see Mr. Herbert Cook's Giorgione, p. 19, and compare the portraits Nos. 808 and 1440).

1214. CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, AND VETURIA.

Michele, a pupil of Domenico Morone (1211), was a contemporary and sometimes an assistant of Cavazzola (735). The works of the two are easily distinguishable. Michele, says Morelli, "is more pointed in the foldings of his draperies, as well as in the fingers of his hands, which are always rather stumpy in Cavazzola. In conception, however, Cavazzola is far above Michele, and also more elegant and noble in his drawing" (German Galleries, p. 54). Many of Michele's works are to be seen at Verona. His landscape backgrounds, as in the present picture, are interesting.

Coriolanus, a noble Roman, so called from Corioli, a city of the Volscians he had taken, bore himself haughtily, and was banished. Nursing his revenge, he threw himself into the arms of the Volscians, determined henceforth to bear himself "As if a man were author of himself, And knew no other kin," and advanced at their head upon Rome. The Romans, in terror, endeavoured in vain to appease him, and at last sent out his wife, Volumnia, with her child, here kneeling before him, and his mother, Veturia (Volumnia in Shakespeare's play), to intercede. In their presence "the strong man gave way; he throws himself on his knee, and is restored once more to human love"—

1215. MADONNA AND CHILD.

For the history of this picture (now withdrawn from exhibition) see under 766. The restorations of 1851 there referred to were in great part removed after the acquisition of the picture by the National Gallery. But "it was found, late in 1904, that its state threatened its immediate destruction, and it was hoped that the mischief might be arrested by re-lining. The pigment was, however, found to be falling from the plaster ground in such a way that re-lining, which would affect only the adherence of the ground to the canvas backing, was useless, and very reluctant recourse was had to the process of transferring the picture itself to canvas. This transfer resulted in such a loss to the picture that it has been withdrawn from public exhibition, and, for the present, it is thought better to leave it as a genuine picture, of interest to connoisseurs, rather than subject it to the extensive repainting without which it would hardly be intelligible to the ordinary visitor" (Director's Report, 1905). A small copy of the picture is exhibited among the Arundel Society's Collection.

1216, 1216 a & b. THE FALL OF THE REBEL ANGELS.

These fragments of a fresco, now transferred to canvas, are of particular interest from the following mention of it by Vasari. He relates how Spinello Aretino, after executing important works in various cities of Italy, returned to his native city, Arezzo, and very shortly settled down to decorate the church of S. Maria degli Angeli. The subject chosen was certain stories from the life of St. Michael. "At the high altar," says Vasari, "he represented Lucifer fixing his seat in the North, with the fall of the angels, who are changed into devils as they descend to the earth. In the air appears St. Michael in combat with the old serpent of seven heads and ten horns, while beneath and in the centre of the picture is[Pg 587] Lucifer, already changed into a most hideous beast. And so anxious was the artist to make him frightful and horrible that it is said—such is sometimes the power of imagination—that the figure he had painted appeared to him in his sleep, demanding to know where the painter had seen him looking so ugly as that, and wherefore he permitted his pencils to offer him, the said Lucifer, so mortifying an affront." Vasari attributes a fatal result to this vision. "The artist awoke," he says, "in such extremity of terror that he was unable to cry out, but shook and trembled so violently that his wife, awakening, hastened to his assistance. But the shock was so great that he was on the point of expiring suddenly from this accident, and did not in fact survive it beyond a very short time, during which he remained in a dispirited condition, with eyes from which all intelligence had departed" (i. 269). In fact, however, Spinello lived many years and executed several important works after the date in question. Some years ago the church of the Angeli was dismantled, and the greater portion of the frescoes perished. Sir A. H. Layard, who was passing Arezzo at the time, was fortunately able to secure a large piece of the principal fresco. The fragment is from the centre of the composition, and contains a portion of the figure of Michael and six of the angels following him. The archangel, with raised sword, is striking at the dragon; his attendants, armed with spears and swords, thrust down the demons. Besides these figures, Sir A. H. Layard was able to save a portion of the decorated border of the fresco (1216 A & B). These he presented to the nation in 1886.

1217. THE ISRAELITES GATHERING MANNA.

"The lithe and sinewy form in the nude figure of the young man, the accurate draughtsmanship, the firm modelling, the care and study bestowed even on the tiny figures in the background, the dramatic intention and impression of vitality, indicate a familiarity with the works of Mantegna" (Times, July 24, 1886). The artist exhibits, adds Sir F. Burton, "no less appreciation of natural grace in the female figures than of dignity in the principal male personages."

[Pg 588]

1218, 1219. JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN.

Francesco, the son of Ubertino, a goldsmith, called Il Bacchiacca, studied first under Perugino, and afterwards with Franciabigio and Andrea del Sarto. He was also at one time in Rome, where he lived on terms of intimacy with Giulio Romano and Benvenuto Cellini; he is mentioned in Cellini's Autobiography. He was "more particularly successful," says Vasari, "in the execution of small figures, which he executed to perfection and with infinite patience. Ultimately Bacchiacca was received into the service of the Duke Cosimo, seeing that he was excellent in the delineation of all kinds of animals, and was therefore employed to decorate a study for his Excellency, which he did with great ability, covering the same with birds of various kinds, together with rare plants and foliage. At a later period he painted in fresco the grotto of a fountain which is in the garden of the Pitti Palace, and also prepared the designs for hangings of a bed to be richly embroidered all over with stories in small figures, this being considered the most gorgeous decoration of the kind that has ever been executed in similar work, seeing that the designs of Francesco have been worked in embroidery, thickly mingled with pearls and other costly material, by Antonio, the brother of Francesco, who is an excellent master in embroidery" (iv. 492). It would appear from Vasari's account that Francesco's works consisted of predelle for altar-pieces, and pictorial adornments for wedding chests, and other pieces of "art furniture."[236] Morelli, however, in an interesting chapter on Bacchiacca (Roman Galleries, pp. 103-113), claims for him a much more important position, ascribing to him among other works the charming and celebrated "Portrait of a Boy" in the Louvre, commonly attributed to Raphael.

The present panels decorated the room in the house at Florence, from which Pontormo's picture of Joseph also comes (see under 1131); they were doubtless painted for "cassoni," or large chests which were used by the Italians of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries as wardrobes. "In those palmy days art was welcomed everywhere in Italy, and had a share in all the concerns of men, and in all the events and festivities of daily life. The nobles took a delight in enriching their palaces, their country houses, and the chapels in their churches, with paintings and sculpture, and even required that their household furniture should, whilst useful, be grace[Pg 589]ful and beautiful." Our panels were purchased many years ago from the heirs of the Borgherini.

Several incidents occur in each of the two pictures, but the main figures constantly recur, and we recognise them by their dress and look. (1218). On the left, in this picture, are Joseph's brethren travelling in search of corn towards the land of Egypt, quaint figures in fantastic dresses, with little Benjamin, a child in a blue frock, and Reuben weeping, and another brother trying in vain to console him. "And the famine was sore in the land.... And the men took ... Benjamin; and rose up, and went down to Egypt" (Genesis xliii. 1, 15). On the right in the same picture is Joseph welcoming his brothers in the portico of the palace, Pharaoh's armed guard outside looking rather grimly and inhospitably on the intruders. The landscape is green and picturesque. It is noticeable that blue (the colour of hope) is here made sacred to Joseph and Benjamin, the children of promise, who are in every instance dressed alike.

(1219). In the companion panel the further history of Joseph and his brethren is depicted in three scenes or compartments, divided by pillars. On the left are the brothers unloading the donkey of the empty meal-jars, now to be filled through Joseph's kindness. In the centre is Joseph making himself known to his eleven brethren. He is gazing tenderly on little Benjamin, who advances towards him in the foreground. "And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph: doth my father yet live?" (Genesis xlv. 3). On the right are seen the brethren departing homeward, and the mule laden with Benjamin and the filled meal-bags is being driven off.

1220. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD

This is the only picture, says the Official Catalogue, which can be authenticated "with something like certainty" as the work of Andrea di Luigi, of Assisi. His name occurs in receipts and registers from 1505 to 1511, in the capacity of procurator, arbitrator, auditor to the magistracy, and finally of papal cashier at Assisi. It was perhaps this "talent" for affairs that won him the name of "L' Ingegno." Vasari says he was the most promising disciple of Perugino, and the resemblance to that artist in this picture is strong. Compare for instance even so small a thing as the dress patterns here with those in 288, as also the close resemblance to the "purist" landscape there described.

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1221. "DARBY AND JOAN."

This painter, a friend and pupil of Gerard Dou, was a well-to-do citizen of Leyden. He was twice Dean of the Painters' Guild in that place. This picture (formerly in the Blenheim Collection) is considered one of the best of his works. The painter's name is inscribed on the wooden cupboard on the wall above the spinning-wheel.

1222. A STUDY OF FOLIAGE, BIRDS, ETC.

Formerly ascribed to Otto Marseus; but the defaced part of the signature has recently been deciphered as being that of Hondecoeter, dated 1668.

1227. VIRGIN AND CHILD

Also St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist, with the skin of a wild beast quaintly treated as a head-dress. A picture from a composition by Michael Angelo, known as "Il Silenzio."

1229. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Luis de Morales was born at Badajos, and is one of the most native of Spanish artists. He did not resort to Italy, such foreign influence as is discernible in him being rather that of the Flemings; and the religious sanctity of his work won him the surname of "the Divine." "His subjects, always devotional, were," we are told, "mostly of the saddest, as the Saviour in his hour of suffering, or dead in his mother's arms, or the weeping Madonna. His object was to excite devotion through images of pain, and to this end the forms are attenuated and the faces disfigured by the marks of past or present anguish." He was very largely commissioned by churches and convents, and his fame spread over Spain. He was called to the court of Philip II. in 1563, but was dismissed as soon as he had painted one picture, and thereafter he fell into great poverty. He had appeared at court, it is said, "in the style of a grand seigneur" which seemed to the king and his courtiers absurd in a mere painter, and was the cause of their disfavour. Some years later, however, the king, learning of his poverty, granted him a pension. In his earlier period, Morales painted crowded compositions with numerous figures; in his later, smaller pictures, such as the one before us.

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1230. PORTRAIT OF A GIRL.

The name of Ghirlandajo is one of the great landmarks in the history of Florentine art. He was the first to introduce portraits into "historical" pictures for their own sake, and his series of frescoes in S. Maria Novella is particularly interesting for the numerous portraits of his friends and patrons, dressed in the costume of the period and introduced into scenes of Florentine life and architecture. "There is a bishop," says Vasari, "in his episcopal vestments and with spectacles on his nose"—Ghirlandajo was the first master who ventured to paint a figure wearing spectacles—"he is chanting the prayers for the dead; and the fact that we do not hear him alone demonstrates to us that he is not alive, but merely painted." These groups of men and women in Ghirlandajo's sacred compositions stand by in the costume of their day as spectators of the incidents represented. He introduced also the architecture of Florence in the richest display and in complete perspective; and thus in his subjects taken from sacred story he has left us "an exalted picture of life as it presented itself to him in that day." "In the technical management of fresco Ghirlandajo exhibits an unsurpassed finish, and worked in it with extraordinary facility. He is said to have expressed a wish that he might be allowed to paint in fresco the whole of the walls which enclosed the city of Florence." He was carried off by the plague in his forty-fifth year, but he had already completed a very large body of work. He was the son of a silk-broker named Bigordi. He and his brother David, who was also a painter, were apprenticed to a goldsmith. Their master probably manufactured the garlands of gold and silver which were so much in favour with the women of Florence, and the young men coming from his shop thus acquired the name of del Ghirlandajo. Domenico early showed his bent by the striking likenesses he drew of the people who passed by the goldsmith's shop. He remained to the end of his life, says Ruskin, "a goldsmith with a gift of portraiture." As early as 1475 his reputation was established, for in that year he was called to Rome to paint in the Sistine Chapel, where his "Calling of Peter and Andrew" is still well preserved. Among the frescoes executed after his return to Florence may be mentioned the "St. Jerome" in the church of the Ognissanti, the history of "St. Francis" in the Trinita, and the famous series in the choir of S. Maria Novella. Copies from several of these works may be seen in the Arundel Society's Collection. They are described by Ruskin in his Mornings in Florence (see also Praeterita, vol. ii., and numerous incidental references in Modern Painters). Ghirlandajo had not, perhaps, Giotto's dramatic instinct for the heart of his subjects, but his frescoes are remarkable, not only for their brilliantly decorative effect, but for their noble and dignified realism. In the Uffizi at Florence are his best easel pictures. There is also a fine "Visitation" in the Louvre.[Pg 592] Ghirlandajo was celebrated further as a worker in mosaic (e.g. the mosaic over the north door of the Cathedral at Florence). He was twice married. The painter Ridolfo (1143) was a son by his first wife. Amongst his other pupils were Granacci and Michael Angelo.

The girl is of the same type—with the same hair, "yellow as ripe corn," and the same dainty primness—as the lady in Mr. Willett's picture (for some years on loan in the National Gallery, and now in the collection of M. Rodolphe Kann at Paris), but she was perhaps of humbler station—a simple flower in her hair and a coral necklace being her only ornaments.

1231. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.

"A man in the prime of life, attributed to Sir Antonio Moro; the signature is perhaps apocryphal. There is little doubt, however, that the attribution is correct; the manipulation shows all the prodigious power of Moro. His capacity for seizing character and the fine tone of his flesh colour are all here. The execution suggests the brilliant study of Hubert Goltzius, by Moro, in the Brussels Gallery. That masterpiece was stated to have been painted in an hour; the present head bears every indication of almost equally rapid brush work" (Times, September 19, 1887).

1232. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.

"Aldegrever is a son of the Renaissance, but he has not altogether escaped the old Franconian stiffness and provincialism.... His real strength is in engraving.... He worked also as a goldsmith, and his ornamental designs are numerous. We also know of a small number of woodcuts by him" (Woltmann, ii. 234). His pictures are very rare. The flower and ring which figure in the best known portrait by him at Vienna are again met with here, but this picture is less stiff and formal than that.

1233. THE BLOOD OF THE REDEEMER.

A devotional picture recalling such reminiscences of mediæval mysticism as are found in many of our hymns—

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"A cold sky with underlit clouds suggests the still and solemn hour of early dawn, a fitting time for the advent of this weird and livid apparition. Gaunt, bloodless, and with attenuated limbs, the Redeemer, we recognise, has passed through the Valley of 'the Shadow of Death'—not victoriously; there is no light of triumph in the lustreless eyes; no palm nor crown awaits this victim of relentless hate, the type of infinite despair and eternal sacrifice" (Times, September 19, 1887)—

The looks and gestures of the Saviour seem to demonstrate that the blood which pours from His riven side is freely given for the redemption of the world. In the details of the picture, which careless observers might mistake for mere chance accessories, there is an allegorical meaning. The paved terrace with the open doorway symbolises the Paradise regained by the Blood of the Sacrificed, the ideal Church, the Church of the New Covenant, in contradistinction to the Hortus Inclusus, the garden enclosed, without a door, which was the type of the Old Covenant. The antique reliefs are pagan prototypes of the Christian sacrifice. On the right is Mucius Scaevola, before Lars Porsena, thrusting his hand into the fire,—the ancient type of heroism and readiness to suffer; on the opposite side is a pagan sacrifice, with Pan playing the pipes, signifying the propitiatory sacrifices of the ancients, and thus foreshadowing the Sacrifice on the Cross. The landscape background carries out the same ideas. On[Pg 594] the right is a barren hill with leafless trees, and at its base some ancient ruins and a crumbling fountain. In contrast to this on the opposite side is a prosperous and well-fortified city, lying amid meadows; a church tower; the sky above is rosy with the light of early dawn. Figures are seen turning from the ancient ruins and making their way along the path which leads to a new and better home, the Christian city (Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 37).

This little picture is among the earliest of Bellini's works. The abnormal length of the figure of Christ and the exaggerated length and straightness of the forearms are points which should be noticed in this connection, resembling as they do characteristics of other early works by the painter, and also the drawings of his father, Jacopo. But "already, in spite of the archaism of form, he shows a feeling for atmospheric tonality; the ruin to the right and the two figures near it are, as painters say, in their place; that is to say, the treatment as regards relations of tone is such as the linear perspective would lead us to expect. Still more surprising is the way in which the eye is led down the valley to free spaces of luminous air" (Roger Fry: Giovanni Bellini, p. 18). The subject is a rare one in Italian art. Mr. Fry gives a reproduction of a similar figure in a picture by Crivelli in the Poldi Pezzoli Collection at Milan; and Dr. Richter, one from a woodcut in Savonarola's treatise on "Humility," first printed in 1492.

1234. "A MUSE INSPIRING A COURT POET."

Called a "court poet" because, one may suppose, of his sleek and uninspired appearance; but poets do not always look their parts, and 'tis the function of the Muse "to mould the secret gold." But perhaps the artist had some gently sarcastic intention, for it is but a small sprig that the Muse has spared to the poet from her garland. The head of the poet is clearly a portrait. That of the Muse "is as fine in technique and condition as anything in the whole range of Dossi's work" (Benson).

1239, 1240. THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.

Mocetto was a native of Verona, but a pupil of Giovanni Bellini at[Pg 595] Venice. He was "one of the earliest," says Lanzi (ii. 167), "and least polished among Bellini's disciples." And it is interesting to contrast the accomplished and beautiful work of the master (1233) with the almost ludicrous imperfections of these two pictures by the pupil. Notice especially the absurd attitude of the attendant to the left, in 1239; and in 1240, the expression of grief in the mother. Mocetto's claim to distinction rests rather on his rare engravings, executed from the designs of Giovanni Bellini and Mantegna. He "was also the painter of the great window in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo (Venice), which, although badly restored, still remains a magnificent work" (Layard, i. 332).

These works probably formed the wings of a triptych. In the former scene Herod directs the massacre which has already begun; in the second, the massacre is at its height.

1241. CHRIST PREACHING IN THE TEMPLE.

The painter of this picture forms an interesting link in the history of art. "In Spain the influence exercised over the national school by the northern Gothic masters was weakened at an early stage by the Italian Renaissance. Strange to say, a Fleming, who had learned his art in the school of Michael Angelo, was the chief instrument by which Italy asserted her power. Peter de Kampencer, to whom the Spaniards gave the name of Pedro Campaña, was born in Brussels. He left Italy, where he had enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Grimani, for Seville (1548), where he founded an academy." Luis de Morales (see 1229) is said to have been among his disciples. One of his masterpieces, a "Descent from the Cross," in Santa Cruz, was the picture which Murillo was never tired of admiring (see the story told under 13). Besides such large altar-pieces, "he was accustomed," says Lanzi (i. 402, Bohn's edition), "to paint small pictures, which were eagerly sought after by the English, and transferred to their country, where they were highly prized." In 1560 Campaña returned to his native city, and became official painter to the tapestry works there.

The subject of this "celebrated picture" (as Lanzi calls it) is "The Magdalen led by St. Martha to the Temple, to hear the preaching of Christ." Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, is identified in legend with the Magdalen, and her conversion is said to have begun with the incident here depicted. The kneeling figure of the Magdalen is conspicuous amongst the women listeners; she is encouraged by Martha, who points to the preacher (see Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and[Pg 596] Legendary Art, p. 219, ed. 1850, for other representations of this subject).

1243. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Dated 1662. Notice the characteristic "steeple-crowned" hat.

1247. THE CARD PLAYERS.

This picture, purchased in 1888 at the sale of the Gatton Park (Lord Oxenbridge's) Collection, was stated by the auctioneer to be by Rembrandt, but there is little doubt that it is really by his disciple, Maes; though, as it is larger than most of the known works by that master, other critics have ascribed it to another pupil of Rembrandt, Carl Faber, or Fabricius. "In any case it is unmistakably of the Rembrandt school, and owes its inspiration to the method of presentation peculiar to the master. From every technical point of view it is first-rate. It is infused with the largeness of style, the just appreciation of character, and the glowing colour, to be found in Rembrandt's matured works. It is the turn of the girl to play. She regards her hand in evident perplexity, doubtful which card to throw down. The man is apparently sure of his game" (Times, June 4, 1888).

1248. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

The sitter belonged to the Braganza family. So prematurely demure is this plain little girl that, in spite of the fact that her hair is "down" and that she wears a round nursery cap, she is dignified with the title of "A Lady." She is certainly every inch a grown-up lady in her rich brocade dress, pearl necklace, and costly feathers. Van der Helst gave special attention, says Sir F. Burton, to "the discrimination of stuffs, and his skill in reproducing the lustre and shimmer of jewellery or gold embroidery and the delicacy of the lace-worker's art has never been equalled." The picture is signed, and dated 1645.

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1251. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

It is only at Haarlem that the full power of Hals can be seen; but this picture shows something of his dash and facility. There is, indeed, upon it a stamp of power and individuality, alike in conception and treatment, which makes it one of the most interesting portraits in the Gallery. It is signed with the painter's monogram, and dated 1633. Possibly it is a portrait of the painter himself; and certainly it shows the type of a man to which Hals belonged—Hals, the dashing volunteer who fought in the military guilds, the good-for-nothing, daredevil fellow who loved his glass and was none too faithful in his domestic relations, whose excesses brought him finally to penury, but whose high spirit and unfailing dash enabled him to remain true, through it all, to the calling of his art.

1252. A FRUIT-PIECE.

Snyders was one of the principal Flemish painters of animals and still life, and his talents were so much admired by Rubens that the latter often employed him to paint fruit, game, and other accessories in his pictures. Rubens in exchange sometimes drew the figures in pictures by Snyders, whom, as a last proof of affection, he appointed by will to manage the sale of his works of art. Snyders received many commissions, too, from the Archduke Albert and from Philip III. of Spain. His earlier pictures were confined to representations—such as this one of fruit and vegetables, or of dead game and fish. In the establishment of his parents, who were proprietors of a large eating-house, he had ample opportunity of studying such models. "Snyders is not to be surpassed," says Sir F. Burton, "in the painting of fruit. With his fine appreciation of colour, and his large method of handling, he reproduced with few but masterly touches the characteristic surface of each luscious product of the garden, with greater truth to nature than was generally attained by those painters who sought it by means of minute and laborious imitation." Afterwards Snyders enlarged his scope, and produced those scenes of the chase for which he became celebrated. The vigour which Snyders threw into these productions is extraordinary, but pictures of animals in savage chase or butchered agony do not appeal to all tastes. "I know no pictures," says Ruskin, "more shameful to humanity than the boar and lion hunts of Rubens and Snyders, signs of disgrace all the deeper because the powers desecrated are so great. The painter of the village ale-house sign may,[Pg 598] not dishonourably, paint the fox-hunt for the village squire; but the occupation of magnificent art power in giving semblance of perpetuity to those bodily pangs which Nature has mercifully ordained to be transient, and in forcing us, by the fascination of its stormy skill, to dwell on that from which eyes of merciful men should instinctively turn away, and eyes of high-minded men scornfully, is dishonourable alike in the power which it degrades, and the joy to which it betrays" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 19).

1255. A STUDY OF STILL LIFE.

This rare painter, perhaps the son of Jan van de Velde, the engraver, was settled at Amsterdam in 1642. Besides being a painter he was in business as a broker, and was described in the marriage register as a silver-wire drawer. This picture is dated 1656.

1256. A STUDY OF STILL LIFE.

This Steenwyck is not to be confused with the painter of architectural interiors (see 1132). Herman, and a brother, Pieter, were painters of still-life subjects at Leyden.

1257. THE BIRTH OF THE VIRGIN.

A sketch for the large picture now in the Louvre (No. 540). "Like so many of the sketches of Murillo, it is so light in touch," says one of the critics, "so exquisite in colour, as to be, from an artistic point of view, preferable to the finished picture." This, however, is not the only advantage which Murillo gains from smallness of scale. There is a prettiness, and even a sentimentality, permissible on a small scale which offends the dignity of a large canvas. Thus, the "affectation" of the attendant angels is far less "absurd" here than in the large picture. "One of the cherubs shrinks back," adds Mr. Eastlake in his Louvre catalogue, "frightened at a dog, which seems a strangely human act of weakness; another holds up a piece of baby-linen, with a provokingly fantastic air." But herein we have the very characteristics which make the religious sentiment of Murillo's pictures interesting. In the early[Pg 599] Italian pictures the Virgin is a great lady, living in a fine house or spacious cloister. But in Spain the symbols of devotion passed into realities; and a combination of mysticism in conception with realism in treatment is the distinguishing "note" of the Spanish religious school. One could not wish for a prettier presentment of this mingled note than is afforded by this little sketch, with its angels half in ecstatic adoration over the "Lily of Eden," and half in human playfulness—a sketch which seems to combine with the frank realities of a humble nursery the religious sentiment of Keble's Christian Year:—

1258. A STUDY OF STILL LIFE

Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin was the contemporary of Boucher (1090), and his pictures may serve to remind us that there was a bourgeoisie in France as well as a noblesse when Louis XV. was king. The simple subject of this picture—a loaf of brown bread, with a bottle of wine, spread out on a piece of old newspaper—takes us far away from the luxurious trifling of the Court painters. Chardin followed the path of frank realism, treating, however, all his subjects with refinement. To Dutch precision he added Gallic grace. He painted either still life (as here) or scenes from the domestic life of the people (as in 1664, and in a picture in the Dulwich Gallery). His treatment was devoid of affectation, and his colouring fresh and agreeable. "He is the best colourist in the Salon," said Diderot of him in his lifetime. Chardin, in the exercise of his honest industry, knew how difficult it was to excel, and said on one occasion to Diderot and the other critics, "Gently, good sirs, gently! Out of all the pictures that are here seek the very worst; and know that two thousand unhappy wretches have bitten their brushes in two with their teeth, in despair of ever doing even so badly." Chardin's fellow-workers appreciated his merits, and he was elected a member of the Academy in 1728, becoming Treasurer of that body in 1755. There is a large collection of his works in the Louvre. They fell into disrepute during the succeeding reign of David and the "classical" school, but they have again won a high position in the estimation of those who know. This picture (which is signed, and dated 1754) was presented to the Gallery; for No. 1664, purchased in 1898, the sum of £721 was paid.

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Chardin's pictures show that instinctive "power of reticence" which is one of the secrets of fine art. "It is what gives value to such humble efforts as the study of still-life subjects, and raises them—as in the works of the French painters, Chardin especially, and of some of the Dutch painters—above the level of mere mechanical imitations, and transforms them into works capable of giving us real pleasure" (Poynter's Lectures on Art, p. 195).

1260-1270. EARLY GREEK PORTRAITS.

These eleven portraits are part of the find by Mr. Flinders Petrie, in his excavations at Hawara, in the Fayoum (Middle Egypt), and are of great interest as supplying a fresh link in the historical development of art as exhibited in the National Gallery. Here is portraiture in its infancy. But even these portraits, done probably by Græco-Egyptian artists in the second or third century A.D., are later developments from an earlier stage. They were affixed to the outside covering of mummies in a position corresponding to the head of the corpse:[237] the exact arrangement can be seen in two mummies from the same "find," now in the British Museum. "They are derived," says Miss Amelia B. Edwards, "by a clearly traced process of evolution from the portrait-heads first modelled in stucco upon Egyptian mummy cases, and then painted. From coloured portraiture in high relief to coloured portraiture on flexible canvas, where a certain amount of relief was obtained by the prominence of the bandaged face beneath, was one step; and from the flexible canvas to the panel upon which the semblance of relief was given by light and shadow and foreshortening was another and far more important step. It marked the transition from the Eastern to the Western school of painting." The portraits are painted with pigments of rich colour on thin panels of cedar wood, wax being the medium employed. "The rather lumpy surface or impasto which comes from the use of a wax medium is very obvious. The melted wax rapidly hardened when the brush touched the cold surface of the panel, and so prevented the pigment from [Pg 601]being laid in a smooth, even manner. The wood was not, like stucco, sufficiently absorbent for the subsequent application of heat to get rid of the lumpy surface by driving the superfluous wax below the surface" (Middleton's Remains of Ancient Rome, i. 100). The persons buried with these panel portraits were mostly of Greek origin; but some—as, for instance, the man (No. 1265, presented by Mr. Haworth)—seemed rather to be of the Roman type. The faces exhibit all variations, from living grace to the emptiest vacuity. It has been suggested that "the better portraits were painted from the life, whilst in other cases the painter was perhaps only sent for after death, and this may account for the vague and lifeless looks of many of the portraits, inanimate in spite of the wide, open, and vacuous smile." It will be noticed that "the style of the portraits is usually conventional precisely in those details which make the difference between one living face and another. The eyes, which more than any other feature should impart the living expression in all these cases, are executed in a perfunctory and formal manner. And they are, moreover, in many cases too large for the face. This is not merely due to the inability of the artists, for many of these portraits show a real grasp of character and a distinct technical skill in the modelling, notably in that, perhaps, most difficult of tasks, the indication of the play of muscles around the mouth. Under these circumstances I think no one will deny that the measure of success achieved in some of the best of these portraits is very remarkable. The old man in particular (1265) shows a breadth of style and a quiet humour which reminds us of some of the Dutch masters of the Teniers school. Of course there are good and bad among them; the quality probably depended to some extent upon the price which the relative could afford to pay. One wonders what the price may have been, especially when we read of the enormous sums which great pictures fetched in the palmy days of Greek painting. Most of these people seem to have been well to do, as the gold wreaths of the men and the jewellery of the women prove" (Cecil Smith, ch. vi. of W. M. F. Petrie's Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe: 1889). No. 1261 retains the greater part of a gilt gesso border, stamped or modelled with a wavy tendril and bud pattern.

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1277. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

Signed, and dated 1666. A singularly lifelike portrait of a singularly unattractive face.

1278. A CONVIVIAL PARTY.

The picture is signed HP (on the side of the projecting chimney). Several pictures—chiefly conversation-pieces and portraits (including one of Charles I. in the Louvre)—bear these initials. They are supposed to belong to the above-named artist, of whom it is recorded that he visited England and made portraits of the king.

An ordinary scene of the kind, but there is a pleasant touch in the little dog who furtively licks the hand of its half-tipsy master.

1280. CHRIST APPEARING AFTER HIS RESURRECTION

The Virgin Mary sits on the edge of an old-fashioned bedstead. Christ, with the marks of the wounds in breast and feet, faces her, and behind him is a great company of saints, kneeling. Highly finished throughout.

1282. SAN ZENOBIO RESTORING TO LIFE A DEAD CHILD.

Chimenti, of Empoli, near Florence, was "an imitator of Andrea del Sarto, and distinguished for his Madonnas; he was distinguished also for his love of good eating, and acquired from his contemporaries the nickname of L' Empilo, instead of L' Empoli, which is as much as to say stewpan" (Wornum, Epochs of Painting, p. 356). He was largely employed in the churches of Florence and the neighbourhood. His best production is his "St. Ives" in the Uffizi: "in noble conception and truth and glow of colour it reminds us of the best of the old Florentine masters."

St. Zenobio (died A.D. 417) was a Bishop of Florence, famous in his time for his eloquence and good works, and a[Pg 603] favourite saint with the Florentines in after ages. The following is the legend painted in this picture:—"A French lady of noble lineage, who was performing a pilgrimage to Rome, stopped at Florence on the way, in order to see the good bishop Zenobio, of whom she had heard so much, and having received his blessing she proceeded to Rome, leaving in his care her little son. The day before her return to Florence, the child died. She was overwhelmed with grief, and took the child and laid him down at the feet of St. Zenobio, who, by the efficacy of his prayers, restored the child to life, and gave him back to the arms of his mother" (Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 415).

1284. ST. FRANCIS AND ST. MARK.

A companion panel to the one already in the Gallery; see 768. The design of the pedestal is, it will be seen, the same in both.

1285. PORTRAIT OF NAPOLEON I.

Emile John Horace Vernet, soldier and artist, was the grandson of Claude Joseph Vernet (236). He was decorated in 1814 by Napoleon for his gallant conduct before the enemy at the Barrière de Clichy, on which occasion he served in a regiment of hussars. In the Louvre there is a picture by him representing the defence of Paris on that occasion. On the fall of the Empire he left France for a time, but he gradually won the favour of the court. In 1833 he joined the French army at Algiers, and there gathered material for the huge battle-pieces which he painted for Louis Philippe. The Crimean War furnished him with another congenial set of subjects. His work had a great vogue in its day, but owed more to its patriotic and stirring subject-matter than to abiding artistic qualities.

Less ideal than the beautiful sketch which David made of Napoleon as First Consul, or the later conventional pictures painted for a generation which had not seen the original. There is no dreamy intensity in the eyes, and no engaging smile. The famous lock in the centre of the forehead is there, and the face is still handsome, imposing, and resolute; but there is already something of the heaviness which presaged his fall.

[Pg 604]

1286. A BOY DRINKING.

"The boy is resting his left arm on a table and holding a square bottle, like one of those used for schiedam. The head is finely modelled, with a firm, broad touch; the bright eyes are deep set under the brow, and they betray eager delight in the draught he is taking. The flesh tones are unusually pure and bright for Murillo. The picture seems to be that which, named 'A Spanish Youth Drinking,' was sold in 1836 with Lord Charles Townshend's collection for £414. With the Earl of Clare's pictures was sold, in 1864, 'A Peasant holding a Bottle and drinking from a Glass,' which had belonged to Prince Talleyrand and Lord C. Townshend,' for £1365" (Athenæum).

1287. INTERIOR OF AN ART GALLERY.

Of interest alike for its technical skill and for its historical information. No less than forty-two pictures hang upon the walls of the "Art Gallery," and the collection is very interesting as showing the taste of an amateur of the period. In addition to these, there are globes, gems, maps, engravings, nautical instruments, pieces of sculpture, and other "objects of vertu"—all painted with miniature-like delicacy. Especially charming is an elaborately inlaid cabinet with china and other "curios" upon it. Notice also the fine Persian carpet. The art treasures are being eagerly scanned by several groups of connoisseurs, whilst—with a touch, perhaps, of satiric intent—a monkey is perched on the window-sill, criticising the critics. It is interesting to note that with only three exceptions all the paintings depicted in the Art Gallery are in black frames. This was the common practice with the Low Country painters. Several of the latest additions to the Dutch pictures in the Gallery are in their original black frames. The famous Teniers at Vienna of "The Archduke's Gallery" is an equally apt illustration of the taste of Dutch and Flemish painters (Athenæum, 2nd January 1892).

1288. FROST SCENE.

[Pg 605]

1289. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.

A characteristic little work. In the distance is a ruined castle-keep in the water, which may be the same building as that depicted in No. 824.

1291. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.

Valdes Leal, who was born at Cordova, settled afterwards at Seville, where he became the first President of the Academy in that city. It is to him that some critics have assigned the "Dead Orlando" in this room (741). His most famous picture—"one of the most repulsive, but also most impressive ever painted," says Mr. W. B. Scott—is "The Two Dead Men," in the Hospital of Charity at Seville, representing a charnel house with the partially-decayed corpses of a bishop and a noble. So dreadful is the realism that Murillo said he never could approach the picture without fancying he smelt the horror. "Ah, my compeer," replied the flattered realist, "it is not my fault; you have taken all the sweet fruit out of the basket and left only the rotten."

In the present picture Valdes Leal has picked sweet fruit too; indeed it is over sweet. The donatrix of the picture and her son are shown in either corner, while in the midst the Virgin ascends to Heaven, surrounded by bands of angels. The picture is thoroughly characteristic, in its florid type of sentiment, of the Spanish school.

1292. A FAMILY GROUP.

A painter of Utrecht; entered the Guild of Painters there in 1630, and repeatedly filled the office of its Dean. Studied at Utrecht under A. Bloemaert, and afterwards visited Italy and France. His works are numerous in the galleries of Amsterdam and Utrecht.

They are plain old people, truth to tell, this group of two Dutch housewives and a Dutch burgher, and they are somewhat too obviously sitting for their portraits. How prim and neat all the surroundings are! how pretty is the trailing rose on the balustrade! and with what quiet, unobtrusive fidelity the whole picture is painted!

[Pg 606]

1293. MUSICAL PASTIME.

This painter, the best of three artists of the same name, "excelled in representing peasant interiors and scenes of rustic life in a quiet style and in skilfully graduated tints. His colouring is warm and clear; his drawing spirited, and his touch full of life. Besides this, he possessed a certain refinement, and his humour never overstepped the bounds of decency. While his works retain characteristics peculiar to him, they manifest also something of the styles of Steen, Brauwer, and Ostade" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 159). He was a native of Haarlem, and afterwards settled in Amsterdam. His earlier works (such as the present picture) suggest the tutelage of Frans Hals; the later works show the influence of Rembrandt.

This picture (which is signed on the side of the foot-warmer) is a capital example of the artist. "The fair faces of the singers are very spontaneously expressive of their gaiety, and have something of the animation of Jan Steen without his vulgar types and occasional grimace."

1294. AN ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT.

This painter was a native of Haarlem, where he belonged to the Guild of Painters, and was a pupil of Rembrandt. In this picture the light, coming from the top on our left, falls on the globe and figure with Rembrandtesque effect.

The subject is perhaps a "Vigil of Arms," and may depict a knight or king passing the night before his investiture in the seclusion of a private chapel. On the altar before which he stands are a globe, two crowns, and several documents. His left hand is turned slightly forward, as if to call attention to the action, while in his right hand he holds a sceptre with its point resting on the globe. On the floor in front of the altar lie his arms and armour; behind, hangs his banner. On his head is a laurel wreath; and over a bright breastplate he wears the richly embroidered robe of his order.

1295. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

Giovenone was a native of Vercelli, in which city several fine pictures by him are preserved. Other painters who worked, or were[Pg 607] born, at Vercelli are Macrino d' Alba (1200), Lanini (700), and Gaudenzio Ferrari (1465). By some critics our picture is assigned to another painter of the same school, Defendente Ferrari (see Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. lxxix.). Examples of both painters may be seen in the Turin Gallery.

The Virgin and Child are flanked by the kneeling figures of two men, perhaps brothers, who were doubtless the donors of the picture. Behind each of them stands his patron saint, patting the devotee approvingly on the back. The Virgin's face is charming; so also are two little angels, who are quaintly perched up aloft, one on either side sitting on ledges of the canopied throne. The picture is a good example of symmetry—almost exaggerated, one may think—in composition.

1296, 1297. LANDSCAPES.

Zais, a Venetian, was a pupil of the Florentine landscape and decorative painter Zuccarelli (1702-1788) who settled for many years at Venice. Zuccarelli in 1752 came to this country, where in 1768 he became an original member of the Royal Academy. The works of Zais also for a time attracted the attention of English amateurs, but he died a pauper in the hospital of Treviso.

Amusing examples of the so-called "pastoral landscape," which found favour in the last century—the landscape painted "in praise of the country by men who lived in coffee-houses." Zais was nearly contemporary with Longhi, and shows us the same Venetians in villeggiatura whom Longhi shows us in town (see 1100 and 1101). In 1286 we see some "picturesque" farm-buildings on one side of a stream, with a "picturesque" cow-herd asleep; whilst on the other side is a party of gay ladies—dressed in crinolines and bows, and devoid of hats, shawls, or wraps—flirting with beaux. The companion picture (1297) is conceived in the same style; but the ladies are here fishing, though, to judge from the amateurishness of their proceeding, they are not likely to catch fish.

1298. LANDSCAPE: RIVER SCENE.

This picture, acquired in Florence in 1889 together with two by Zais (1296, 1297), was for some years attributed to the[Pg 608] Venetian school. It is now recognised as a work of Patinir. The heavy blue tone of that painter's distances here gives way to a lighter colour; but the fantastic landscape has strong resemblances to No. 716. If by Patinir, the work is unique in being one of pure landscape, with no scriptural incident. "The earliest independent landscape that we possess by an old master, the first admission that inanimate nature pure and simple is worth making a picture of. In the left corner is the artist sketching, which is a sort of guarantee that he worked in the open air, and that he had been struck with the beauty of some such prospect.... He has been so used to regard landscape as an accessory that he does not dare to paint it except from a distance, or on any but a minute scale, and he enlivens it with signs of human industry in the raft and the limekiln. It is as though a landscape had stepped out of the background of some old picture, and asserted its independence with fear and trembling" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 202).

1299. PORTRAIT OF A YOUTH.

It is interesting to compare this portrait with Botticelli's of a somewhat similar subject (No. 626). Both were probably "good likenesses"; but Ghirlandajo's is less forcible and impressive than Botticelli's.

1300. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Apparently by a follower of Leonardo.

1301. PORTRAIT OF SAVONAROLA.

A portrait of the great patriot-priest of Florence (1452-1498), whose strange career is familiar to all readers of George Eliot's Romola. Ultimately he was condemned to death, with his two disciples; and on the back of the portrait is a representation of their execution. They were hung on a cross, and burnt.

[Pg 609]

1302. THE SOUL OF ST. BERTIN.

1303. A CHOIR OF ANGELS.

These two panels are the uppermost portions of an altar-screen painted for the Abbey Church of St. Bertin at St. Omer. The remaining portions are now in the King's Palace at the Hague. These shutters, and a diptych belonging to the Duc d'Aumale, are the only works that have come down to us of Marmion, a painter of Valenciennes, worthy (according to the chroniclers of his time) of great admiration. The two panels before us had been reposing for thirty years in a lumber-room at the South Kensington Museum.

1304. MARCUS CURTIUS.

So described in the Official Catalogue. By Signor Frizzoni the picture is considered to be of the Florentine school, and is ascribed to Francesco Ubertini, for whom see No. 1218 (Archivio Storico dell' Arte, 1895, p. 104).

The subject is supposed to be that of the Roman youth who sacrificed himself by leaping into a chasm which (said the oracle) would never close until Rome threw into it the most precious thing she had. What did Rome possess more precious than her arms and courage, said Curtius as he prepared to leap, in full armour, into the gulf. If this be the subject here represented, the picture shows in an interesting way the frank anachronism of the early painters, for the local colour is certainly not that of the Roman Forum, where Curtius took his self-sacrificing leap. The picture bears strong resemblance to Raphael's earlier manner, as any visitor will see who compares it with the "Vision of a Knight" (213). "Michael Field" has put the sentiment of the picture into verse in Sight and Song:—

1305. A FAMILY GROUP.

There are other signed pictures by this little known painter in private collections in Vienna. They bear the dates 1627 and 1635.

Portraits of Jan van Hensbeeck and his wife, Maria Koeck, with their infant child between them.

1308. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo, the favourite pupil and the son-in-law of Velazquez, whom he succeeded in 1661 as painter to the Spanish Court. In portraiture Mazo was an imitator of the great master; he also painted hunting pieces and landscapes. His view of Zaragoza, now in the Madrid Gallery, is celebrated.

A very short thick-set figure; possibly a portrait of one of Philip IV.'s court dwarfs.

1309. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

The above are the earliest and latest dates on his pictures. He was a native of Pordenone, in Friuli; a pupil and relative of the better known painter who is called after that place. There are two pictures by Bernardino at Hampton Court—"A Lady playing on the virginals," of rich though muddy colouring; and "A Family Group" (dated 1524)—monotonous in composition, but brilliant in colour (see Mary Logan's Guide, p. 25). He also painted altar-pieces, among which one in the Frari at Venice is the best.

A young man with feminine features. His black gown, lined with gray fur, is left open at the chest and discloses a[Pg 611] gold chain and pendant. On the stone plinth whereon he leans is an inscription, "Stephanus Nani. abavro XVII. MDXXVIII·Lycinivs. P."

1310. "ECCE HOMO!"

This picture was sold as a Carlo Dolci; but the attribution was an obvious absurdity. There is no resemblance whatever between the affected sentimentality of Dolci and the sincere pathos of this picture. Its deep and rich colouring also is very different from Dolci's. Sir Frederick Burton labelled his trouvaille "Giovanni Bellini." But its attribution to Cima is now accepted. "This type of Christ," says Mr. Claude Phillips, "of a perfect, manly beauty, of a divine meekness tempering majesty, dates back not to Gian Bellino but to Cima. The preferred type of the elder master is more passionate, more human. Our own Incredulity of St. Thomas, by Cima, shows in a much more perfunctory fashion a Christ similarly conceived" (The Earlier Work of Titian, p. 31 n.). To the same effect a writer in the Academy (July 26, 1890) says: "The modelling—not precise or searching enough for Giambellino—resembles that of his gifted pupil, the parted lips being one of his especial characteristics, as may be noted in his great 'Incredulity of St Thomas' (816). The treatment of the heavy wig-like masses of the hair, with its fine lines, is very similar to that of the Saviour's parted locks in the larger work, while a certain want of flexibility in the muscles of the face is also a distinguishing mark of the master. More striking still is the coincidence that from the head of Christ issue in both instances single rays, disposed in three distinct and separate fasciculi—an arrangement not found, as far as we are aware, in the works of Giovanni Bellini, and never common in Italian art. The peculiarly brilliant blue of the drapery is paralleled by that of the little 'St. Jerome' from the Hamilton Palace Collection, and approached by that of the 'Virgin and Child'—both these panels being sufficiently representative examples of Cima. Comparison has in these remarks been restricted to works in the National Gallery, as being most readily available for purposes of verification. The influence of Antonello—from whom Bellini himself borrowed so much—is, in the new acquisition, undeniable, and may[Pg 612] account for a virility and an intensity of pathos not often reached even in the better productions of the sympathetic Bellinesque painter to whom we would attribute it."

1311. A WINTER SCENE.

This painter was the son of a cooper of Amsterdam. He travelled much in Holland, staying in all the towns he visited, and copying their monuments, squares, and thoroughfares, and leaving everywhere on his route a great number of sketches and pictures. He painted Italian views also, but these pictures may have been founded on local sketches by other Dutch artists. "His manner of painting was vigorous; delicate finish and precision of touch were less his aim than freedom of handling combined with broad contrasts of tone, where the colour, of a subdued richness, shows brilliancy and often loses itself in harmonies of gray" (Official Catalogue, and Havard's Dutch School, p. 239).

The castle is that of Muiden, between Amsterdam and Naarden. The fortified village is in the distance. On the left is the Zuyder Zee. Signed in the foreground, and dated 1658.

1312. THE VILLAGE COBBLER.

Victoors, a native of Amsterdam, was a pupil of Rembrandt, and attempted biblical subjects in the style of his master; a picture by him in this kind may be seen in the Dulwich Gallery. But he is seen at his best in portraits and domestic subjects, such as that treated in the present picture.

1313. THE ORIGIN OF "THE MILKY WAY."

This work, acquired from the Earl of Darnley, is a particularly welcome addition to the National Gallery; for the two works by Tintoret previously in the collection,—the "St. George and the Dragon" and "Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet,"—though fairly representative of his more sombre mood, give no idea whatever of such radiant forms and sweeping harmonies as those with which he decorated the Ducal Palace at Venice. This picture immediately recalls these last-men[Pg 613]tioned works, for it was doubtless designed as the centre-piece for some painted ceiling. The picture is a very beautiful representation of a classic myth of the Milky Way. Hermes, it is told, carried the infant Hercules to Olympus, and put him to the breast of Juno while she lay asleep; but, as she awoke, she pushed the child from her, and the milk thus spilled produced the Milky Way. In this picture, however, we see Jupiter himself descending through the air and bearing the child in his arms. Juno is rising undraped from her couch, surrounded by little loves, and attended by peacocks—emblems of her royal state as Queen of Heaven; while in the deep-blue firmament is the eagle carrying the thunderbolt of Jupiter. From her bosom issue long lacteal jets that seem, as it were, to crystallise into stars. Sumptuous draperies float around the ground, and in most poetical composition Tintoret has thus "mingled with their gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies." There is a study for the picture in the Accademia at Venice.

1314. THE AMBASSADORS.

Hans Holbein—"the greatest master," says Ruskin, "of the German, or any northern school"—is closely identified with England, and at least seventy important works by him are, it is calculated, in this country. He is called "the younger," to distinguish him from his father of the same name, who was also a celebrated painter.[238] The son was born at Augsburg, but migrated early in life to Basle—then a centre of literary and artistic activity. There he formed a friendship with Erasmus, a portrait of whom from his hand is now one of the treasures of the Basle Museum. Both at Basle and at Lucerne Holbein was engaged in portraiture, house-decorating, and designs for goldsmiths' work. Ruskin traces to Holbein's surroundings at Basle the serious temper which characterises much of his art. "A grave man, knowing what steps of men keep truest time to the chanting of Death. Having grave friends also;—the same singing heard far off, it seems to me, or, perhaps even low in the room, by that family of Sir Thomas More; or mingling with the hum of bees in the meadows outside the towered wall of Basle; or making the words of the book more tuneable, which meditative Erasmus looks upon. Nay, that same soft death-music is on the lips even of Holbein's Madonna." The reference here is to the famous "Darmstadt Madonna," which was painted about 1526. In [Pg 614]that year, leaving his wife and child behind him, Holbein set out for England, with letters from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, who received him with honour. From 1528 to 1532 he was again in Basle. In the latter year he returned to England to find More in disgrace, and no longer able to assist him. Holbein, however, met with a warm reception from the German merchants of the Steelyard, and painted portraits of many of them. To this same period also the present picture belongs. Gradually he became known at court, and from 1536 onwards he was in the service of Henry VIII., whose high opinion of Holbein is recorded in the King's rebuke to one of his courtiers for insulting the painter: "You have not to do with Holbein, but with me; and I tell you that of seven peasants I can make seven lords, but not one Holbein." The portrait of Christina of Denmark, lent by the Duke of Norfolk, was one of those painted for the King. He paid during these years several visits to the Continent, but died in this country—being carried off by the plague—in 1543.

It is as a portrait-painter that Holbein is best known. His work in this kind is, says Ruskin, "true and thorough; accomplished in the highest as the most literary sense, with a calm entireness of unaffected resolution, which sacrifices nothing, forgets nothing, and fears nothing." Of his fidelity in portraiture and his fine perfection in accessories, we have a magnificent example in the picture before us, to which what Ruskin says of Holbein's "George Gyzen" (at Berlin) equally applies. "In some qualities of force and grace it is inferior. But it is inexhaustible. Every detail of it wins, retains, rewards the attention with a continually increasing sense of wonderfulness. So far as it reaches, it contains the absolute facts of colour, form, and character rendered with an inaccessible faithfulness. There is no question respecting things which it is best worth while to know, or things which it is unnecessary to state, or which might be overlooked with advantage. What were visible to Holbein, are visible to us; we may despise if we will; deny or doubt, we shall not; if we care to know anything concerning them, great or small, so much as may by the eye be known is for ever knowable, reliable, and indisputable." But Holbein, as we have seen, was much more than a portrait-painter. Few artists, indeed, have excelled him in "majestic range of capacity." His "Madonna" at Darmstadt, referred to above (the better known copy of which is at Dresden), is one of the great religious pictures of the world. (A copy of it is in the Arundel Society's Collection.) He was also a fresco-painter, a designer for glass painting, and a draughtsman for woodcuts; his designs for the "Dance of Death" being the typical expression in Northern art of the spirit of the Reformation. (For Ruskin's estimate of Holbein, see further Sir Joshua & Holbein, reprinted in On the Old Road, vol. i., and Ariadne Florentina, passim.)

This celebrated picture is, says Mr. Sidney Colvin, the most important among Holbein's works—after the Darmstadt Madonna—that are extant in good preservation, important[Pg 615] alike as to scale, and as to richness and multiplicity of accessories and costumes. It is also one of those most characteristic of the master, both in his excellences and in his faults. "There are more completely satisfying works among his single-figure portraits, in some of which we find a greater artistic unity—as, for instance, in the portrait of 'Christina, Duchess of Milan.' Among the faults in the present work may be noticed the short proportions of the figures in relation to the heads—an effect exaggerated in the case of the personage on our left by the fashion of the broad surcoat with its great puffed sleeves. It must further be admitted that Holbein, who in decorative and ornamental design was one of the most inventive, adroit, and powerful composers that ever lived, has in this instance seemed to let his composition take care of itself.[239] The figures are placed at either end of the desk, with a certain naïf stiffness almost recalling the pose of a photographic group. Moreover, masterly and energetic as are the heads in modelling, in expression they are somewhat rigid, harsh, and staring. Yet, all deductions made, with what an effective and potent grasp does the picture hold us! The colouring is richer and more varied than in any other painting of the master." The accessories are painted with "such strong minuteness of reality and diligent, though never paltry, emphasis of detail, that their due subordination to the whole and to the personages would seem impossible. But the subordination is there all the same, and how it comes is Holbein's secret. The total effect is one of singularly rich, if somewhat rigid grandeur;[240] the persons dominating as they should; the faces and hands remaining the master features of the picture. The heads, with their hard gaze, lay hold on the spectator masterfully, so that he cannot forget them after he has passed away" (Art Journal, January 1890). The brilliance of the picture, now that the discoloured varnish which formerly concealed many of its beauties has been removed, is very remarkable.[241] Every colour [Pg 616]appears to have stood; and after 370 years the picture remains in its pristine freshness.

The identity of the personages portrayed in the picture had long been a subject for critical conjecture among the ingenious. The picture was traditionally known as "The Ambassadors," and the name of almost every ambassador of the period had at one time or another been suggested; while other critics, maintaining that the traditional title rested on no good authority, went further afield and sought to identify the personages with various poets and men of letters, to whom the accessories in the picture seemed appropriate.[242] The matter has now, however, been finally set at rest by the discovery of a seventeenth-century manuscript, which gives a description of the picture and records its history during the first 120 years of its existence.[243] This manuscript, presented by Miss Mary Hervey (who discovered it), is now hung in another part of the Gallery (in the small room marked A on our plan). The traditional title of the picture is confirmed, for the portraits are of Jean de Dinteville (on the left), French Ambassador in England, and George de Selve (on the right), Bishop of [Pg 617]Lavaur, and subsequently Ambassador at Venice. The two men, we learn from the MS., were friends; and in 1533, the year in which the picture was painted, George de Selve came to England, by permission of the French king, on a visit to Jean de Dinteville: "and the two, having there met with an excellent painter of Holland, employed him to make this picture, which has been carefully preserved in the same place at Polizy up to the year 1653."

The document itself is convincing, and its identification of the personages agrees with what may be learnt from an examination of the picture. There are three inscriptions on it. One is on the sheath of the dagger which hangs from the girdle of the personage on the spectator's left. This inscription is: "ÆT. SVÆ 29." On the edges of a clasped book, upon which the second personage leans, is another inscription: "ÆTATIS SVÆ 25." Thirdly, in the shadow cast on the floor by the chief personage is the inscription: "Iohannes Holbein Pingebat, 1533." Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polizy, Bailly of Troyes, Chevalier de l'Ordre du Roi,—the order of St. Michael, which he wears in the picture,—was born September 21, 1504, and was, therefore, in his 29th year, or just the age required by the picture, at the time of his first Embassy to England in 1533. He remained in this country from February to November of that year, returning again as Ambassador in 1536. At a later period of his life he became paralysed and retired to his estate at Polizy, where he occupied the enforced leisure of his ill-health in building and embellishing the château, of which a vaulted undercroft and a few other striking fragments, including an inscription and some dates, yet remain as a monument to his tastes. He died in 1555. On the globe, which stands on the lower shelf of the what-not, the names are all of continents, countries, or great cities,—Paris, Lyons, Bayonne, Genoa, Rome, Nuremberg,—with the single exception that, in the east of France, we find the name of what is little more than a village. This name is Polizy.

George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, was one of six brothers, nearly all of whom attained distinction as Ambassadors. In 1526, at the early age of 18, he was appointed to the See of Lavaur, but he was not consecrated until 1534, when he was 26. It follows from these dates that in 1533, the year in which he sat to Holbein, he was 25 years old, or precisely of[Pg 618] the age recorded in the picture. His non-episcopal dress is explained by the fact that he was only consecrated in the following year, the same in which he was appointed Ambassador at Venice. In 1536 he was transferred to Rome, where he remained two years, and in 1540 we find him intrusted with an important mission to Charles V. Having voluntarily returned to his diocese when at the zenith of his career, in order to devote himself completely to his episcopal duties, he died in 1542 (N.S.) at the early age of 34. His profound learning, his piety, his keen interest in all intellectual pursuits, make him one of the remarkable figures of his day.

Some further description of the details may assist the spectator in his examination of the picture. The background is hung with green damask, which in the upper left-hand corner reveals a silver crucifix. Jean de Dinteville, the figure on the left, habited in the rich costume of the period of Henry VIII. and Francis I., wears a heavy gold chain with the badge (as already explained) of the French Order of St. Michael. In his right hand he holds a richly-chased gold dagger, "the design of which is manifestly Holbein's own; and beside it hangs a large green and gold silk tassel, in itself a miracle of painting." In his black bonnet is a jewel formed of a silver skull set in gold. The other personage is more soberly attired. He wears a loose, long-sleeved gown of mulberry and black brocade, lined with sable, and the four-cornered black cap, "which was in that age the common headgear of scholars, university doctors, and ecclesiastics in undress." "The contrast between the swordsman on one side and the gownsman on the other is characteristic of the era and profession of the two ambassadors." The upper shelf of the stand, or what-not, between the two figures is covered with a Turkish rug, very beautifully painted, and on this are several mathematical and astronomical instruments, and, close to the principal personage, a celestial globe. Conspicuous on the lower shelf is a lute, of which one of the strings was broken and curled up over the unbroken one. On the lower shelf also are a case of flutes; an open music-book, containing part of the score and words of the Lutheran hymn, "Komm, heiliger Geist";[245] a smaller book on arithmetic, kept partly open by a small square, a pair of [Pg 619]compasses, and a terrestrial hand-globe (in direct line below the other globe). On this globe the famous line drawn by Pope Alexander VI. in 1493 between the spheres of influence of Spain and Portugal is marked. Underneath the what-not is the lute-case; and a fine mosaic adorns the floor. The design of this is (as Miss Hervey points out) an accurate copy of the well-known mosaic pavement in the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, for the construction of which marbles and workmen were brought from Italy by Abbot Richard Ware in the reign of Henry III. "Nothing brings the English sojourn of the great painter more closely home to us than to fancy him wandering through the aisles of the venerable Abbey—venerable even then—to sketch the outlines of the historic pavement trodden by so many generations before and since that time."

On the floor is a mysterious-looking object, which puzzled the connoisseurs for centuries. Even the late Mr. Wornum could make nothing of it; and in his book on Holbein (1867) dismissed it as "a singular object which looks like the bones of some fish." The puzzle was first solved by Dr. Woodward in 1873, when the picture was hung in the "Old Masters" Exhibition. The curious fish-like object is simply the ana[Pg 620]morphosis—the distorted projection—of a human skull. It was probably drawn from the reflection in a cylindrical mirror; and it is seen to be an accurate representation when viewed from the proper point. If the spectator cannot discover this for himself, the attendant will readily assist him. One must stand at a little distance off and look in the direction of the length of the object from the right hand in order to "find the skull." Pictorial puzzles such as the skull were at the time not uncommon. Allusions to such things are to be found in old inventories of pictures; and Shakespeare in Richard II. says:

Similarly, Canon Ainger has pointed out that in Twelfth Night, when the Duke first becomes aware that Viola and Sebastian, who had up to that time from their exact likeness been thought the same person, are really two, he cries out that here is a puzzle in nature corresponding to those in art, where an object varies according to the point of view from which it is regarded:

As to the interpretation and significance of the puzzle, authorities differ. Some see in the skull only a punning signature of the painter's name (hohl bein, hollow bone, holbein). Others discover in it a recondite allusion to Cranmer (crâne-mère). Others again, when the identity of the personages was still in dispute, sought to connect the skull with the death of one or other of them; most ingenious and far-fetched theories were elaborated by Sir F. Burton and others with this object. Probably, however, the distorted skull is only a variant on the memento mori, which occurs very frequently in portraits of the time (see, for instance, No. 1036). It may be (as Miss Hervey suggests) that Dinteville had adopted the death's-head as his personal badge or devise. He suffered from ill-health, and in a letter to his brother describes himself as "the most melancholy ambassador that ever was seen."

There is still a field open to conjecture with regard to the elaborate accessories described above. Mr. Sidney Colvin thinks, indeed, that the globes, quadrant, music-book, etc., are probably simply introduced by the painter to show his skill of hand for the satisfaction of his patrons, the choice of objects[Pg 621] having been made partly in compliment to them as persons interested in music and the sciences, partly because they were the properties readiest to hand in the society of such men as Kratzer, the astronomer, and the German merchant goldsmiths of the Steelyard, among whom Holbein lived (Times, Dec. 10, 1895). Miss Hervey sees in the accessories "a record, probably unique in the domain of art, of the thoughts and studies, the hopes and fears, which swayed the country and generation of Jean de Dinteville. The objects selected for illustration precisely represent the pursuits and occupations most in vogue at the time in France. Geometry and Mechanics, the foundations of the builder's art, just then attaining classical expression in the lovely creations of the French Renaissance; Music, especially that of the lute, which was so fashionable that every Frenchman of exalted position carried a lutist in his train; the ingeniously contrived and artistically rendered devise; these, as the literature of the period abundantly testifies, were among the favourite studies and pastimes of the Court of France." Dinteville "must have devoted many an hour to thinking out with the painter the elaborate details." A different contention has been argued with much ability by Mr. Alfred Marks:—

The scheme of the picture is very unusual. At either end of a table of two stages stands a figure in a ceremonious attitude. Between these figures, the two stages of the table, occupying the middle and most prominent portion of the picture, are loaded with numerous accessories. The method of their display forbids us to suppose that, as suggested by Mr. Colvin, they are here merely to show the painter's skill of hand. Indeed, the whole scheme of the picture—pose of figures and arrangement of accessories—tells of some occasion which the picture is designed to commemorate, or, let us say, perhaps, some occasion of which advantage has been taken to place the personages in a situation of more than ordinary interest. What this occasion was the picture, as we shall find, declares with sufficient plainness. Holbein's symbolism was simple and direct. Does he desire to convey that his sitter is a merchant? The figure is represented as holding a bond; other bonds lie on a table, together with a seal and a pen. Or, if he is portraying an astronomer, he introduces a quadrant, dials, compasses, and other instruments of the craft. In the "Two Ambassadors" the symbolism is, from the nature of the case, not personal to each of the two figures, but applicable to the occasion. The lute, instrument of harmony, was already, as has been shown by Mr. Dickes [see Magazine of Art, December 1891 and June 1892], the accepted symbol of a treaty; the suggestion is strengthened by the introduction of a case of flutes.[Pg 622] The occasion commemorated is, therefore, a treaty. Nor are we left in doubt as to the nature of this treaty; the globes celestial and terrestrial, the compasses, dials, quadrants, merchants' calculating book, clearly indicate that the treaty was one relating to commerce or navigation.

Mr. Marks discovers in support of his theory that in 1533 (the date of the picture) some agreement was arrived at between King Henry VIII. and the French Ambassador with regard to certain grievances of French merchants. George de Selve, as we have seen, came over to England with the French King's permission and assisted Dinteville, it is suggested, in the arrangement, the conclusion of which is celebrated by Holbein's picture (Times, Dec. 7, 12, 23, 1895).

With regard to the provenance of the picture, in the year 1653 it was still, as we have seen, at the château of Polizy. The next known notices of it occur in a Rouen catalogue of 1787, and in the Galerie des Peintres (1792) of J. R. P. Lebrun (husband of the artist Vigée-Lebrun), who had the picture in his possession, and states that he had sold it, and that it was then in England. It seems probable that it came into the hands of the dealer Vandergutsch, and that from him it was purchased by the second Earl of Radnor about 1808 or 1809, in whose family it became an heirloom. In 1891 it was purchased from the present earl for the nation.[246]

1315. THE ADMIRAL PULIDO PAREJA.

One of the master's most famous works. "In the year 1639," says Palomino, "he made the picture of Don Adrian Pulido Pareja, a native of Madrid, Knight of the Order of Santiago, Admiral of the Fleet of New Spain, who about that time was here transacting various official matters with His Majesty. This portrait is life size, and is among the most famous painted by Velazquez, on which account he put his name to it, which he otherwise seldom did: Didacus Velazquez fecit; Philip IV. à cubiculo eiusque Pictor, anno 1639." The painter's signature was not the only thing which served at the time to stamp the picture as one of special [Pg 623]excellence. The King one day was paying his customary visit to the painter; Philip mistook the picture for the admiral himself, and rebuked him for tarrying in Madrid when he had been ordered away. Perceiving his mistake, he addressed Velazquez with the words: 'I assure you I was deceived.' "This, of course," says Mr. Colvin, "is one of the common legends which abound in the art history of all countries, from Greece to Japan; but it is almost possible to believe the tale when we look at the picture. Something of the rugged flashing power and fierce eagerness of the sitter seems to have passed into the painter's hand, and the method of execution he has chosen emphasises and harmonises with the character of the subject. The rude soldier-sailor in his handsome suit stands in bodily and spiritual presence before us, and seems snorting with impatience to be off to the fight once more."

Pulido, the subject of the picture, was a captain who distinguished himself greatly during the siege of Fontarabia, in the war with France. "The browned face with gleams of white light belongs," says Professor Justi, in describing the picture, "to a not uncommon Castilian type, of which this is an exceptionally stout, sturdy, grim specimen. The thick black shady eyebrows, very bushy and nearly meeting above the nose, the perpendicular wrinkle right in the middle of the forehead, the up-twirled mustachio,—the whole enframed in an abundant mass of black hair parted on one side and profusely crowning the defiant head,—bespeak the dauntless soldier as he stood on the ramparts of Fontarabia, as he will yet stand on the quarter-deck of the Admiral's ship in the hottest of the fight. There is nothing of the courtier in the attitude, for he stands bolt upright, like a soldier before his commanding officer. We see at once that he is not the man to hesitate about risking his own life or that of others in the deadly jaws of a breach. Both hands wear the yellow leather gloves, the right holding the Admiral's staff, the left a very broad-brimmed felt hat. On his breast is the red, gold-hemmed scarf and the red enamelled decoration of the Order of Santiago"—which the King had bestowed upon him for his gallantry in the siege.

With regard to the technique of the picture, Palomino tells us that Velazquez painted it with brushes of unusual length, in order to work with greater force and effect standing[Pg 624] at a distance. "It appears in fact (says Professor Justi) to have been very broadly treated, with more fiery vigour than delicacy. The light yellow-gray ground—dark above, and without any relation to the limits of wall and floor—has been specially prepared with reference to the black velvet costume. Don Adrian stands a little to the left, his glance directed towards the observer, legs[247] brought close together, feet almost at a right angle. The colour is applied more freely than usual, the otherwise rarely employed dazzling white patches on the deep lace collar, flowered satin sleeves, plumes, bows on the knees, and accoutrements, helping the illusion."

1316. AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN.

Inferior in charm and interest to some of the other Moronis previously in the National Gallery, and to many of the master's marvellous pictures in the Carrara Collection at Bergamo. "Only," says a recent critic, "in the expressive look in the dreamy eyes, and in the drawing and painting of the left arm, clothed in chain-armour, do we find interest." Another, and more favourable, critic (Mr. Sidney Colvin) says: "Dignity and directness of presentment, richness of quality and mellowness of tone, with a colour-sense never more powerfully shown than when the scheme is one of flesh-colour with simple black and white on gray—these are the universal qualities of Venetian portrait-painting.... This is a thoroughly characteristic example in an excellent state. We already possess a portrait by the same hand, composed of much the same elements (1022): a man in a close-fitting black suit, showing [Pg 625]chain-armour on the sleeves, a broken column, a wall, and a glimpse of sky. The two will make admirable pendants."

1317. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN.

This is one of the stock subjects in which the evolution of Italian art may be most clearly traced. Everybody knows the beautiful and celebrated "Sposalizio" of Raphael at Milan, which in its turn was copied, with some characteristic modifications, from Perugino's picture, now at Caen. Comparing those versions of the subject with an early one such as this, every one will be struck by the difference in general effect, but not less remarkable are the resemblances. The type, so far as the component parts are concerned, remains constant. The basis of the tale which Italian painters told for century after century is found in two of the apocryphal gospels. In them we read how the "Virgin of the Lord" was brought up, like Samuel, within the precincts of the temple, and how the High Priest summoned the suitors to an ordeal. Every man of them was to take a rod, and he whose rod should miraculously put forth leaves and blossom was to be chosen as husband. The common features of all "Sposalizio" pictures adhere closely to this legend. Thus the action always takes place within or just outside the temple. In the centre stands the High Priest with a long gray beard and (almost always) a high-peaked mitre, the Italian painters' idea of a Jewish ephod. He joins the hands of the pair in betrothal. The rod of Joseph blossoms, and above its foliage hovers the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. One of the suitors is about to strike Joseph in his passion; another is engaged in breaking his rod in vexation. Raphael makes the mien of the suitors much more gentle. He leaves out "the passionate suitor" altogether, but gives to the "disappointed suitor" a prominent place as an opportunity for a graceful attitude. In this picture he is very much in the background (in the extreme left-hand corner).

1318. "UNFAITHFULNESS."

One of a series: see under 1324-26.

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1319. VIEW IN ROME.

On the right of the composition are an ancient Ionic portico (seen from the side) and a statue of Apollo, surrounded by trees. On the left is a wooded slope, beyond which, in the middle distance, is seen the church of Sta. Trinita de' Monti with other buildings.

1320, 1321. A MAN AND HIS WIFE.

This painter—Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen—is believed to have been born in London. He was taken into the service of James I., whose portrait he painted several times. In the National Portrait Gallery are portraits by him of Sir Edward Coke and Lord Coventry. His reputation waned somewhat after the arrival of Van Dyck, whose portrait he painted and whose influence may be noticed in the pictures now before us. In the Dulwich Gallery are two pictures formerly ascribed to Van Dyck, but now to Janssens. In 1648 "Cornelius Johnson, picture-drawer" was permitted by the Speaker's warrant to pass beyond seas with such goods and chattels as belonged to himself. On his return to Holland, he seems to have worked at Middelburg, at the Hague, and at Amsterdam. Pictures by him may be seen in all those places. His portraits are sometimes stiff in conception, but are remarkable for the "lively tranquillity of the countenances." None of the artists excelled him in painting the lace collars and cuffs which were the reigning fashion of the time.

The man is Aglonius Voon; the woman (presumably his wife), Cornelia Remoens: the names are inscribed above their heads.

1323. PIERO DI MEDICI.

A portrait of Piero, son of Cosimo the elder—surnamed "Il Gottoso," The Gouty—who died in 1469. Bronzino was employed to paint the portraits of many members of the Medici family. No. 704 is a contemporary portrait of one of the later Dukes.

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1324. "SCORN."

1325. "RESPECT."

1326. "HAPPY UNION."

The four Veroneses (1325, 1324, 1318, and 1326), acquired from Cobham Hall, "obviously formed a series, or portions of a series, of enrichments for a ceiling, and must be looked at accordingly. They exhibit the decorative power of Veronese at a very high pitch in respect to colour, composition, and action, while his characteristically large and bold style of design and draughtsmanship are most fortunately employed upon them. One may readily conceive the magnificence of the saloon for which they were executed, and of which they must have been the chief ornaments. Sumptuous as they are now, their superb qualities would be enhanced if they could be seen with all their original accompaniments of gilding, carved frames, and magnificent furniture" (Athenæum, August 16, 1890).

The subjects of the pictures are moral allegories, and they go in pairs. Thus we have first "Respect" (1325) and "Scorn" (1324). In the former picture, a nude female figure—whose beautiful face recalls that of the "St. Helena" (see No. 1041)—is seen recumbent on a couch, asleep or lost in dreams. Cupid is leading a warrior, clad in sumptuous costume, but he turns aside, held back by an older man, in chivalrous respect. He is contrasted in the companion picture with another male figure, who lies prostrate while a Cupid tramples in scorn upon him. On the left two females (contrasting with the two men in the former pictures) are hurrying away. The elder carries an ermine, the emblem of purity, and guides the younger and more beautiful woman whom she has rescued from peril.

In the other two pictures the faithfulness and unfaithfulness of woman are similarly contrasted. In "Unfaithfulness" (1318) a nude female figure, seated on a bank with her back turned to the spectator, extends her arm towards a man who grasps her right hand, while she with her left is employed in furtively delivering a letter to a more youthful lover on the other side. He is of the same type as the figure of Alexander[Pg 628] in the Family of Darius (294). Finally, in "Happy Union" (1326) the painter shows us the reward of faithfulness. Here a Cupid is introducing a warrior to a queenly figure—whom we may take to personify Fame or Fortune—seated on a globe at the entrance to some palace. She is placing a wreath upon the man's brow; he is led by a beautiful woman who carries a palm which she is about to present to him. She in her turn is guided by a little Love who has hold of a golden chain around her waist. A dog is also in attendance. It is a pretty trait of the Venetian schools, the frequency with which a pet dog is introduced into scenes of domestic felicity.

The prices paid for these pictures are interesting. They belonged at one time to Queen Christina of Sweden, and afterwards passed into the Orleans Collection. At the sale of that collection, the Tintoret fetched £50, and the four Veroneses £198. Lord Darnley made a handsome "unearned increment" out of them. For the Tintoret and one of the Veroneses (1318) the nation paid £2500. For two more of the Veroneses the same price was paid. The fourth Veronese (1325) was presented by Lord Darnley.

1327. A WINTER SCENE.

The scene is an arm of the Maes, near Dordrecht; the ice being covered with skaters, hockey-players, and others. The figures are treated with considerable humour. In the distance rises the tall ruin, which is shown in so many of Cuyp's pictures. Van Goyen's signature and the date 1642 are conspicuous on a sleigh in the foreground.

1329. AN INTERIOR.

A native of Zwammerdam near Leyden, in which town he joined the Guild of St. Luke in 1648. He was a pupil of Gerard Dou, but did not adopt the high finish of that master; his style may be called an admixture of that of Dou with that of Rembrandt. He was a painter of quiet interiors, industrious households, and kitchen scenes. "Inspired by Rembrandt's teaching, he placed his figures in a beautiful amber light. They are neither too graceful nor too striking, but singularly lifelike and truthful. The scenes in which he delights are always quiet, modest, and sober in movement and[Pg 629] expression. His touch is free, supple, and soft" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 182). Some of his best works are in the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam. Our picture is signed, and dated 1653.

1330. THE TRANSFIGURATION.

"Clinging more closely to Byzantine traditions than any other of the works of Duccio in the Gallery, is the panel of 'The Transfiguration,' with the folds of the drapery indicated by gold lines. The elements of this ancient design, like those of nearly all the Byzantine conceptions of scenes of sacred history, were never wholly departed from; they remain still quite recognisable in 'The Transfiguration' of Raphael" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 16).

1331. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

"In flatness, absence of chiaroscuro, and use of gilding, he partakes of the Sienese School," resembling, for instance, Matteo di Giovanni (1155). "But he is rather pleasing in his children and angels, where he is influenced by Perugino; also in his landscapes, which, though peculiar in their faint blue distance, recall Pinturicchio. A characteristic of the master is the heaviness of his hands at the fingers' ends" (Layard's edition of "Kugler," i. 205). Fungai may best be studied in the Accademia of Siena.

The style of this painter is dismissed by Lanzi as "dry," and by another authority as "dry and stiff." There is a certain stiffness, undoubtedly—due probably in part to religious symbolism—in the hands of the Virgin and in the upraised finger of the Child, and in those of the otherwise human and chubby cherubim. But there is nothing dry or stiff in the pretty faces of these children, or in the gracious and beautiful face of the mother. She is clad in a white-and-gold brocade of very beautiful pattern. "One of the finest of the kind known to us, it appears," says the Athenæum, "to be of Venetian origin, and is a pure and perfect diaper, instinct with the choicest Gothic grace and harmony of line, and betraying but the slightest touch of Orientalism. This circumstance attests that the brocade did not come from a Sicilian loom, while other elements prohibit us from ascribing[Pg 630] it to an ultramontane craftsman." The landscape background, which has sadly darkened, has many quaint figures—on one side Mary, Joseph, and a cow; on the other, the Three Kings and their attendants.

1332. GEORGE, 1ST EARL OF BERKELEY.

The first Earl of Berkeley—a man of considerable note in his day, and the author of a religious work to which some complimentary couplets by Waller have given a kind of immortality—was born in 1628 and died in 1698. He was one of the Commissioners nominated in 1660 to proceed to the Hague to invite Charles to return to the kingdom, and shortly afterwards he received various important appointments. In 1688, after the flight of the King, he was one of the lords assembled at the Guildhall to draw up the celebrated declaration constituting themselves a provisional government until such time as the Prince of Orange should arrive.

1333. THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS.

1334. THE FORTUNE-TELLER.

A girl, in the hooped dress and three-cornered hat of the 18th century, is having her hand read by a fortune-teller, while a cloaked cavalier, standing near in a white domino, watches the result.

1335. THE MADONNA.

The face is most delicately executed; the white head-cloth and gown are covered by a blue mantle, which is jewelled and embroidered at the edge. The originally gold background is now brown; the nimbus of the Virgin is punctured in a beautiful foliated design.

[Pg 631]

1336. THE DEATH OF DIDO.

Painted probably to adorn the front of a cassone or marriage-chest. "The buildings of the forum in which the pyre stands are copied from well-known monuments at Verona. In the background on the left are seen two spectators in the everyday costume of the artist's contemporaries. The one on the left-hand side seems from his dress to be a German. Dürer has portrayed himself in an exactly similar way. The identity of the person thus represented will always remain hypothetical; nevertheless, the soldier leaning on his lance, on the extreme right, points directly to Dürer, for the figure is taken from a well-known engraving by him" (Dr. Richter in the Art Journal, February 1895).

1337. "ECCE HOMO!"

Probably part of a picture of Christ bearing His Cross. The face wears a gentle, grave, and dignified expression on features of a noble type.

1338. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

1339. THE NATIVITY OF ST. JOHN.

Of this painter very little is known. He was a member of the Painters' Guild at Leyden, and it is clear from his works that he was a disciple of Rembrandt.

(1338). The subject is treated with Dutch directness. It is a Dutch interior with Dutch peasants. An opening in the roof discloses a peep of landscape in the light of early dawn.

(1339). Somewhat more academic in treatment. The infant saint lies in a wicker cradle, at the foot of which lies St. Elizabeth, who offers an apple to another child standing by the side of its nurse or mother. To the right of the picture St. Zacharias writes on a tablet the record of the birth.

[Pg 632]

1340. LANDSCAPE.

Roghman is a landscape-painter widely known by his drawings and etchings. He was a friend of Rembrandt. His pictures usually represent views in Holland and on the borders of Germany, but he travelled also in the Tyrol. His works "exhibit a close attention to nature in the forms, but his colour is dark and disagreeable" (Bryan).

1341. A WOODLAND SCENE.

1342. LANDSCAPE.

This is the only landscape subject known to bear the signature of J. de Wet; other works so signed are of biblical subjects. A Jan de Wet, a native of Hamburg, was a pupil of Rembrandt,—a tutelage not inconsistent with the style of this picture.

1343. AMSTERDAM MUSKETEERS ON PARADE.

Formerly attributed to Govert Flinck (1615-1660), who was a pupil of Rembrandt, and was commissioned to paint many considerable works for the Town Hall of Amsterdam. Observe the group of officers on the left; one bears a standard embroidered with the arms of that city.

1344. A LANDSCAPE.

A good example of one of the founders of the Haarlem School of Landscape, uncle of the more famous Jacob Ruysdael. Like his nephew, he was a member of the sect of Mennonites. He appears to have had some talent for business; he was a prominent officer to the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, and there is a story of his having invented a sort of imitation marble, by the sale of which he was able to live in easier circumstances than the majority of his artistic brethren. Salomon's work resembles much that of Van Goyen (see 137), and it is difficult to distinguish early works by the two painters. Afterwards they diverged. "Van Goyen prefers the round forms of the clouds that on a fine summer day overhang the Maas; his brush always plays[Pg 633] with the delicacy of their shadows, and loves to turn a landscape into what the moderns would call 'a harmony of gray and silver.' Salomon Ruysdael is by no means so reticent in the matter of colour. His skies in his later period are frankly blue" (Quarterly Review, October 1891).

There is in this picture "a peculiarly sharp, clear, and firm touch, very like that of Stark of Norwich. The warm, deep-toned evening sky is admirable" (Athenæum). The picture is signed, and dated 1659.

1345. LANDSCAPE.

Jan was a younger brother and pupil of the more famous Philips (see 878). Some works by another brother, Pieter, may be seen in the Dulwich Gallery.

1346. A WINTER SCENE.

A characteristically animated work by the Mute of Kampen, as this painter was called. He was the son of a schoolmaster. He was born dumb, and documents have been discovered in which his mother speaks of her "dumb and pitiable son." Having shown an early talent for drawing, he was placed with a painter at Amsterdam, and there and at the Hague he practised until 1625. He afterwards joined his widowed mother at Kampen. In her will of 1633 she made provision for him "in order that he may not be a burden on his brothers and sister." He loved especially to depict lively scenes of winter sport. He defines his figures sharply against the ice and snow. "The refined modulations of tint and the delicacies of aerial perspective, aimed at by painters of such scenes in the middle of the 17th century, are seldom found in Avercamp's works" (Official Catalogue).

1347. FARMYARD SCENE.

The crisp touch and golden light in this Cuyp-like picture will please all lovers of Dutch art.

1348. LANDSCAPE WITH GOAT AND KID.

A pleasant twilight effect.

[Pg 634]

1352. LANDSCAPE.

The signature of the artist is on the cornice of one of the buildings. Possibly Lingelbach (see 837), who often worked with Moucheron, painted the figures.

1353. LANDSCAPE WITH SATYRS.

Martin Ryckhaert was a son of the elder, and brother of the younger, David Ryckhaert. He studied, and for some years practised his art, in Italy. He is entered in the register of the Painters' Guild at Antwerp as "a painter with one arm," and is so represented in the portrait by Van Dyck in the Dresden Gallery.

1375. CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF MARTHA.

A picture of the earliest, or Seville period of the painter. Though professedly a religious subject, it is in reality one of the bodegones, or tavern-pieces, which had come into favour at Seville during the end of the sixteenth century—naturalistic studies of the tavern and the kitchen. "They are certainly to be valued," says Pacheco, "when painted as Velazquez paints them, for in this branch he has attained such an eminence that he has left room for no rival. They deserve high esteem; for with these elements and with portraiture he discovered the true imitation of Nature." In the background, shown through a window or square opening in the wall, is seen an inner chamber with Christ addressing Martha, who stands, and Mary, who kneels before Him.

1376. A DUEL IN THE PRADO (A SKETCH).

Note that some of the figures in the foreground closely resemble the group in "The Boar Hunt" (No. 197).

1377. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

Formerly ascribed to Savoldo (see 1031). "In its deep[Pg 635] and striking chiaroscuro it reminds one of a greater and later artist, Bassano, and even of the earlier works of Velazquez. It is a very interesting picture, full of imagination, especially in its landscape, and generally in fine condition. For light and effective painting, look at the pigeons in the basket on the right" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 261). This picture was bequeathed by the late Sir William Gregory, one of the Trustees of the Gallery, who secured it for the paltry sum of £12: 10s., and was (as we know from his "Autobiography") justly proud of his bargain.[248]

1378. AN INTERIOR WITH FIGURES.

Another of Sir William's bequests, and, like the preceding, "a bargain." "A French dealer," he wrote, "offered me £250 the day after I had bought it for £2: 3s." An itinerant musician enters the kitchen in a village inn or country farmhouse, and salutes the buxom lady of the house with a fantastic gesture of courtesy. A flute sticks out of his pocket.

1380. FRUIT AND FLOWER PIECE.

1381. THE HOLY WOMEN AT THE SEPULCHRE.

For the subject, see 576. Notice the pool in the foreground on which are two water-fowl, while a tortoise crawls towards it. This picture is the same size as 639 and 1106, and the three beautiful little panels doubtless formed a series—now at last brought together again, having been long separated in three different collections.

[Pg 636]

1383. "LA JEUNE FEMME AU CLAVECIN."

This picture formerly belonged to the celebrated French critic Thoré (who wrote under the name of "W. Bürger"), to whom belongs the credit of having rescued Vermeer from oblivion. He was famous in his own day, being one of the chiefs of the Delft Guild of Artists. But after his death his works were dispersed or destroyed or ascribed to Pieter de Hooch, and his very existence was forgotten till "Bürger's" researches rehabilitated him (see Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1866, pp. 297, 458, 542). He was born in Delft, and was for a short time a pupil of Carel Fabritius, a painter who was deeply imbued with the spirit and manner of Rembrandt. Vermeer obtained good prices for his pictures, but his circumstances cannot have been flourishing, for his widow had to apply to the court of insolvency to be placed under a curator. His works are now rare and costly: for the present picture £2400 was paid. The artist with whom Vermeer has the closest affinity is De Hooch. At an auction in Amsterdam in the middle of the 17th century a De Hooch is praised as being "nearly equal to the famous Van der Meer of Delft," and there is often some confusion between the works of the two painters. Substitute red for blue, it has been said, and a Vermeer becomes a De Hooch. Both painters are remarkable for the quality of light displayed in their interiors, and Vermeer has never been surpassed in the cool general effect which he produced. "Though in perfection of execution," says M. Havard, "the one rivals the other, they differ singularly in their use of the brush. Whilst Hooch has a vigorous and supple touch, Vermeer on the other hand, proceeding by short steps, paints in small patches, and then connects the whole by glazing in a manner peculiar to himself, which produces a vibrating effect, a characteristic of this original painter which we cannot forget" (The Dutch School, p. 186). Beauty of tone and perfect harmony are conspicuous in all his works, which in some other respects exhibit marked differences, for "the Sphinx of Delft" (as Bürger calls him) had several manners. It is supposed that he worked for a time under Rembrandt. The picture of four life-sized figures in the Dresden Gallery called "Les Courtisanes," and dated 1656, suggests the influence of that master. During the last ten or twelve years of his life he adopted a second manner, of greater delicacy and subtlety. In all his works there is a singular completeness and charm. He is a master in rendering momentary expression, and his pictures attract by the successful delineation of character, as well as by the skill with which he makes his figures move in light and air. He has also a complete mastery of perspective, and in his effects of light upon flat surfaces he is unsurpassed.

This picture is a good example of the qualities described[Pg 637] above.[249] "The head, however, has unfortunately suffered from over-cleaning, showing the gray under-painting which gives the picture a colder aspect than it would otherwise have" (Official Catalogue). The picture has a very good "pedigree," Bürger, to whom it once belonged, having traced it back, through the Solly and Danser-Nyman Collections, to an anonymous sale catalogue of 1714.

1386. SOLDIERS QUARRELLING OVER THEIR BOOTY.

1387. PLAYERS AT TRIC-TRAC.

These pictures are by one of the rarest of the Dutch masters—William Cornells Duyster, a painter of Amsterdam. They were acquired from a family in whose possession they have been ever since they were brought over to this country by an officer in the army of William III. The fine execution and brilliant condition of the pictures make them decidedly attractive. They are both signed; 1386, on a box in the foreground; 1387, on the border of the beautifully-painted tablecloth.

1390. A SEA-PIECE.

An excellent example of Ruysdael's sea-pieces, in which he was not surpassed by any painter of the time. The view represented is the shore at Scheveningen. This picture, for which the sum of £3045 was paid by the nation, changed hands in 1872 for £68 as one of a pair!

[Pg 638]

1393. A MEDITERRANEAN SEAPORT.

The frigate is flying the Dutch tricolor flag. At the foot of the fortified wall is a party of Turkish or Albanian merchants.

1397. AN OLD WOMAN SEWING.

On the wall behind is an engraved portrait of a gentleman, with an inscription in which the name, Jan van Aach, and the date 1655 occur. The name is possibly that of the unknown painter.

1399. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.

This and the following picture were in the collection of the late Sir Charles Eastlake. By the provisions of his will, they were to be offered to the National Gallery at the prices he paid for them, viz. £25 and £75.

1400. CHRIST BEFORE PILATE.

This sketch is the original study for the etching of the same subject done in 1636. It is signed with the artist's name underneath the clock which is above the arched entrance on the right.

1401. A FRUIT-PIECE.

A painter of fruit and flower pieces, landscapes, portraits, and figure subjects of low life; was Director of the Royal Academy of Antwerp.

Fowls, cray-fish, artichokes, lobsters, peaches, plums, strawberries, asparagus, radishes, and peonies—"all represented of natural size and distributed in picturesque confusion." The artist's signature is included, as if embroidered on the corner of the tablecloth.

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1406. THE ANNUNCIATION.

"Through an arched opening behind the Virgin we see a sort of cloister garth. There are daisies on the sward, and in a pot stands a tall lily. A similar opening behind the Archangel reveals another part of the garth, enclosed on all sides by a rose trellis. Beyond the trellis are visible a hill and a convent resembling that of San Miniato, rows of cypresses, and more distinct peaks in fuller light. The embroideries, the angel's plumage, and both the nimbi, are represented in real gold, while the last are incised in radial lines, so that, like the wings, their brilliance is distinct, and they shimmer in the light. On the capitals of two of the columns of the cloister the red annulets upon a silver shield of the Albizzi family are seen" (Athenæum). The composition of this not very attractive picture recalls the Annunciations by Fra Angelico, at Cortona and in the Madrid Gallery respectively.

1409. THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE.

This picture is a repetition of one by Andrea Previtali in the sacristy of the Church of San Giobbe at Venice, and the painter has been supposed to be the same as Previtali. This, however, is probably not the case. The present picture is signed (on a cartellino) "1504: Andreas Cordelli Agy dissipulus Jovannis Bellini pinxit." He similarly describes himself as a pupil of John Bellini on a picture in the Poldi Pezzoli Gallery at Milan. Judging from his name, "twists and needles," he or his father was probably a pedlar (Layard's edition of "Kugler," i. 334).

"The conjecture that Andrea Previtali is identical with Andrea Cordelle Agii seems to me," says Morelli, "untenable. Both were fellow-scholars in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, and it is undeniable that in some of their works they closely resemble each other; but this may be explained by the fact that the one probably copied the cartoons or even the pictures of the other. The few signed works which I have met with by Cordelle Agii appear to me, however, to be more refined and lifelike in expression, and his landscapes are warmer and less vividly green in tone, than those of Previtali" (Roman Galleries,[Pg 640] p. 237 n.). As a picture by Previtali hangs close by (No. 695), the reader is in a position to consider the justness of the critic's remarks for himself.

1410. VIRGIN AND CHILD

The nimbus which surrounds the Virgin's head is inscribed in gold with the words AVE. MARIA. GRATIA. PLENA. DOM. The background is interesting. On the right is no doubt a faithful view of part of the old façade of the Certosa of Pavia before it was completed. On the left are other buildings which appear to be part of a convent, with Carthusian friars walking in front. This picture is earlier in date than Borgognone's "Two St. Catherines" (298); it is "more rigid in style and a capital example of the painter's less ambitious work" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. xxxvii.).

1411. A DIPTYCH.

On the left the Adoration of the Shepherds. There is much natural charm in the figure of the Virgin bending over the manger. On the right the dead figure of Christ, with St. Jerome and St. Francis in the middle distance receiving the stigmata. Very delicately finished.

1412. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ST. JOHN.

Formerly ascribed to Botticelli.[250] Notice the beautifully painted white eglantine and jasmine blossoms in the vase on the balcony. The youthful St. John is an attractive figure, very characteristic of this group of painters.

1415. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

"An old inscription on the back of the panel states that this picture is a portrait of Anna Maria van Schurmann; but it will [Pg 641]be observed that the portrait by Jan Lievens (1095), supposed to represent the same lady, differs in the colour of the hair, and has other points of variation, which preclude the possibility of both having been painted from the same person" (Official Catalogue).

1416. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

The Mazzola family affords one of the many instances in the history of painting of artistic heredity. Filippo's two brothers were also painters, and his son was the more famous Parmigiano (see under 33). The Mazzoli were much employed in Parma, but their work seldom rose above mediocrity. By Filippo—called delle erbette from the plants which he was fond of introducing into his pictures—there are religious-subject pictures to be seen at Parma. But he is best known for his portraits, in which the influence of Antonello da Messina is to be traced (see Morelli's German Galleries, p. 418). An excellent one in the Brera bears his signature.

This picture is in its original frame, of early cinque-cento pattern, richly carved, gilt, and painted. A somewhat similar frame has recently been given to the "Vision of St. Eustace" (1436).

1417. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

A celebrated picture (painted in 1459 for Giacomo Marcello, Podestà of Padua), and a specially interesting acquisition to our Gallery—first, as belonging to an earlier period of the master than his other important works here; and secondly, for its strong family likeness to the picture of the same subject by his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini, which, hangs in an adjoining room (No. 726). At the time when these pictures were painted Giovanni and Andrea were working at Padua under the influence of Giovanni's father, Jacopo Bellini (Vasari has some family gossip on this subject, ii. 265); and the original suggestion for the treatment of the subject in both pictures appears in Jacopo's sketch-book, now in the British Museum. A prominent object in the distance (an Italian version of Jerusalem) is a little gilt equestrian statue, which was evidently suggested by Donatello's equestrian statue of Gattamelata,[Pg 642] still to be seen at Padua. The foreshortening of the apostles suggests the work of Uccello (see 583), who is known to have painted in that city. The picture has been described as "a marvellous combination of the fantastic and the realistic"; note for curious details the rabbits and storks, and the cormorant on the withered tree. This picture is more quaint than Bellini's; but Bellini's is the more original. "Mantegna's," says Mr. Monkhouse, "exhibits only a strong personal treatment of old conventions: Bellini's proclaims the dawn of a new world of art. What was old in the pictures—the Christ kneeling on a little hill, with the sleepy apostles in foreshortened attitudes in the foreground, the angelic vision on a cloud, and the suggestion of a neighbouring city—are common to both pictures. What was new—the fresh observation of nature for its own sake—is found only in Bellini's. We see this in the smouldering clouds of sunset, the light thrown on the distant buildings, the half-shade on the cliffs, the bringing-out of the figures into something like the real open, sun-illumined air, the attempt at solution of the problem of the tone of a face and figure relieved right against the sky" (In the National Gallery, 1895, p. 192).

1417a. ILLUMINATED INITIAL LETTER.

The letter D: enclosed within it is painted "The Agony in the Garden," copied from the preceding picture by Mantegna. The picture and this letter were both in the collection of Lord Northbrook.

1418. ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY.

A celebrated little picture, with a long critical history, for as early as 1529 the writer known as the "anonimo of Morelli" mentions it as being variously attributed to Van Eyck, to Memlinc, and to Antonello, while he himself ascribed it tentatively to "Jacometto" (Jacopo de' Barbari). The influence of the Flemish School is obvious, says Sir Edward Poynter, "in the Gothic character of the architecture, the general arrangement of the picture, and the finish of the details. But the head of the saint has an energy of character highly characteristic of Antonello, and the buildings in the glimpse of landscape seen[Pg 643] through the window on the left are distinctly Italian in character" (The National Gallery, i. 14). It is interesting to compare this picture with the version of the same subject commonly ascribed to Bellini (694). Observe, here, "the lion walking along the cloister, holding up a suffering paw, and the puss curled up on a platform at the saint's feet. Evidently this St. Jerome was a lover of animals, and, like Canon Liddon, more especially of cats" ("The Beasts of the National Gallery," by Sophia Beale, in Good Words, July 1895).

1419. THE LEGEND OF ST. GILES.

"St. Giles, patron saint of Edinburgh, and of woods, cripples, lepers, and beggars, was an Athenian prince, revered for his miraculous gifts. Having healed a sick man whom he found in a church by laying his cloak over him, and fearing danger to his soul from the fame which this event obtained him, he withdrew to a solitary cave, where he lived as a hermit, nourished only by wild herbs and the milk of a doe which had followed him. One day the King of France, hunting near this retreat, shot the doe, and, pursuing it, came upon the aged hermit holding in his arms the doe, which was pierced by the arrow through his hand. The King, seeing he was a man of God, begged forgiveness, and wished to persuade St. Giles to return with him; but he refused to quit his solitude, and remained in the cave till his death" (Saints and their Symbols, by E. A. G., 1881, p. 95).

Here we see the saint, clad in hermit's robes, protecting the doe, which has fled from the hunting party towards him; his right hand is transfixed by an arrow, intended for the animal. The King kneels to implore forgiveness. He is attended by a companion, who is supposed to represent the painter of the picture. Notice the irises in the foreground, and to the right a plant of mullein, finished with great delicacy. "Remarkable as an example of extraordinary finish and enamel-like splendour of colour. Remarkable also for the flood of even, gay daylight diffused over it, such as makes us think of the more moderate among recent plein air transcripts from nature. But the painter shows more of that intense humanity, of that command over delicate shades of character and facial expression which are the highest characteristic of the great Netherlandish masters of his time" (Claude Phillips, in National Review, Dec. 1894).

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1420. A VIEW IN HAARLEM.

Gerrit, and his elder brother, Job, were the sons of a butcher at Haarlem. Gerrit was very skilful in lineal perspective, and reproduced with remarkable fidelity the most complicated architectural views. The brothers worked together a great deal, and Job often painted the figures in Gerrit's pictures. "The pictures of both brothers are remarkable for a broad style of painting, for brilliant sunlight, and careful, but not over elaborate, drawing of details, and the figures are invariably well grouped" (Official Catalogue).

A view of the painter's favourite subject, the market-place of Haarlem. The picture is signed, and dated 1674.

1421. A TERRACE SCENE.

1422. THE HOLY FAMILY.

Le Sueur, sometimes styled "the French Raphael," was the son of a wood-carver at Paris, and became one of the original members of the French Academy. His works, in spite of the early age at which he died, are very numerous. He was assisted in the production of them by three brothers and his brothers-in-law. Several of his most important pictures are to be seen at the Louvre.

This little picture is a good example of the painter's characteristics—with its somewhat crude colour, but considerable gracefulness, especially in the figure of the Virgin.

1423. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

This artist was born at the Hague, where his most important works are to be found. He was admitted into the Painters' Guild there in 1598. He was a pupil of Frans Hals, and was much employed in painting the large groups of portraits—of archers, magistrates, etc.—which were in vogue at the time. Ravesteijn's groups are somewhat more formal than those of Rembrandt, Hals, and Van der Helst, but are full of life and character. He knew how to give dignity to his sitters, and his pictures are inferior only to those of the great masters just mentioned.

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1424. TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL.

A favourite subject with this painter. It was etched in 1613 by Count Gondt, who was the painter's chief benefactor; he purchased some of Elsheimer's choicest pictures, and engraved seven of them. The copper-plate of this subject fell into the hands of Rembrandt, and was partly erased and altered by him into another subject.

1425. PORTRAIT GROUP.

There were three brothers of this name, the sons of a sergeant at Laon, who all worked together as painters in Paris, and became members of the Academy in 1648, in which year two of them died. Mathieu painted historical subjects; he lived till 1677. The very interesting and pleasing pictures, such as the present one, most generally known as the works of Le Nain, were probably painted by the other brothers—Louis and Antoine—conjointly. Antoine was born in 1588; Louis in 1593. Their works consist of familiar objects and incidents, such as the "Peasants" and the "Blacksmith's Forge" in the Louvre; they have a direct air of truth and realism, which is very remarkable in contrast to the artificial taste by which other French painters of the same period were inspired. Another work by the brothers may be seen at Dulwich.

1427. THE DEAD CHRIST: A PIETÀ.

Signed and dated "Hans Baldung, 1512." The Virgin's attitude is expressive of intense sorrow. "Her mouth is drawn convulsively down in the manner usual in the pictures of Burgkmair and the school and epoch to which he and Baldung belonged. On our right is St. John. Behind the group is Joseph of Arimathea. Behind, God the Father appears, robed in blue under a red mantle, and holding across His knees the drooping corpse of the Redeemer. Clouds form the background, and among them the Holy Ghost is hovering. The heads of all the figures bear plain nimbi of metallic gold. The draperies, except the loin-cloth of Christ, are somewhat tortured in the manner of the German painters of the fifteenth century. On the front of the balcony in which they are placed are depicted[Pg 646] the donor and his family; in one corner is their escutcheon, bearing three money bags and a broad bar" (Athenæum, Jan. 11, 1895).

1429. THE ROTUNDA AT RANELAGH.

The interior of the Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens (at Chelsea), which were opened as a rival to Vauxhall in 1742, and at once became the rage. "Ranelagh has totally beat Vauxhall," wrote Walpole in 1744; "nobody goes anywhere else." "When I first entered Ranelagh," said Dr. Johnson, "it gave me an expansion and gay sensation in my mind such as I never experienced anywhere else." Smollett describes it in his novels as an "enchanted palace." "Ranelagh," said Rogers ("Table-Talk"), "was a very pleasant place of amusement. There persons of inferior rank mingled with the highest nobility of Britain. All was so orderly and still that you could hear the whisking sound of the ladies' trains as the immense assembly walked round and round the room. If you chose, you might have tea, which was served up in the neatest equipage possible." The dining boxes under the arcade on the ground level are shown in the picture, as well as the orchestra, the musicians, and the numerous gaily-dressed promenaders. On the back of the original canvas was an inscription by the artist, recording that the picture was painted in London in 1754.

1430. ARCHITECTURAL SUBJECT WITH FIGURES.

Of this painter there is a very interesting account in Vasari. His surname was adopted from his patron, on whose estate Domenico's father was a labourer. Like Giotto, Domenico was observed one day drawing on the ground, while minding his father's sheep, and his master sent him to school and made an artist of him. His style was first formed on that of Perugino, whose pictures in Siena he copied. In 1510 he went to Rome to study the works of Michael Angelo and Raphael; but returning to Siena in 1512, he became a close imitator of Bazzi (1144), who had recently settled in the city. Unlike Bazzi, Domenico was (adds Vasari) "most orderly and well conducted, lived as it beseemed a Christian to do, and passed the greater part of his time alone." "It will nevertheless sometimes happen," adds Vasari,[Pg 647] "that such as are called good fellows and merry companions are more sought after than are the virtuous and upright." In the matter of artistic commissions, however, Beccafumi was well employed, in painting both altar-pieces for churches and frescoes of classical subjects for the houses of wealthy citizens. Some of the latter still remain in situ, while the Accademia contains Beccafumi's best works in the other sort. It was he who executed the mosaics of light and dark marbles which form the pavement of the choir of the Duomo. He also practised sculpture and did eight angels in bronze for the Duomo. He hastened his death, says Vasari, "by labouring day and night at his castings of metal which he would also finish and polish himself, working entirely alone, and refusing to accept any assistance whatever." He occupied his leisure time in cultivating a small property outside the city gates. He could not work, he told Vasari, removed from the air of Siena.

A picture corresponding in general character to several described by Vasari. It is probably intended as a fantastic treatment of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, or of Esther before Ahasuerus.

1431. THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

Around this little picture of the Umbrian School, bought by Sir Edward Poynter at Rome in 1894, a fierce battle of the critics has raged. Sir Edward's own description may first be cited:—"A perfectly genuine work by a scholar of Perugino, probably done in his studio, and, in my opinion, possibly by the young Raphael. The most characteristic point, besides the beautiful painting of the figure of the Saviour, is the drawing of the hands, which is precisely Raphael's. On the other hand, the heads are not specially Raphaelesque, nor is the colour as pure and transparent as is usual even in his early work; at the same time, such characteristics as do not agree with what we know of his work might possibly be due to its being a youthful performance. The painting of the trees is quite peculiar, and different from the treatment to be found in the works of Perugino, or, indeed, of any work of the school that I had seen. Some two or three years afterwards I saw the predella painting of 'St. John Preaching' by Raphael, belonging to the Marquis of Lansdowne, and was very interested to find in it the same treatment of the leaves of the trees—that is to say, that, instead of the minute and delicate sprays of foliage, so[Pg 648] characteristic of Perugino's own work and of, so far as I know, most of his followers, the trees have only a few sprays of large and freely painted leaves." According to many of Sir Edward's critics, the picture is a "detestable little production"; while one of them ascribes it, as a work of the nineteenth century, to Micheli, "a maker of old masters." (See a copious correspondence in the Athenæum and the Times, during March and April, 1907).

1432. THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE.

This picture (formerly ascribed to Hugo van der Goes) was, like No. 1045, painted for the Collegiate Church of St. Donatian at Bruges. Until the end of the last century it adorned the altar of St. Catherine in that church. The details of the picture are carried out with marvellous care and finish, and the whole displays the utmost perfection of execution. The expression of the figures, is, however, hardly so animated or idealised as in No. 1045. But "the Canon's intelligent head is admirably modelled and painted, and the figure of St. Catherine is executed with rare perfection. The jewellery, stuff, and draperies are all rendered with David's usual skill; while the background, with its rich vegetation, vigorously coloured trees, and picturesque buildings, is hardly surpassed by that of any of his other pictures." The scene of the mystical marriage (for the subject, see under 249) is laid in the emblematic walled garden ("a garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse"), surrounded by a vineyard (in which is an angel gathering grapes). On the right of the picture are seated St. Barbara, holding an open book, and St. Mary Magdalene with the vase of precious ointment in her lap. In front of St. Catherine kneels the donor of the picture, Richard de Visch van der Capelle, Canon and Cantor of the Church; he is accompanied by his greyhound, on whose collar is a shield bearing the Canon's arms. Before him, on the floor, lie a breviary of blue velvet and his precentor's staff. The workmanship of this staff is a good instance of the painter's minute precision. The staff is surmounted by a group representing the Holy Trinity adored by a monk and a cardinal. It was painted from a staff presented to the church in 1338, and the picture precisely corresponds to a description of the staff, to be found in an old inventory of[Pg 649] the church property (see authorities cited in the Official Catalogue from Mr. Weale's description in the Academy, xiv. p. 391).

The picture was exhibited at Paris in 1881 under the name of Hugo van der Goes, and was sold for 54,100 francs. It ultimately passed into the possession of Mr. Lyne Stephens, by whom in 1895 it was bequeathed to the National Gallery.

1433. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Notice the transparent starched muslin head-dress which, coming down as low as the eyebrows and covering the ears, yet allows the forehead and ears, and a high cap of gold and white brocade, to be seen through its thin texture.

1434. A BETROTHAL.

An unfinished picture once in the possession of Sir Edwin Landseer, and presented to the Gallery by Lord Savile, who has given a very interesting surmise of the subject: "It is evidently the representation of a betrothal in a private family, probably that of Velazquez himself. If this surmise be correct, the principal male figure would be Velazquez as a Knight of the Order of Santiago, the red cross of which, though half concealed, is seen on his cloak; the mother presenting her child would be his daughter, the wife of the artist Del Mazo, his pupil and son-in-law, and the girl, their daughter, the grandchild of Velazquez. The foreground is occupied on the right by a half-length figure of the poet Quevedo, with a huge pair of horn spectacles, as he is represented in his portrait by Velazquez at Apsley House, though here he is a much older man. He was a great friend of Velazquez, and in this picture may represent the witness to the betrothal of the artist's grandchild. On the right is a negro, probably Juan Pareja, the favourite slave of Velazquez, who is conveying a basket of fruit to his young mistress. Velazquez himself is waiting, pen in hand, for the 'promesso sposo,' who, though not shown in the picture, may be entering the room by the portière which an attendant is raising; but he is seen by the little bride elect,[Pg 650] who waves a salute to him with the flower in her hand. [Contrast, as a pretty little incident, the dog who is running towards the door and barking at the stranger.] It is not surprising that a painting of this unusual character should give rise to doubt as to the correctness of its attribution, and it has been suggested that it is the work of Del Mazo, the pupil of Velazquez; but if that artist had been commissioned to paint the portrait of a knight of Santiago, his sitter would scarcely have been satisfied with the scanty indication of that celebrated order shown in this picture. If, however, as I believe, the knight of Santiago represents Velazquez himself, the half-hidden cross of that order assumes an aspect that may have an important bearing on the questions of the authorship of the picture, the date of the work, and the cause of its being unfinished. Stirling-Maxwell, in his admirable and exhaustive Annals of the Artists of Spain, relates that Philip IV. in 1658 conferred on Velazquez the habit of the Order of Santiago; but it was not for many months later that the artist was invested with its insignia, owing to the formalities required by the Order to prove his pedigree. The King, impatient at this delay, sent for the President of the Order and the documents connected with the case, and having looked at them his Majesty said to the President, 'Place on record that the evidence satisfies me.' The half-concealed red cross of Santiago in the picture was sufficient for Velazquez to show that he was entitled to the Order, but, with the modesty and conscientiousness that distinguished him, he did not design the insignia on his breast, where it is worn, apparently not feeling justified in so doing until after his investiture. This, however, did not occur till November 1659. It is evident, therefore, that the picture must have been painted in 1658, after he had received the habit, but not the insignia, of the Order. That the picture was left unfinished was doubtless due to the onerous duties with which Velazquez was charged by the King in preparing the meeting on the Bidassoa, in 1660, of the French and Spanish Courts, to celebrate the nuptials of Louis XIV. and the Infanta Maria Teresa. These duties doubled the official fatigues and shortened the life of Velazquez, who died shortly after his return to Madrid in August of the same year. There is, therefore, good reason to believe that the picture in the National Gallery is the last ever painted by Velazquez" (letter to the Times, May 11, 1895).

[Pg 651]

1436. THE VISION OF ST. EUSTACE.

"The minute but unobtrusive finish of the picture is," says the Official Catalogue, "astonishing. Of the coats of the horse, dogs, stag, and other wild animals introduced every hair is drawn; and of the wild birds, every feather; nor are they less remarkable for the beauty of the drawing and the admirable character displayed, in which it may be truly said this painter has never been excelled. Numerous studies of animals of the highest beauty are to be found in collections of drawings throughout Europe, some of them evidently done in preparation for this picture." St. Eustace, whose name before his conversion was Placidus, was a Roman soldier, a captain of the guards in the reign of the Emperor Trajan. He was a great lover of the chase, and "one day, while hunting in the forest, he saw before him a stag of marvellous beauty. He pursued it eagerly, and the stag fled before him, and ascended a high rock. Then Placidus, looking up, beheld, between the horns of the stag, a cross of radiant light, and on it the image of the crucified Redeemer; and being astonished and dazzled by this vision, he fell on his knees, and a voice, which seemed to come from the crucifix, cried to him, and said, 'Placidus! why dost thou pursue me? I am Christ, whom thou hast hitherto served without knowing me. Dost thou now believe?' And Placidus fell with his face to the earth, and said, 'Lord, I believe!' And when he looked up again the wondrous vision had departed. And he returned to his house and was baptized with his wife and children" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, p. 466). For a representation of the very similar legend of St. Hubert, see No. 783. This beautiful picture (from Lord Ashburnham's Collection) has been placed in a very elaborate frame in the Italian style: compare No. 1416.

1437. THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST.

A specimen, very well preserved, of the Giottesque period of Italian art. The painter, a native of Modena, appears to have worked chiefly in Piedmont and Pisa. Examples of his work may be seen in the Galleries of Pisa, Turin, Frankfort,[Pg 652] and Berlin. It is pointed out as noticeable, in the Official Catalogue, that the drapery of the Virgin Mary is treated in the hieratic or Byzantine manner, while that of the Apostles is in the naturalistic manner of Giotto. For a similar instance of transitional treatment, see Duccio's "Transfiguration," No. 1330.

1438. HEAD OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.

A head of great beauty and much pathos of expression. An inscription on the background gives the date of the picture, 1511.

1439. FISHING IN THE RIVER.

An early work. Signed, and dated 1631. "The sky is partly covered with soft, gray clouds, and the whole scene gives the impression of a still and peaceful summer's day."

1440. ST. DOMINIC.

The portrait of a monk (on the parapet is an inscription recording that it is a likeness of Brother Theodore of Urbino) in the character of St. Dominic. He wears the Dominican robe, and the name of the saint is inscribed on the label of the book which he holds, and carries the usual attributes of the saint, the lily and a book (on the label of which are the words "Sanctus Dominicus"). The inscription is dated 1515, so that if genuine this must be one of the painter's last works. No. 808 is another portrait of a monk ascribed to the same painter—in character as one of the saints (St. Peter Martyr). Signor Frizzoni attributes both of them to Gentile Bellini.

1441. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

This fresco from the church at Fontignano, near Castello della Pieve, was left unfinished when the painter died there in[Pg 653] 1523, in his 77th year; it is believed to be his last work (see Vasari, ii. 323). The fresco was transferred to canvas and removed in 1843. It was purchased in 1862 from Mr. Spence of Florence, by the South Kensington Museum. "The hand had not lost its cunning, and there is much of the early sweetness in this huge fresco. There is the charm of its faded blues and purples, the haze of its shimmering sunshine, and the tender reverence of the kneeling figures" (G. C. Williamson: Perugino, o, p. 110).

1442. SHIPS IN A GALE.

1443. INTERIOR OF A CHURCH.

A funeral service is being celebrated in the nave, while in the foreground is a christening procession.

1444. PEASANTS WARMING THEMSELVES.

This artist went early in life to Rome, where he acquired the style of Caravaggio (see 172). "His rude contrasts of opaque shade and brilliant light, his luminous effects produced by the light of a torch or flambeau, and the naturalism of his works, caused him to be much sought after in Italy, where this style was in fashion," and acquired for him the name of "Gherardo della Notte." He returned to Utrecht, his birthplace, in 1623, and in 1628 was commissioned by Charles I. to decorate the palace of Whitehall. While in England he also painted the portraits of the Court and many of the nobility. Several of his portraits are to be seen in the National Portrait Gallery.

1445, 1446. STUDIES OF FLOWERS.

One of the few female painters represented in the Gallery. Rachel Ruysch was the daughter of a professor of anatomy, and began to study art at an early age. She married Julian Pool, a portrait-painter, and had a large family. She continued the practice of her art until she reached an advanced age, always signing her pictures with her[Pg 654] maiden name. Notwithstanding her industry, the number of her pictures is somewhat small, and it was jokingly said in her time that "she produced more children than pictures." The labour she devoted to her work was astonishing; two pictures alone are said to have occupied her for seven years; and these she bestowed on one of her daughters as a marriage portion. She was admirable in her manner of grouping as well as in pencilling; each flower is relieved by its neighbour, and all are kept in perfect harmony. She was fond of introducing among her flowers the insects peculiar to them (notice the butterfly in 1446); and these she depicted with microscopic accuracy. "Had her colouring been less cold, she would certainly have equalled her illustrious rival, Van Huysum" (Bryan's Dictionary of Painters, and Havard's Dutch School, p. 268).

1447. A HUNTING PARTY.

This painter, a native of Brussels, had a great facility in battlepieces. Some of these found their way to France, and attracted the notice of the painter Le Brun. On his recommendation Van der Meulen was invited to the French Court, and was at first employed on designs for the Gobelins tapestries. Afterwards he accompanied Louis XIV. on his campaigns, and, brush in hand, was present at all the principal sieges and battles of that monarch. These he afterwards painted for the King; he also depicted many hunting scenes and cavalcades. His works are to be seen at the Louvre and Versailles.

The present picture (signed, and dated 1662) shows us some such scene in the life of the Court. The suite is bareheaded, and it is clearly some personage of importance—possibly Louis XIV. himself—who is seated at the window of the carriage. The background of open country with blue distance is very pleasantly rendered.

1448. A VILLAGE GREEN IN FRANCE.

A painter of still life and interiors as well as of landscape; for thirty years a constant exhibitor at the Salon; given the Order of the Legion of Honour in 1870.

Signed, and dated 1869, at Verberie—a pleasantly-situated spot in the department of the Oise, eleven miles north-east of Senlis.

[Pg 655]

1449. CARDINAL RICHELIEU.

"The central head in No. 798 was evidently used as a study for this portrait. The Cardinal, in the crimson silk robes of his office, with the cross of the Order of St. Louis hung by a blue ribbon round his neck, stands as if just risen from the chair of state behind him."

1450. THE HOLY FAMILY.

"In the mixture of the Venetian element," it has been said, "with the severe forms and masses of the Michelangelesque feeling consists the charm of Sebastiano's best works" (Layard, ii. 562). The "superb composition" before us, says Sir Edward Poynter, "shows the influence of Michelangelo in every line." It was formerly in the collection of the late Mr. Thomas Baring, and was purchased from the Earl of Northbrook in 1895. It was Mr. Baring's favourite picture in his collection.

1451. INTERIOR OF A CHURCH.

The nave of a Gothic church in Holland, during sermon-time (the preacher is in the pulpit against one of the columns on the right). The women sit on chairs; the men in seats raised in tiers. Some stand listening to the sermon, and an elderly man on the left is warning two children to be quiet. In the centre a boy is playing with a dog, to which a woman directs the attention of the child with her. On the pavement is the artist's signature, dated 1673.

1454. A GONDOLA.

1455. THE CIRCUMCISION.

A picture of Bellini's earlier period, the original of numerous versions and copies in private and public galleries, presented[Pg 656] to the National Gallery by one of the trustees, the Earl of Carlisle. The Virgin is "one of those magnificent Venetian women whose morbidezza profoundly moved the painters of their country, marked by a grave, suave, and restful expression, instinct with unconscious dignity; this is the countenance of a Venetian woman to the life, not over refined, but full of repose, the repose of vigour and conscious strength, not the languor of debility" (Athenæum). The diaper of the High Priest's robe contains figures of antelopes, a curious instance of the straightforward mode of the artist, who, no doubt, employed as a model a veritable robe, and one of Oriental or Sicilian origin. Embroideries of this category were frequently used in Venice of old. The same Oriental embroidery is to be seen in pictures by other Venetian artists in which the High Priest is introduced.

1456. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS.

Below is a portion of the original frame with three small quatrefoil medallions in which are half-length figures of the Saviour, the Virgin, and St. John. The picture, which was presented to the Gallery by one of the trustees, Mr. J.P. Heseltine, is ascribed to the school of Gentile da Fabriano (about 1360-1440), "the Umbrian Fra Angelico," whose delight in splendour and gold ornaments is so naïve.

1457. CHRIST DRIVING THE TRADERS OUT OF THE TEMPLE.

1459. THE WINE CONTRACT.

This painter, the son of a goldsmith at Amsterdam, was one of the first to enter Rembrandt's school. He was a favourite pupil, and lived in close intimacy with the master. His biblical subjects—examples of which are at the Louvre, the Hague, and Amsterdam—were painted in close imitation of Rembrandt. He owed to his master not only his subjects, but their figures, costumes, and attitudes; he could not, however, borrow Rembrandt's warmth and intensity. His portraits are more successful.

[Pg 657]

A group of the four chiefs of the Wine Guild of Amsterdam seated in conversation over some deeds. The picture is signed, and dated 1657.

1461. ST. SEBASTIAN.

This and No. 247 by the same artist are, says Sir Edward Poynter, "excellent examples of tempera painting of the fifteenth century, in good preservation and unvarnished." The panel is surrounded by the original gilt mouldings.

1462. SEA-PIECE WITH SHIPPING.

This painter, "the master of Bakhuizen (see under 204), was one of the first, after the success of his pupil was confirmed, to adopt his subjects and to copy his manner" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 256). His works, however, bear little resemblance to Bakhuizen's: they are more like Van de Cappelle. Many of his pictures are to be found in private collections. The present picture, with its luminous atmospheric effects, is an excellent example. Observe on the leeboard of one of the barges the signature, I. H. D., possibly Jan Hendrik Dubbels. There were three painters of the name, Hendrik, Dirk, and Jan.

1465. CHRIST RISING FROM THE TOMB.

A welcome addition to the Gallery, as being the work (though not a specially important work) of a great and most indefatigable painter not previously represented. Gaudenzio was a native of Valduggia (in the Val Sesia); his father was a painter; his mother's surname was Vinzio, and in his early work he often signed his pictures after her, "Gaudentius Vincius." He passed his life exclusively in Piedmont and Lombardy, where nearly all his works are still to be found—at Vercelli, Novara, Saronno, and Milan. The most important of them are at Varallo, on the Sacro Monte and in the church at its foot. In some of the chapels on the Sacro Monte he not only painted the frescoes in the background but also executed the terra-cotta figures, thus carrying out the scheme of uniting painting and sculpture in a single design. His "Crucifixion Chapel," the most important of his works in this kind, has on this account been described as "the most daring among Italian works of art." Gaudenzio, who was nearly contemporary with Luini, first studied at Milan in the school of Stefano[Pg 658] Scotto (whose portrait he is believed to have introduced more than once in his work at Varallo). The story that he visited Rome and made the acquaintance of Raphael rests on no authority, and probably arose from a certain similarity in his works to the charm of Raphael. But this is a similarity, not of what is called "influence," but of age and temperament. "The influence of Perugino or of Raphael," says Morelli, "is not more and not less perceptible in Ferrari's paintings than in those of nearly all the great masters of that happy period, generally called the golden age of Italian art, during which Gaudenzio and Luini held much the same place in their own school as Raphael does in the Umbrian, Cavazzola (Morando) and Carotto in the Veronese, Garofalo and Dosso in the Ferrarese, and Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto in the Florentine. Gaudenzio, it is true, has not the grace of Luini, neither are his works so perfect in execution as those of his rival; but take him for all in all, as regards inventive genius, dramatic life, and picturesqueness, he stands far above Luini. In his hot haste Ferrari often loses his balance, and becomes quaint and affected; many of his larger compositions, too, are overcrowded with figures; but in his best works he is inferior to very few of his contemporaries, and occasionally, as in some of those groups of men and women in the great 'Crucifixion' at Varallo, he might challenge a comparison with Raphael himself" (German Galleries, p. 441). The best and fullest account of Gaudenzio, in English, is to be found in Mr. Samuel Butler's interesting work on Varallo, entitled Ex Voto (Trübner, 1888).

Christ, holding the resurrection banner in His hand, rises from a marble tomb. The painter, who was a child of the mountains, gives us a background of blue hills. The picture was the centre compartment of an altar-piece in a church at Magianico, near Lecco, on the Lake of Como. This composition was copied with variations by Gaudenzio's follower Giuseppe Giovenone in a picture now at Turin.

1466. THE WALK TO EMMAUS.

This painter, highly esteemed in his own day and of considerable talent, has remained less known than many others of inferior merit—a fact which is due, as Lanzi observes (ii. 357), to his having divided his time between Reggio and Novellara, comparatively obscure towns in the Emilia. He was born at Reggio, and was much employed there by the Gonzagi. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Correggio, whose works he is known to have copied, and of whom he was a personal friend. In 1546 he was banished for some unknown offence, and was not permitted to return to Reggio till 1552. During these[Pg 659] years he settled at Novellara, where again he was employed by the Gonzagas. He must also have visited Rome, and studied the works of Michael Angelo. Most of Orsi's frescoes have perished. Some of his pictures are in the Gallery at Modena. He was celebrated in his day no less as an architect than as a painter.

There is an element of picturesqueness and almost modern romanticism in this picture. Christ and the disciples wear broad-brimmed hats and the dress of Italian peasants (cf. No. 753).

1468. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Spinello Aretino (Tuscan: about 1333-1410). See 581.
See also (p. xxi)

A picture, some 500 years old, in excellent preservation, retaining its bright colours and the varied expressions of the faces. It is in its original frame, surmounted by a Gothic canopy. Two upright panels on each side contain figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Paul (left), St. James the Greater and St. Bartholomew (right). In circular medallions below are the Virgin and Child, with saints.

1469. STILL LIFE.

One of the painters "of the kitchen and dining-room—painters who devoted themselves to painting copper and silver vessels, pottery, and porcelain, modest saucepans, crystal cups, glass bowls, and goblets of chased silver. The first to cultivate this new style of still life was Willem Klaasz Heda. He was born at Haarlem. He was a clever and careful painter, and must have left behind him a considerable number of works; but, nevertheless, his pictures are excessively rare. They generally consist of a carved silver cup, a plate, and a cut lemon—three subjects which the painter rendered with marvellous truthfulness, the whole surrounded by a few accessories rising out of a brown background" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 272).

1470. A BATTLE SCENE.

This picture is signed I. Weier, and dated 1645. It may be either by Jacob Weier, of Hamburg, who died in 1670; or by Johann Matthias Weier, of the same town, who was a pupil of Wouwerman, and died, a very old man, in 1690.

[Pg 660]

1471. THE PICNIC ("MARIENDA CAMPESTRE").

This painter—of greater genius and of a more national spirit, says Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, than any his century produced—was the son of humble parents. Until the age of 16 he lived without any knowledge of art, when his passion for painting was awakened by a monk of Santa Fé, near Saragossa, after which he was admitted into the studio of José Luxan Martinez, who had been educated in Italy. He distinguished himself at this time, not so much in the studio as in the streets, in the quarrels of painters and confraternities, sometimes ending in bloodshed. At Madrid, to which city he afterwards escaped, his mode of life appears to have been anything but that of an orderly citizen. Being a good musician, and gifted with a voice, he sallied forth nightly, serenading the caged beauties of the capital, with whom he seems to have been a general favourite, and whose portraits he painted. In consequence of a street brawl in Madrid he fled to Italy, in company with a party of bull-fighters, and resided at Rome, where he fraternised with Louis David. In 1774 he returned to Spain, married, and settled down to his profession. He soon attracted the notice of Mengs, the King's painter, by some designs which he executed for the royal manufactory of tapestry, and became a popular artist of that capital, and a prime favourite with its fashionable society. In 1789 he was appointed painter-in-ordinary to Charles IV., a post which he continued to hold under Ferdinand VII. He was so largely employed that he was able to maintain a fine villa near Madrid, where he entertained in the grand style. Among distinguished persons who sat to him was the Duke of Wellington, but on his making a remark which raised the artist's choler, Goya seized a plaster cast and hurled it at the Duke's head. The artist's declining years were spent in retirement at Bordeaux, where he died at the age of 82.

"Goya's earlier life indicated," says W. B. Scott, "the character of his painting—bizarre and wild, with a gleam of infernal splendour in his choice of beauty. He was an inventor, and gives us the most vivid and novel sensations, although he serves us with vinegar as well as wine." "Much that was bizarre and tumultuous, the strangeness of charm, a certain curious and sombre side of beauty, the sense of the strength of a personality, the reflection of extravagant gaiety, or excessive horror, Goya was able to render in a manner that had never been seen before" (Goya, by W. Rothenstein: 1900). He was in no way the slave to the technicalities of the studio or academical rules. In sacred subjects, which he painted by no means con amore, he affects the hard style of David and his French followers. But it was otherwise in those more congenial works in which his hand spoke as his fancy prompted, and in which he poured forth the gaiety of his art or the gall of his sarcasm. There the daubing boldness of the execution rivals the coarseness of the idea or the rudeness of the jest. His[Pg 661] colours were laid on as often with sticks, sponges, or dish-clouts as with the brush. "Smearing his canvas with paint," says Gautier of him, "as a mason plasters a wall, he would add the delicate touches of sentiment with a dash of his thumb." So dexterous was he in turning all materials to artistic account that during morning visits to his friends he would take the sandbox from the inkstand, and, strewing the contents on the table, amuse them with caricatures traced in an instant by his ready finger. His versatility is proverbial; in addition to numerous oil paintings he executed many crayon sketches, engravings, and etchings. It is by the latter that he is perhaps best known. "The Caprices" are the most surprising, showing humanity in all the stages of brutality and ugliness, with a mélange of beauty and demonology quite unexampled. (W.B. Scott, The Spanish School; Bryan's Dictionary of Painters; and Stirling-Maxwell, Annals of the Artists of Spain.) The three following pictures are representative of Goya's several styles—scenes of country life, demoniacal fancies, and portraiture.

From the collection of the Duke of Ossuna at Madrid. Théophile Gautier described Goya—in the language of hyperbole—as "a combination of Watteau and Rembrandt," and in this picture we have a Watteau-like subject, treated, however, in a more grotesque fashion than that of the charming French painter of rural fêtes.

1472. "THE BEWITCHED."

A scene from a play ("El hechizado por fuerza"), showing a player on the stage, dressed as a padre in complete black, and in the act of pouring oil into a lamp which is held by an obsequious demon, while a team of ghostly and affrighted mules are rearing in the background. Goya, who has been called the Hogarth of Spain, specially delighted in satirising the clergy, whose enchantments and incantations he parodied, and whom he was fond of portraying in the form of asses or apes.

1473. PORTRAIT OF DOÑA ISABEL CORBO DE PORCEL.

"The lady was evidently a plump and rosy voluptuous woman, having large and liquid eyes with much dilated pupils, as well[Pg 662] as coarse and full lips, and wearing her loose brown tresses about her eyes and ears, while a black mantilla fell from a lofty comb upon her shoulders. It is obvious—and this accounts for the lady's flushed carnations and glittering pupils, not frequent elements in Goya's work—that she prepared herself for sitting, not only by blacking her eyelids with kohl, but using belladonna to dilate her eyes, and rouge for her cheeks" (Athenæum, July 4, 1896). This portrait, says Sir Edward Poynter, "is perhaps as good an example as could be found of the brilliancy of execution and vivid portrayal of character which characterise Goya at his best."

1476. JUPITER AND SEMELE.

Andrea Meldolla, called Il Schiavone (from his birthplace in Dalmatia, the country of the Slaves), was born of poor parents, and died, we are told, "after a life of much suffering as well as labour"—his works, by which the dealers enriched themselves, barely supplying him with the means of existence. He was employed at very small remuneration to paint the outside of houses and panels for furniture. It is said that he was rescued from obscurity by Titian. He was a good colourist, and had considerable imagination. "The colouring of Schiavone," says Zanetti, "was much admired by Tintoret, who kept a painting by that artist in his studio and advised others to do the same." Among the illustrious painters who followed Tintoret's advice was our own Lord Leighton, from whose collection the present picture was bought.

The picture illustrates the myth which told how Jupiter came to Semele, whom he loved, attended by clouds, lightning, and thunderbolts. This panel was doubtless painted, as described above, for some piece of furniture.

1478. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Of the life of this painter little is known. The registers of San Giovanni, Venice, tell us that he was lame; and by his own authority we learn that he was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, and a believer in the miracle of the Cross, which took place in 1474, and forms the subject of a picture by him, now in the Academy of Venice. His pictures in that collection are interesting as illustrating Venetian costume and architecture, and Ruskin finds "much that is delightful in them."[Pg 663] Mansueti's figures, says Kugler (i. 332), are short and stumpy, and he lacks the variety of expression and action of Gentile Bellini, and the brilliancy of colour and fancy of Carpaccio.

This picture—which is not a very ambitious or characteristic illustration of the painter—gives a symbolic representation of the Crucifixion. "In front of an architectural screen—on the right and left of which is an open tabernacle in sculptured stone, enclosing, instead of the usual statue of the Virgin or a saint, an angel singing, and holding an instrument of the Passion of our Saviour—lie the spear, and the sponge upon the reed. Between these is a Majesty of the usual type, the flesh of the Redeemer being, doubtless owing to the partial fading of the carnations or the fact of the under-paint coming through, more greenish and opaque than the Venetian artists, especially the school of Bellini, affected. At the foot of the group the Magdalen kneels in the act of kissing the Saviour's feet. On her left stands the Virgin, and on the same side are two men, representing, of course, the Magi and the shepherds who attended the nativity of our Lord. On our right stand SS. John the Baptist and Peter, in front of whom kneels a man who holds the pincers as an implement of the Passion. The picture, as becomes its origin, is bright in colour as well as in its effect and local tints, very carefully and almost laboriously as well as timidly drawn; the architecture would not discredit Peter Neeffs" (Athenæum, 24th October 1896). The picture is signed, and dated 1492.

1479. A WINTER SCENE ON THE ICE.

A winter scene such as Mr. Pater describes in his Imaginary Portraits (p. 91), with "all the delicate poetry together with all the delicate comfort of the frosty season," in "the leafless branches, the furred dresses of the skaters, the warmth of the red-brick house fronts, and the gleam of pale sunlight."

1481. A PHILOSOPHER.

This painter, who lived and died at Haarlem, was the son of a sculptor and a pupil of Adrian van Ostade. "Though," says Havard[Pg 664] (p. 148), "a more finished draughtsman, with more regard for grace of form and for the beauty of his figures, in all other respects he was very inferior to Ostade. When we notice his dry and heavy execution, his ruddy flesh-colouring, and his opaque shadows, we are surprised that he should have so far neglected the examples placed before him."

This picture, executed throughout with extreme care and finish, is signed, and dated 1663.

1489, 1490. PORTRAITS OF VENETIAN SENATORS.

Transferred from the South Kensington Museum, where the portraits were attributed to Tintoret.

1493. LANDSCAPE, WITH VIEW OF THE CARRARA MOUNTAINS.

Giovanni Costa, Professor in the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts, is distinguished alike as a painter and a patriot. He fought in the Venetian campaign of 1848, was a follower of Mazzini, in 1853 joined the Piedmontese regiment of lancers known as the Aosta Cavalleggieri, served on Garibaldi's staff at Mentana, and in 1870 fought his way through the streets of Rome at the head of the Italian army, and was the first to enter the Capitol. This ended his military career; but he afterwards served on the Municipal Council of Rome and interested himself specially in the prevention of inundations of the Tiber. It was in 1852 that Costa first began the study of landscape painting, in which he was destined to become the greatest ornament of the modern Italian School. His home was in the Alban Hills, near Rome, and afterwards at Florence, where in 1859 he inaugurated the "open-air school" in Italy. In 1864 he returned to Rome, and in 1870 was appointed to his professorship at Florence. In the earlier portion of his artistic career, Costa exhibited at Paris (with Corot, Troyon, and others); afterwards he found in England his chief patrons, and many of his pupils. In 1853, at Rome, he made the acquaintance of Leighton, whose intimate friend he remained until the President's death. Another celebrated English artist with whom Costa was intimate was Mason; there is considerable affinity in some respects between the work of the two men. The Italian painter has depicted almost every part of his beautiful country. He has been called "the Italian Millet," for the feeling of sublimity which he knows so well how to impart to the simplicities of peasant life; while in works of pure landscape he especially excels in giving to blue mountains, reedy banks, and olive-grown shores a poetical charm. (See an interesting account[Pg 665] of Professor Costa, largely autobiographical, in the Magazine of Art, vol. vi. His personal reminiscences of Mason and Leighton have been published in the Cornhill Magazine, March 1897.)

The scenery of the Carrara Mountains is a favourite subject of the painter. In his pictures of these mountains, "seen across a broad expanse of plain through a misty atmosphere, he invests forms undeniably grand in themselves with a more solemn splendour and a deepened poetry."

1495. CHRIST DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS.

This brilliant and characteristic little picture, containing twenty-eight delicately and elaborately finished figures, is enriched with one of Mazzolino's usual backgrounds of marble bas-reliefs. The lower of them represents Moses showing the Tables of the Law to the Israelites. The upper, the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines, with David beheading Goliath.

1653. PORTRAIT OF HERSELF.

All visitors to Paris know this charming artist. Her two portraits of herself with her little girl in her arms are in the Louvre, and engravings or photographs of them are in every printseller's window. They are characteristic of her refined drawing, her limpid and transparent colour, her graceful sentiment. She excelled in rendering the candour of innocence, the charm of childhood, and maternal tenderness. She aimed rather at a certain ideal of soft and smiling beauty than at realism of portraiture. Some of her personages, even those in the highest ranks of life, seem, it has been well said, to have traversed the sentimental scenes of the tender Greuze, and she was fond of enveloping her sitters in semi-allegorical surroundings. If she cannot be reckoned among the great portrait-painters, she yet shows a power which is rare among artists of her sex, and a charming style of her own which will always make her works attractive. Madame le Brun was herself one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of her time. Elizabeth Louise Vigée was born in Paris, and her early years were spent in the studio of her father, who was a painter, and among other artistic surroundings. Her own talents rapidly developed; by the time she was 15 she had many commissions, and at 20 she was already celebrated. Her beauty and social charm soon gained for her the friendship of the greatest men and women of the day, including La[Pg 666] Harpe, D'Alembert, and Marie Antoinette. With the Queen she was a great favourite. She painted her portrait in 1779, and afterwards no less than thirty times. She was made a member of the Royal Academy of Painting in 1780, but when the Revolution broke out she left Paris in haste. She went from capital to capital; in each in turn the charm of her person and manner made her many friends, and she was always full of commissions. In 1795 she settled for some years at St. Petersburg, where she enjoyed the favour of the Imperial Court. In 1802 she came for three years to England, where she painted portraits of the Prince of Wales and Lord Byron, among others. She was a favourite wherever she went, but in spite of all the adulation she received she remained simple and natural to the end. When she returned to Paris, her salon became the rendezvous of the most distinguished writers, painters, and politicians of that brilliant period, and her Souvenirs, published in 1837, are crowded with interesting sketches of her friends. In this frank and engaging autobiography she gives us particulars of the worthless husband—M. Le Brun, a picture-dealer whom she had married when she was 20. He squandered her fortune, but she found unfailing consolation in the daughter whom she presses to her in those portraits in the Louvre. She outlived both her daughter and her husband by many years and died at the age of 87.

This portrait was painted by the artist in her 27th year. Its acquisition for the National Gallery is specially interesting, for it was painted in emulation of the celebrated "Chapeau de Paille" of Rubens (No. 852). She had seen and admired that work at Antwerp in 1782, and determined to represent herself in a similar effect of shadow and reflected light. The portrait had so great a success that it gained her admission to the Académie, where she was received in the following year, 1783.

1660. PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF.

"The painter who by his astounding success did most after Gerard de Lairesse to lead the art of painting into a perverse path was Adrian van der Werff. He was born at Kralinger-Ambacht, near Rotterdam, and received lessons in drawing from Cornelis Picollet, and then entered the studio of Eglon van der Neer, where he made rapid progress. At first he seemed inclined to follow the bent of his master, but he deserted the study of nature for the pursuit of the ideal, and in doing so he fell into cold sentimentality and tasteless affectation. His groups became pretentious, his heads monotonous, his bodies have no life, and his flesh-colouring assumes the polish and the tint of ivory. These defects, however, did not prevent his misleading a certain number[Pg 667] of people who believed themselves to be connoisseurs. The Duke of Wolfenbüttel and other high personages of his time contended for the possession of his pictures at enormous prices, and praised the merits of their favourite artist to the skies. No one more assisted him in his career, and in the making of his reputation, than the Elector-Palatine John William, who, not satisfied with giving him very considerable commissions, also conferred upon him the title of Chevalier, and ennobled his family. (The artist signs himself on occasion 'Chevalier van Werff'). The compositions which he painted for his patron are now to be seen at Munich" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 280). There is in the Dulwich Gallery a "Judgment of Paris" by Van der Werff—a celebrated work painted in 1718 for the Duke of Orleans and much admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The heads are wanting in expression and the flesh is bloodless, but the painting is of the greatest finish. There are also pictures by him in the Wallace Collection. "The cold porcelain-like colour," says Mr. Phillips in his catalogue, "and mechanical finish of this artist in the treatment of the nude are much less appreciated by modern connoisseurs than they were by his contemporaries. Still his general accomplishment and the certainty of his execution, in a vicious and wholly conventional style, are not to be denied."

In our picture "the courtly painter of polished, lascivious nudities faces the spectator in a wig of the period of Louis Quatorze, looking as dignified and impersonal as the painters of that particular age did manage to look in their portraits." The statue of Fame, holding a wreath, is characteristic. The portrait is signed, and dated 1685.

1661, 1662. WINGS OF THE ALTAR-PIECE, No. 1093.

This long-forgotten painter was rediscovered by Morelli in 1880, who claimed for him a considerable place in the Milanese school. This claim has since been historically confirmed by the document, referred to in the notes to No. 1093, showing that Ambrogio de Predis was at work in Milan with Leonardo da Vinci, employed as his assistant to paint the wings of the altar-piece of which the central portion was the "Vierge aux Rochers." By a fortunate purchase these wings by Ambrogio now hang in our Gallery, on either side of Leonardo's picture. Ambrogio's best work was in portraiture, of which an example (one of the two signed and dated by the artist) is also in our Gallery (No. 1665). Ambrogio and his brother Bernardino were sons of a certain Lorenzo Preda of Milan. There is also a Cristoforo de Predis, a miniaturist, one of whose miniatures (representing Galeazzo Maria Sforza) is in the Wallace Collection, and it is probable that from him Ambrogio received his first education in art. In 1482 he was established[Pg 668] as Court Painter to Ludovico il Moro. In 1493 he accompanied Bianca Maria Sforza on the occasion of her marriage to the Emperor Maximilian, but was back again at Milan in 1494. In 1502 we find him at Innsbruck, where he seems to have settled. In 1506 he designed some tapestries for the Emperor, after which year nothing more is known of him. In the Vienna Gallery is a signed portrait by him of the Emperor, dated 1502, and to him Morelli ascribes the celebrated profile portrait of Bianca Maria in the Ambrosiana at Milan (there erroneously called Beatrice Sforza), hitherto assigned to Leonardo. Among other portraits now ascribed to Ambrogio are the "Page" in the Morelli Collection at Bergamo, and "Fr. Brivio" in the Poldi Pezzoli Collection at Milan. De Predis is "a conscientious and careful painter, though his drawing and modelling are often defective, particularly in the representation of the hand." He "seems to have been an artist of some individuality, even after coming under Leonardo's influence. He was by nature too much of a miniaturist to concern himself with the larger problems of painting, and was very limited in his range—even his portraits are uniformly treated. He seems, judging by his drawings, to have sought to improve himself by a careful and conscientious study of Leonardo's work, and when he had the advantage of the master's guiding hand he could produce works (like these angels) one of which, though lacking the qualities of profound art, has a certain charm and even dignity of its own" (Catalogue of Milanese Pictures at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1898, p. li.; Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 413-415; Roman Galleries, pp. 180-189).

The angel in 1661 may, as suggested above, have been designed, or begun, by Leonardo himself; that in 1662 must be entirely the work of Ambrogio. These paintings remained in their place, as we have seen under 1093, up to 1787. They were purchased in 1878 from Duke Jean Melzi d'Erie at Milan for £2160.

1664. "LA FONTAINE."

The woman is drawing water from a copper "fontaine" into a black jug.

1665. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

In his right hand he holds a scroll which bears the painter's signature AM. PR., the date 1494, and the words AN. 20. Formerly in the possession of the Archinti family, and supposed[Pg 669] to represent Francesco di Bartolommeo Archinto (1474-1551), who was Governor of Chiavenna. A very refined portrait; but Morelli points out that the hand is "coarse and wanting in life."

1674. A BURGOMASTER.

"The costume and rapid execution of this magnificent picture point rather," says Sir Edward Poynter, "to its being a study than a portrait painted on commission." Probably also the title by which the picture has long been known is a mistake: a Burgomaster would not be painted in such dingy and fantastic garb. The old man was no doubt a model dressed up by Rembrandt in studio "properties." The knotted stick which he holds in his hands may be recognised in the painter's portrait of himself in Lord Ilchester's possession (No. 61 in the Academy Exhibition of 1899). That portrait is dated 1658, and this picture probably belongs to the same period. The picturesque but nondescript headgear worn by the "burgomaster" may have belonged to the master himself in those latter days when all relics of the former splendours had vanished. Whoever he may have been, the "Burgomaster," as he lives for ever on Rembrandt's canvas, is a striking personage; the refined, intellectual face recalls to some spectators one of the late ornaments of the Episcopal Bench in our own day. The portrait is a masterpiece alike of character-reading and of modelling.

1675. PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY.

A noble portrait. Rembrandt was a painter who reverenced old age, and gave its dignity and beauty to faces the least promising. We may notice especially the pathetic eyes,—with an expression at once so living and so sorrowful, and the character in the hands which Rembrandt never failed to give his sitters. The old lady wears a large white ruff, "evidently clinging to the costume of her earlier years, for ruffs had long been out of fashion at the time when the picture was painted." The picture has been known as the Burgomaster's Wife, but this description is without authority or probability. There is[Pg 670] another portrait of the same old lady in Lord Wantage's possession (No. 15 in the Academy Exhibition, 1899). Lord Wantage's picture is dated 1661.

The two magnificent pictures just described, which hold their own triumphantly even on a wall of masterpieces,[251] were formerly in possession of Sir William Middleton, Bart., great-uncle to Lady de Saumarez, and were exhibited at the British Institution in 1858. Since that date they had been lost to sight until they were purchased for the National Gallery in 1899.[252] They are believed to have been in possession of the Lee family, Lady de Saumarez's ancestors, from the time that they were painted, but they may have come into the family with a certain John van Enkoren, a Dutch gentleman, who married a second cousin of Sir William Middleton.

1676. CHRIST DISPUTING WITH THE DOCTORS.

Francesco de Herrera, the elder—so called to distinguish him from a son of the same name who was also a painter—was the first to throw off the timid conventional style hitherto in vogue, and to adopt the bold and vigorous manner which became characteristic of the school of Seville. He drew, we are told, with charred reeds, and painted with a housepainter's brush. It is said that on occasions he would employ a servant to smear the paints on his canvas with a coarse brush, and then himself shape the rough masses into figures and draperies. In the Louvre there [Pg 671]is an important picture by Herrera, "St. Basil dictating his Doctrine," of which Théophile Gautier said that it was "dashed off with an unimaginable fury of the brush, and blazed with the flashing of some auto-da-fè." In the Earl of Clarendon's Collection are three powerful pictures (shown at the New Gallery, 1895-96) representing scenes in the life of St. Bonaventura. But most of Herrera's extant works, in oil and fresco, remain at Seville. The vigour of his style was equalled by the impetuosity of his temper. Pupils flocked round him, but the violence of his outbursts drove them away. Among this number was Velazquez. He perverted his talent as an engraver of medals to the work of coining, and when suspected of this offence fled for sanctuary to the Jesuits' College. There he painted a picture which was shown to Philip IV. "What need," said the King, "has a man gifted with abilities like yours of silver and gold? Go, you are free; and take care that you do not get into this scrape again." He could not, however, change his violent habits, and his children, we are told, robbed him and fled from his house. In 1650 Herrera removed to Madrid, where he had the pleasure, or mortification, of seeing his former pupil, Velazquez, at the height of his fame.

A work in the painter's less impetuous style, but marked by the vigour characteristic of the Spanish and Italian "naturalists."

1680. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

An admirable portrait of a young man with long golden hair, looking out at the spectator. The picture is signed J. Karel du Jardin. It has sometimes been attributed to the well-known painter of that name (see 826), and been said to be a portrait of the artist by himself. But the initial J. does not confirm this theory.

1682. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Francesco di Giorgio Martini was one of the most distinguished architects and engineers of his time. He wrote a treatise on "Civil and Military Architecture," and was a great authority, says Vasari, on "all instruments required for the purposes of war." There are two altar-pieces by him in the Siena Academy, and he also occasionally produced works in sculpture: "this he could do very conveniently, being a man of fair possessions as well as of remarkable ability, wherefore he did not work for the sake of gain, but for his own pleasure, and when he felt inclined, to the end that he might leave honourable memorials of his existence behind him."

[Pg 672]

"This quaint little picture represents the Virgin in the attitude of walking, leading the Infant Saviour by the hand. She wears a white dress, shaded blue, with a small gold pattern delicately painted upon it, and a rose-coloured mantle lined with dark green, and holds in her right hand a branch of roses. The drapery falls with much grace, and she looks down with a sweet expression to the Child" (National Gallery Report, 1899).

1683. STUDY OF A HORSE.

The glossy texture of the horse is well rendered.

1686. STUDY OF FLOWERS.

Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour was born at Grenoble, the son of a famous pastellist. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1861. In 1864 his "Hommage à Delacroix" created a sensation. In this country, where he was a constant exhibitor at the Royal Academy, he is best known for his exquisite studies of roses and other flowers. But he was also a painter of portraits (see No. 1952) and of romantic subjects inspired by his musical tastes. In portraiture, a thorough, though a sympathetic, realist (witness his "Monet's studio at the Batignolles" in the Luxembourg),—he becomes fanciful when he enters the domain of romance. A favourite medium was lithography, in which he excelled; the British Museum has a fine set of proofs. His subjects are taken from the motives used in the musical dramas of Wagner and Berlioz.

Late summer flowers, chiefly roses, in a vase on a wooden table. The background, as usual with this painter, is of a flat tone of warm gray.

1689. A MAN AND WIFE.

Portraits, uncompromising in thoroughness, of a severe and uncompromising couple. "This masterpiece," says Sir Edward Poynter, "combines with a high perfection of finish and modelling, every detail being finished with the utmost care, even to the stubble of the man's beard, great breadth of effect and a beautiful quality of light and shade" (National Gallery Report, 1900). The portraits, formerly in the collection of Captain A. F. Dawson, used to be attributed to Quentin Matsys. Some authorities ascribe them to his brother, Jan. Others believe that the work belongs to the German school. The attribution to Mabuse is made in the Director's Report for 1900.

[Pg 673]

1694. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN.

Bartolommeo di Pagholo del Fattorino, one of the greatest of the Florentine masters, is commonly known as Baccio della Porta, or Fra Bartolommeo. He was born at the village of Savignano, near Prato, and was sent while still a lad to the studio of Cosimo Rosselli at Florence, where he lived with some kinsfolk in a house near the gate of San Piero Gattolini (now the Porta Romana). The neighbours, seeing him come and go to his work, and ignoring surnames with the custom of the time, distinguished him from all the other Bartholemews as Baccio della Porta. "He was loved in Florence," says Vasari, "for his virtue, for he was very diligent at his work, quiet and good-natured, fearing God, living a tranquil life, flying all vicious practices, and taking great pleasure in preaching, and the society of worthy and sober persons." In the studio of Rosselli he made the acquaintance of Mariotto Albertinelli, as erratic, gay, and idle as his companion was pure, gentle, and austere. Between the two young men a warm friendship sprang up, which continued unbroken till the death of Albertinelli in 1515. When Fra Bartolommeo temporarily relinquished the practice of art in 1500, Albertinelli took up his abandoned canvases, and from 1509 onwards the two men worked in formal partnership. The religious spirit of Bartolommeo had been profoundly impressed by Savonarola's preaching. To the famous bonfire, into which the people cast their pomps and vanities, our painter brought all the studies and drawings which he had made from the nude. He was among the band of faithful followers who shut themselves up with Savonarola in San Marco. "Having very little courage," says Vasari, "being indeed of a timid and even cowardly disposition, he lost heart on hearing the clamours of an attack, which was made upon the convent shortly after, and seeing some wounded and others killed, he began to have grievous doubts respecting his position. Thereupon he made a vow, that if he might be permitted to escape from the rage of that strife, he would instantly assume the religious habit of the Dominicans." This he did in the year 1500, and for some time afterwards his brush was idle. When he resumed work, it was on condition that the convent received all the produce of his labours. In 1506, when Raphael visited Florence, he formed a friendship with Fra Bartolommeo, in whose work he doubtless found something to assimilate. Some years afterwards, Fra Bartolommeo went to Rome, where he painted a figure of St. Paul, and part of one of St. Peter (now in the Quirinal), leaving Raphael to finish the work. Fra Bartolommeo suffered from ill-health, and died at the early age of 42.

The contributions made by Fra Bartolommeo to Italian art were fourfold. He exhibited a scientific scheme of composition based on principles of strict symmetry, and in this respect he was the precursor[Pg 674] of Raphael. In colouring he was equal to the best of his contemporaries; in his better works brilliance is combined with harmony of tone in a very charming manner. In some of his works, however, the attempt to adopt the chiaroscuro of Leonardo led to an over-darkening of the shadows. Vasari noticed even in his day that the use of printer's-black and ivory-black had caused some of Fra Bartolommeo's shadows to become unduly heavy. In his landscape backgrounds, Fra Bartolommeo showed a considerable advance on his predecessors. "Everything is true and harmonious, up to its intention, which is to be simple, calm, consistent, and real,—real, and yet breathing an idyllic beauty." Lastly, he was the inventor of the "lay figure." "He always considered it advisable," says Vasari, "to have the living object before him when he worked; and the better to execute his draperies, arms, and things of similar kind, he caused a figure, the site of life, to be made in wood, with the limbs moveable at the joints, and on this he then arranged the real draperies."

Fra Bartolommeo's range was limited. He is seen at his best not in works (such as the fresco of the "Last Judgment," now in the picture gallery of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova) which call for the exercise of powerful imagination, but in Madonna pieces. "Nature made Fra Bartolommeo," says Symonds, "the painter of adoration." He excels in the poetry of simple religious feeling. His works are rare outside Italy. Copies from some of his frescoes at Florence are in the Arundel Society's Collection; but the treasure city of Fra Bartolommeo at his best is Lucca. Few figures in Italian art have been more often copied and photographed than his charming little angel who sings at the foot of the Madonna's throne in the Cathedral of Lucca.

Fra Bartolommeo's pictures "sum up," says Ruskin, "the principles of great Italian religious art in its finest period,—serenely luminous sky,—full light on the faces; local colour the dominant power over a chiaroscuro more perfect because subordinate; absolute serenity of emotion and gesture; and rigid symmetry in composition." And elsewhere he speaks of "the precious and pure passages of intense feeling and heavenly light, holy and undefined, and glorious with the changeless passion of eternity, which sanctify with their shadeless peace the deep and noble conceptions of the early school of Italy—of Fra Bartolommeo, Perugino, and the early mind of Raffaelle" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 22, and epilogue of 1883 to vol. ii.). Some trace of these characteristics may be found in the present picture. It is bright in colour, balanced in composition, simple in feeling, and shows a charming Tuscan landscape. Thoroughly Tuscan also is the type of peasant Madonna, with her brown hair tied up in a blue handkerchief. The infant Christ is almost grotesque, but the little St. John[Pg 675] may take his place among Fra Bartolommeo's collection of sweet child-faces. Our picture[253] is ascribed to the years 1507-9. In the Corsini Gallery at Rome is a repetition of it done at a later period, with the figures, life-sized, reversed, and with St. Joseph added to complete the pyramidal composition.

1695. LANDSCAPE WITH NYMPHS.

From the South Kensington Museum: very characteristic of the Venetian school is the beautiful blue distance.

1696. MADONNA AND CHILD.

A fragment of a fresco, painted in 1481 and originally brought from the church of Magre, near Schio, in the neighbourhood of Vicenza. The work, if by Bellini, is somewhat earlier than the "Madonna and Child" (280) of our Gallery.[254] "We have," says Mr. Roger Fry, "no example of Bellini's fresco work by which to judge it. It may therefore be argued that the weak construction of the Virgin's figure and the poor drawing of the child are the result of Bellini's want of familiarity with the medium, nor can it be denied that the weaknesses are exaggerations of certain peculiarities of Bellini's own design. This is particularly noticeable in the drawing of the child, which approaches very nearly in type and expression the child of the 'Madonna between the Magdalen and St. Catherine' of the Academy at Venice. But in no undoubted work by Bellini is the drawing so clumsy as this. Much, however, may be attributed to restoration, particularly in the Infant Christ, and it is impossible to deny the great beauty of the colour—a peculiar golden glow which is very unusual in fresco, and is indeed a translation into that medium of the golden richness of Bellini's tempera and oil pieces. [Pg 676]The Madonna's expression has a certain tenderness and charm which is characteristic of Bellini, but it lacks the definite realisation of a mood which he almost invariably compassed" (The Pilot, Jan. 5, 1901). On the other hand, according to a well-known critic, writing in the Daily Telegraph, "the wistfulness of the Virgin is not the wistfulness of Giambellino, but rather that of Bartolommeo Montagna or some kindred painter of the school of Vicenza. Again, the type of the Virgin and the adjustment of her headgear recall the severe yet passionate master of Vicenza just named, under the influence, not so much of Giovanni Bellini as of the elder school of Venice—that of the Vivarini."

1699. THE LESSON.

Jan Vermeer of Delft (Dutch: 1632-1675). See 1383.
See also (p. xxi)

A "symphony in black and white"; cool in effect, almost to the point of austerity and chilliness. The faces are full of expression. The master turns in expectation to the pupil, as much as to say "Come, don't you know?" The pupil is ready with his answer, and seems to appeal for encouragement: "That is right, is it not?" There is a severe absence of details; everything in the picture is made to contribute to the colour scheme. "The play of cool light on the faces and hands, on the man's black dress, and the gray tablecloth with its patches of blue shadow; the design of the man's large hat against the dark background, the almost pathetic charm of the fair-haired boy's expression, the regular black and white of the tiled floor,—all seem chosen for their pictorial value alone and skilfully composed into this grave, almost austere harmony. The largeness of design and rejection of all superfluous detail in this picture connect it with Vermeer's more daring compositions" (M. H. Witt, in the Nineteenth Century, October 1900). Only one life-size group by the master is certainly authenticated—the signed "Courtesans" at Dresden. The attribution of our picture to the master is uncertain.

1700. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.

A strong face, finely painted. The iron-gray of the man's hair combines harmoniously with the lawn collar and cuffs; a harmony in black and gray.

[Pg 677]

1701. LANDSCAPE WITH WATERMILL.

This painter, an elder contemporary and precursor of Ruysdael, was born at Alkmaar. He studied successively under Roelandt Savery at Utrecht and Pieter Molyn at Haarlem. In a voyage which he made to the Baltic he was shipwrecked on the coast of Norway, and he remained for some time in that country. On returning to his native land he reproduced the scenes among which he had dwelt—torrents edged around by huge firs springing out from sombre masses of rock, and throwing their spray into large stretches of transparent water. A large number of studies from nature remain from his hand, and these he composed into pictures. His works had some vogue in Holland, where they provided a counter-attraction to the views of the softer and more smiling country which the "Italianisers" were offering to the public. If Ruysdael did not himself go to Norway, it must have been Everdingen's Norwegian scenes that inspired him. Everdingen's "colouring is simple and pure, his touch broad and facile, and it is evident that every object in his pictures was studied from nature." He was also an accomplished etcher. He died at Amsterdam.

1776. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

A predella picture; characteristic of the master, and in good preservation. Formerly in the possession of Count Colonna Ferretti (a nephew of Pius IX.) at Cortona.

1786. THE LAKE OF THUN.

This painter is of some interest in the history of painting as one of the pioneers who discovered for artistic purposes the picturesqueness of Switzerland. He was born at Vevay, and was the son—not (as sometimes stated) of a simple mason, but—of a clever stone-cutter. He was very delicate as a child, and an accident at school deprived him of the sight of his right eye. As a youth, Calame obtained employment in a bank at Geneva. He further aided the narrow resources of his home by making little Swiss views in colour, which the shopkeepers took up. Foreigners were glad to bring them away as travelling memorials, in place of photographs, which did not then exist. His employer, M. Diodati, noticing young Calame's talent for art, generously enabled him to obtain instruction. He made rapid progress, and became headmaster of a drawing-school in Geneva. In 1837 he began contributing to foreign exhibitions views of Switzerland, and these won for him a considerable reputation. He visited England in 1850, and here, as in other countries, his works found[Pg 678] many purchasers. In the South Kensington Museum there is a large collection of his Swiss views in water-colour. He was a lithographer and engraver, as well as a painter, and his plates of Swiss landscapes were at one time well known. He received commissions from many European sovereigns, and was visited by all the great personages who passed through Geneva.

In France, indeed, art-circles were cool towards him. "Un Calame, deux Calames, trois Calames—que de calamités" ran the phrase every year in the Paris Salon. But in Germany he found warm admirers and formed several imitators. His lithographed studies of trees, and his landscapes for copying remained in use for some decades as a medium of instruction in drawing. He was a conscientious workman, who finished the whole of his canvas or paper with equal industry, and his drawing was correct. But his colouring is insipid, and his atmosphere somewhat heavy. "By painting he understood the illumination of drawings, and his drawing was that of an engraver. Sentiment is replaced by correct manipulation, and in the deep blue mirror of his Alpine lakes, as in the luminous red of his Alpine summits, there is always to be seen the illuminator who has first drawn the contours with a neat pencil and pedantic correctness" (Muther's History of Modern Painting, ii. 322). Calame's fertility was very great. His note-books contain the record of 450 finished pictures in oil, 500 studies, and 1200 water-colours (E. Rambert: Alexandre Calame. Sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1884).

The mountain in our picture is the Blumlis Alp: an afternoon effect.

1810. PORTRAIT OF A BOY.

This painter, whose works are very rare, is said to have been a pupil of David Teniers, the younger. In some of his pictures representing village festivals he followed the style of that master; in others, of family groups, his work rather resembles that of Gonzales Coques. His most important picture is in the Museum at Ghent. It represents the "Inauguration of Charles II., King of Spain, as Count of Flanders," and comprises about a thousand small figures. Duchatel was born at Brussels. He worked for some time in Paris in conjunction with his fellow-countryman Van der Meulen (see 1447). The picture before us, with its vigorous touch and warm colour, shows that Duchatel was an accomplished portrait-painter.

1812. THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

"The figure of the Saviour and the angel are identical with those in the picture by Lo Spagna in the National Gallery[Pg 679] numbered 1032, but the execution of the work points to possibly a different hand. It was ascribed by Passavant to Raphael. On the back of the panel are incised the initials G. D. H. in a monogram surmounted by a crown, and an inscription on paper of probably the 18th century; 'All' Ill^mo et Ecc^mo Giovanni Hiccolini (sic) Imbascatore (sic) di Toscana in Roma.' It was exhibited in the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester in 1857 (No. 146) under the name of Raphael, when it belonged to Mr. Henry Farrer, who had it from Russia" (National Gallery Report, 1900).

1842. HEADS OF ANGELS.

Tuscan School (15th century).
See also (p. xxi)

A characteristic fragment of fresco.

1843. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

A characteristic, if unimportant, example of one of the early masters of the Umbrian School. Bonfigli (or Buonfiglio) was a native of Perugia, and his principal work, a series of frescoes, full of quaint costume and fantastic detail, representing the lives of St. Louis of Toulouse and St. Herculanus, is in the Palazzo del Consiglio there.

There is much naïvete in the surprised expression of the seated Sir Joseph, and much dainty charm in the youths with their vessels of gold.

1845. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

The Saviour holds in his hand a scroll inscribed "Ecce sum lux mundi," but the expression is vapid.

1847. THE VIRGIN CROWNED BY ANGELS.

This important picture, in a splendid frame of the period, is of special interest from the record of authenticity which it[Pg 680] bears. On the cartellino at the foot, is an inscription informing us that "the noble picture before us was an offering of devotion by Master Aloiusius, a French physician, and Thomasina his wife," that "Luca Signorelli, the illustrious painter of Cortona" was the artist, and that the date was 1515. In the archives of the little town of Montone, near Umbertide, a deed, dated September 10, 1515, has been discovered, which informs us further that the picture was painted for Master Aloiusius, living at Montone, for the chapel of St. Christina at that place, by Luca Signorelli "on account of their mutual and cordial friendship, and in consideration of the free services which he had received, and in future hopes to receive, from the said Aloiusius." The physician on his part undertakes in the same deed to give free medical attendance henceforth to the said Luca, and to any member of his household. The place for which the picture was painted accounts for the figure of St. Christina, on the right of the Virgin. Among her adventures was being tied to a millstone and cast into the Lake of Bolsena, but angels upheld the millstone, and she floated back to land. The legend explains also the charming view of a lake seen beneath the feet of the Virgin. The altar-piece was discovered by Signor Mancini in a cellar at Montone, much obscured by neglect, and was for some time in his collection at Città di Castello. It has now been cleaned, and is apparently in fine condition.

The date of the picture shows that it was painted towards the end of the artist's life, when he was 74 years of age, and some critics have found in the work signs that the master's hand was losing its cunning. Certainly the composition of the principal lines—with the upper figure at each side in line with the lower—is somewhat awkward, and the St. Christina is a heavy figure with a meaningless expression. That of St. Sebastian, however, is vigorous; the central group of the Madonna and Child borne by cherubims is impressive; the angels above are very fine, and St. Jerome and St. Nicholas of Bari are good. The details of St. Nicholas's robe and mitre deserve study. It is amusing to note that two of the critics who scarify the picture single out the landscape—the one, as the worst part of it, the other, as its redeeming feature.

[Pg 681]

1848. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

This painter, born in London, settled at the Hague, where he seems to have met with little prosperity. At a later time, he was living at Leyden, and was writing-master to the Prince of Orange.

The picture is signed, and dated (1657), at the top of the oval on the left, and is the only known signed work of the painter in existence. It shows us a pleasant-looking, if somewhat characterless youth, aged 18 (as the description states), whose coat, shirt, and collar make a delicate study in cool grey tones.

1849. THE NATIVITY.

The story of this painter and revolutionist—who, joining the Bardotti and taking part in popular risings in Siena, was concealed by the monks in a tomb, beside a newly-buried corpse—is familiar from Browning's humorous telling of it in his Pacchiarotto and how he worked in Distemper. He was originally a pupil of Bernardino Fungai (see 1331); but his later work shows the influence of Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael.

"He appears to have studied Raphael," says Lanzi, "with the greatest care; and there are heads and whole figures so lively, and with such grace in the features, that to some connoisseurs they seem to possess the ideal." Certainly there is a liveliness and an appropriateness of expression about the figures in this picture which distinguish it from the stiff mannerism of earlier Sienese pictures. Kneeling in adoration are St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome (with the stone, in his character as penitent). St. Stephen, behind St. John, carries on his head the stone, as symbol of his martyrdom. Behind St. Jerome is St. Nicholas of Bari, a finely rendered portrait of venerable age. Of the figures in the niche-shaped panels in the frame, that, at the top on the left, of the Angel of the Annunciation is particularly graceful. The panels of the predella show the Agony in the Garden, the Betrayal, the Crucifixion, the Deposition, and the Resurrection.

1850. A SCENE ON THE ICE.

[Pg 682]

1851. THE INTERIOR OF A STABLE.

1860. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

1872. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

All visitors to Venice are familiar with a picture, in the church of the Redentore, of the Madonna and Sleeping Child, with two playing angels; there is a bird on the curtain above, and some fruit on the parapet below. It is one of the most charming little pictures in Venice, and is usually shown as a work of Giovanni Bellini. Modern criticism assigns it, however, to Alvise Vivarini, to whom an important place in the history of Venetian painting is now accorded as an artist developing on lines independent of the Bellinis, and as the Master of Lorenzo Lotto.[255] That he was largely employed in the Ducal Palace we know from Vasari, who describes his works there, commending more particularly their fine perspective and "portraits from the life so well depicted as to prove that this master copied nature very faithfully." These works, begun in 1489 and stopped by the artist's death in 1503, were destroyed in the fire of 1577. Of his extant works, the earliest one, which is dated (1475), is at Montefiorentino. The altar-piece in the Venice Academy is dated 1480, and that in the Berlin Gallery is probably of the same period. To a later date are assigned the Madonnas of the Redentore and S. Giovanni in Bragora at Venice, and the present picture. His latest work, finished after his death by Marco Basaiti, is the large altar-piece of St. Ambrose in the Frari.

This picture (which is signed on a cartellino on the parapet) is, says Mr. Berenson, "delightful as a composition. The Madonna is seen down to the waist, holding the Child on a parapet, while behind her, to the left, a window opens out on a charming landscape. The Madonna's face has a tinge of almost Botticellian melancholy, as in Lotto's Recanati altarpiece. The Child is almost the putto on the right in the Redentore picture, but somewhat more bony. The draperies already have the freedom of Alvise's latest works." The picture, formerly in the Manfrini Gallery, was presented by Mr. Charles Loeser in 1898.

[Pg 683]

1895. BARON WAHA DE LINTER OF NAMUR.

Jordaens, who stands next to Rubens and Van Dyck among the great Flemish painters, was a fellow-pupil with the former under Adam Van Noort, whose daughter he married in 1616. In the same year he became a member of the Painter's Guild of St. Luke, being described as a "water-colourist"; his first works were in fact paintings in distemper and cartoons for the tapestry workers. By 1620 his fame as a painter of pictures was established. His works, which are very numerous, are of all kinds of subjects, but he is little represented in British Galleries. Examples may be seen, however, in the Wallace Collection and the Dulwich Gallery.

The name of the sitter is on the frame; his coat of arms and crest, with the inscription "Aetatis suae 63, 1626," are on the upper corner of the picture. It is a fine portrait, characteristic of the exuberance and vigour which mark the work of Jordaens.

1896. INTERIOR OF A CHURCH.

Saenredam, who lived at Haarlem, is one of the leading Dutch painters of architecture. His interiors in particular are remarkable for their luminous effect. Another example of them may be seen at Dulwich.

The church is the Domkerk at Utrecht. Notice the boy making a caricature on the wall; underneath this is the artist's signature.

1897. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

Don Lorenzo was born at Siena, but became a Camaldose monk of the Convent of the Angeli at Florence, his early practice being that of a miniaturist. In the principal of his known works—an altar-piece of 1413 now in the Uffizi at Florence, Mr. Roger Fry bids us note the cunning with which the painter "weaves together his flowing curves," the "rare charm in his ætherial, unstructural draperies," and "a kind of visible music" in his design (Monthly Review, June 1901).

Something of these qualities may be seen in the long and slender figures of our picture. The decorativeness of its patterns, and the architectural details, should also be noticed.[Pg 684] The picture, formerly in a church at Certaldo, is in its original Gothic frame. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (vol. i. p. 554) suppose the picture to have formed part of a larger altar-piece of which the two wings are in our gallery, ascribed to the school of Taddeo Gaddi (Nos. 215, 216). But the different scale of the figures in them negatives this supposition.

1903. LANDSCAPE, WITH DOGS AND GAME.

Jan Fyt (Dutch: 1609-1661). See 1003.
See also (p. xxi)

1909. THE EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY.

Hippolyte, or (as he called himself) Paul, Delaroche, was the popular French painter of his time, and this is one of his best known pictures. He turned to historical illustration as affording scope for an art which should reconcile the "classical" with the "romantic." He was the embodiment in the art of painting, as someone has put it, of Louis Philippe's maxim of the juste-milieu. To the same class with the present picture belong his "Death of Queen Elizabeth" (Louvre), "The Princes in the Tower" (familiar from engravings), and several works in the Wallace Collection. Ruskin, while not enamoured of his pictures (see Fors Clavigera, Letter 35), allows that his "honest effort to grasp the reality of conceived scenes" compares favourably with "the deathful formalism and fallacy of what was once called 'Historical Art,'" and that his kindly-meant talent has "contributed greatly to the instruction of innumerable households" (Works, vol. xix. pp. 50, 205). Théophile Gautier, more contemptuously, described Delaroche's art as that of "historical illustration for the family use of the bourgeoisie," and the vogue which it enjoyed all over Europe set the fashion for what became a prevailing style of "stage-dramatic representation" in painting. In 1833 (the date on our picture) Delaroche was appointed a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, and from 1837-1841 he was engaged upon the principal work of his life, the decoration of the amphitheatre of that school—the idea of his design being an assemblage of the chiefs of the arts in past ages to witness the triumphs of the labourers in his own age. He was assisted in this colossal work by many pupils; among them was Edward Armitage, R. A. (see vol. ii. No. 759), who has given an interesting account of the manner of their co-operation (see Report of the Commissioners on the Royal Academy, 1863, p. 64). The "Hemicycle" was much damaged by fire in 1853, and was restored after the death of Delaroche by Robert Henry.

The scene is in the Tower, February 12, 1554. Lady Jane Grey, condemned for treason, has been blindfolded, and is being led to the block by the Lieutenant of the Tower.

[Pg 685]

1914. A ROYAL CHÂTEAU IN HOLLAND.

1915. A DUTCH CHURCH AND MARKET PLACE.

The château in the former picture is "The House in the Wood" (Huis ten Bosch), built in 1647, in which the first Peace Conference was held at The Hague.

1917. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

A fine example of the "soft golden tones" noted in our account of Both as characteristic of his best works.

1918. MARKET PLACE AT THE HAGUE.

The work of an artist (best known by his drawings and etchings) who painted many small pictures of his native city, The Hague.

A scene in the Groén Market; the tower of the Groote Kerk in the background.

1925. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Upon the shield to the left is the painter's crest, as in No. 291; with the date 1524. The head is fine and full of character; the hands are less successful.

1930. PORTRAIT OF A LADY AS ST. MARGARET.

Zurbaran, it has been said, was "a great though not a professed, portrait painter." The lady is St. Margaret only in virtue of the dragon, the emblem of the saint; otherwise this is a portrait of a young lady in a fanciful country costume.

1937. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

This picture, said to be a portrait of a lady of the house of Braganza, was formerly in the collection of Mr. Beckford[Pg 686] at Fonthill. It is signed, and dated 1645. The "careful finish," which Sir Joshua Reynolds commended in the work of Van der Helst, may be well studied here in the rich and beautiful costume and jewellery.

1938. PORTRAIT OF HIS FATHER.

The acquisition of this picture adds to the Gallery a fine example of the great artist, who in all the characteristics of his art is the central representative of the German spirit,—"its combination of the wild and rugged with the homely and the tender, its meditative depth, its enigmatic gloom, its sincerity and energy, its iron diligence and discipline." The range of his powers is shown not only in his works that survive, but in the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries. When he went to Venice they "praised his beautiful colouring," Bellini honoured him with his friendship, "and he was everywhere treated," so he wrote, "as a gentleman." Raphael sent him some drawings, on one of which this note in Dürer's handwriting may still be seen: "Raphael of Urbino, who has been so highly esteemed by the Pope, drew these naked figures, and sent them to Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg to show him his hand." He was a writer as well as an artist. "Painting," said Melanchthon, "was the least of his accomplishments"; whilst of his personal qualities Luther bore testimony when he wrote: "As for Dürer, assuredly affection bids us mourn for one who was the best of men.... May he rest in peace with his fathers: Amen!"

He was born at Nuremberg—the son of a goldsmith and the third of eighteen children—and Albert of Nuremberg he remained to the end—the painter of a city distinguished for its "self-restrained, contented, quaint domesticity." His first training was from his father in the goldsmith's trade; next, when fifteen, he was apprenticed for three and a half years to Wohlgemuth, the chief painter of the town; and lastly came his Wanderjahre, a long course of travel and study in foreign lands. In 1494 he settled down at Nuremberg, and there, with the exception of a visit to Venice in 1505-1506 (see p. 190 n.), and to the Netherlands in 1520-1521, he passed the remainder of his life in the busy and honoured exercise of the various branches of his art. He had married, at the age of twenty-three, a well-to-do merchant's daughter. The stories which have long passed current with regard to her being imperious, avaricious, and fretful, have been entirely discredited on closer knowledge of the facts. The marriage was childless, but husband and wife lived throughout on terms both of affection and companionship. As for examples of Dürer's work, the widely-spread prints of the "Knight and Death" and the "Melancholia" give the best idea of his powers of imagination;[Pg 687] while in actual specimens of his handiwork in drawing, the British Museum is the second richest collection in the world.

The best commentary on this picture is the description of his father which Dürer wrote in a history of his family:—

"My dear father became a goldsmith, a pure and skilful man. He passed his life in great toil and stern, hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his hand for himself, his wife, and his children; so that he had little enough. He underwent, moreover, manifold afflictions, trials, and adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived an honourable, Christian life; was a man patient of spirit, mild and peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had little need of company and worldly pleasures: he was also of few words, and was a God-fearing man. This my dear father was very careful with his children to bring them up in the fear of God; for it was his highest wish to train them well that they might be pleasing in the sight both of God and man. Wherefore his daily speech to us was that we should love God and deal truly with our neighbours."

It is just such a man that the painter here sets before us. "The face is pathetic with the deep furrows ploughed in by seventy years of labour and sorrow. Yet as he stands there, so quietly, for his son to paint him, there is just a trace of pleasure and pride lurking in the kind old face" (Conway's Literary Remains of Dürer, p. 35). An inscription on the top of the panel records that it was painted in 1497, when the father was seventy and the son twenty-six. There are three other versions of the picture—at Munich, Frankfort, and Syon House respectively, and the question which is the original has been much disputed. The present picture (exhibited at the Old Masters, 1903) was bought, with No. 1937, for £10,000 from the Marquis of Northampton.

1939. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

A little picture almost as delicately wrought as an illuminated page in a missal. The donor is kneeling in the door of the Gothic chapel. The Virgin and Child are in "a garden enclosed," where columbines spring up at her feet; at the top of the picture are two small figures of St Michael driving out Satan.

[Pg 688]

1944. "PORTRAIT OF ARIOSTO."

This superb portrait, though traditionally called "Ariosto," bears no resemblance to the poet. It is the picture of an Italian aristocrat of the Renaissance that the painter sets before us; of a man refined and luxurious, unimpassioned, and somewhat cynical. Immortalised by art, he looks out upon us with a somewhat scornful glance; the handsome head is one of those thoroughly individualised representations which, once studied, fix themselves indelibly in the memory. Sober and yet sumptuous in colour, the picture is enveloped in a luminous haze; and the costume, with the quilted sleeve of steely grey, is a masterpiece of technique.

The picture, which is signed on the parapet Titianus V. (with another V. at the further end of the parapet), belongs to Titian's earlier period, when he was under the influence of Giorgione, to which master indeed it is sometimes attributed.[256] There are several versions of the picture, including one in Lord Rosebery's collection at Mentmore.[257] The present picture (Old Masters, 1895) was bought by Sir George Donaldson from Cobham Hall (Lord Darnley) for £30,000, and sold by him for the same price to the nation; a portion of the sum (£9000) being contributed by Mr. W. W. Astor, Mr. Alfred Beit, Lord Burton, Lord Iveagh, Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and Lady Wantage.

1951. PORTRAIT OF DR. PERAL.

"Perhaps as good an example as could be found of the brilliancy and execution and vivid portrayal of character which characterise this artist at his best" (Official Catalogue).

[Pg 689]

1952. MR. AND MRS. EDWIN EDWARDS.

A fine example of this artist's portraiture, representing old friends of the French painter, with whom he stayed when in this country. Mr. Edwards, landscape painter in water-colours and etcher (1823-1879), is examining a print with an expert's eye. His wife, perhaps less happily posed (because seemingly disconnected with the other figure), looks out at the spectator with her arms folded. Mrs. Edwards who presented this picture to the nation in 1904 died in 1907. "Nearly every one of Fantin-Latour's pictures in this country passed through her hands, and have her private marks, by which she was able to identify them after a lapse of many years."

1953. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

In the background is the festoon of fruit, familiar to us in Crivelli's pictures.

1969. A GREEK CAPTIVE.

2057. VENUS WITH THE MIRROR.

This celebrated picture—commonly called "Venus and Cupid," but known in Spain as the "Venus del Espejo"—is one of the master's rare studies of the nude, and it is characteristic of his genius. The subject is professedly mythological, but Velazquez seeks no adventitious interest from legendary association or idealistic grace. Here, as everywhere, his standpoint is frankly realistic, whilst the work is saved from commonness by purity of colour and sincerity of artistic purpose. It has been truly said that the flesh-painting here makes many another picture in the Gallery look lifeless and unreal. The face of "Venus" in the mirror—with broad features enframed in plainly dressed hair—does not realise the promise of the pretty outline of the head with the brown hair tied in a knot; and it has been suggested (by Dr. Justi) that[Pg 690] "perhaps the damsel did not wish to be recognised." However this may be, the very plainness of the face emphasises the artist's intention. The picturesqueness of the outline and modulations of the back in a youthful female figure was the artistic effect which he set himself to render.

The history of the picture is well authenticated.[258] It was painted about 1650, and passed into the possession of the Duke of Alba on his marriage in 1688 with Doña Catalina de Haro of Guzmom, Condessa-Duquesa de Olivares, the picture forming part of her dowry. It is mentioned in an inventory of the paintings belonging to her family as "a Venus of life size reclining nude with a child who holds up for her a mirror into which she gazes. This picture is an original work by Don Diego Velazquez." In an account of the Duke of Alba's palace in 1776 it is described as "the very celebrated Venus depicted from the back, in the reclining posture, with her face reflected in a mirror towards which she directs her gaze." Subsequently the picture became the property of the Spanish statesmen, Godoy. In 1808 it was sold and brought to this country; and purchased through Mr. Buchanan for the sum of £500, by Mr. Morritt, the friend of Sir Walter Scott. It became an heirloom in Mr. Morritt's family at Rokeby Hall, Teesdale. "Twice," says Dr. Justi in his life of Velazquez, "in 1879 and 1885 I had the privilege of seeing it there and convincing myself of its faultless preservation and the original brilliancy and freshness of its colour." It was exhibited in 1857 among the "Art Treasures" at Manchester and in 1890 at the "Old Masters." It was ultimately sold under an order of the Court of Chancery, the price obtained being £30,500. It passed into the hands of Messrs. Agnew, and its sale out of this country was believed to be imminent when the National Art Collections Fund came to the rescue and raised by subscription the amount now necessary for its purchase.

[Pg 691]

The sum paid was £45,000,[259] and the picture was presented by the Fund to the nation.

2058. SUNNY DAYS IN THE FOREST.

Narciso Virgilio Diaz de la Peña, one of the members of "the Barbizon School" (see p. 698), was born, of Spanish extraction, at Bordeaux. Left an orphan at the age of ten, he was adopted by a Protestant clergyman, living at Bellevue, near Sèvres. He was of a truant disposition, and sleeping once upon the grass in the woods he was bitten by a viper; the accident cost him his left leg, and he had to go through life with a wooden one, which he called his pilon. In after years, when his pictures were rejected at the Salon, he would make a hole in the canvas with his wooden leg, saying with a laugh "what's the use of being rich? I can't have my pilon set in diamonds." His early years were of uncertain fortune, spent in earning a precarious living, sometimes as a painter on china at Sèvres, sometimes as an errand-boy in the streets. But he had confidence in his talent, and gradually found a market for his pictures. These were at first of figures, flowers, or other genre. A meeting in 1830 with Théodore Rousseau sent him to Fontainebleau and nature. For Rousseau, he entertained the most profound admiration, the story of "the toast of Diaz," is well known. Diaz had been preferred to Rousseau in admission to the Legion of Honour. In attending a dinner given in 1851 to the new officiers, Diaz rose and invited the company to drink "À Rousseau, notre maître oublié!" Of his figure-subjects, one of the best "La Fée aux Perles" is in the Louvre, but it is on his landscapes that his fame chiefly rests. "Go into the forest," it has been said, "lose yourself among its trees, and you can only say 'À Diaz'." To him, however, the forest was not, as to some others of the school, or as to Ruysdael, sombre or serious. It was a keyboard on which to play colour-fantasies. "You paint stinging-nettles," he said to Millet, "I prefer roses." "Pearls," said Théophile Gautier of his pictures, "brilliant as precious stones, prismatic gems and rainbow jewels." His pictures have been called not so much landscapes, as "tree-scapes." "Have you seen my last stem?" he used to say himself to his visitors. But it was the play of sunlight on the stems that he chiefly loved. Diaz is the colourist of the Barbizon School.

The acquisition of this sparkling little picture of a glade in the forest of Fontainebleau, lit by the afternoon sun, marked [Pg 692]somewhat of an era in the history of the National Gallery. It was the first illustration on its walls of the modern French school of landscape.

2062. CHRIST TEACHING FROM ST. PETER'S SHIP.

This painter, whose landscapes were praised by connoisseurs of the time as "distinguished by great care and accuracy," was born at Rotterdam, was a pupil of Jan van Goyen, and worked chiefly at Rotterdam and Utrecht. He painted many views on the Rhine and Maas; and one of the former, in the Dulwich Gallery, dated 1656, is among his best works.

The scene is the Lake of Gennesaret; the people are assembled on the shore to hear the words of Christ who is seated in St. Peter's ship (Luke v. 1-3).

2069. THE "MADONNA OF THE TOWER."

This picture is attributed to the earlier portion of Raphael's "Roman period" (see p. 569); to about the same time, that is, as that of the "Garvagh Madonna" (No. 744). It takes its commonly accepted name from the small tower which may be seen in the distance of the landscape background; it is sometimes referred to as "The Madonna with the Standing Child," or "The Virgin with the Downcast Eyes," or "The Rogers Madonna." It is painted on canvas, and has suffered much from accident and repainting; but the feeling of the picture is thoroughly Raphaelesque in purity of colour and charm of expression. The mother's face is full of affection, sweet and yet serious; while the Child looks out of the canvas, "as if unconscious of all but the joy of the moment."

The picture was formerly in the Orleans collection, whence it was purchased by Mr. Willett in 1792 for £150. It next passed into the collection of Mr. Henry Hope, at whose sale in 1816 it was bought for 59 guineas by Samuel Rogers, the poet. "In the atmosphere of St. James's Place," says a chronicler of the works from the Orleans Collection which passed into the possession of Rogers, "they may safely be said to have been worshipped with a purer incense than they ever received before. We may be pardoned for recalling a few of them. Foremost was a Raphael, one of the master's sweetest[Pg 693] compositions, the Child standing with one foot on his mother's hand. It had been reduced by ruthless rubbings to a mere shadow, but the beauty was ineffaceable: hanging—how well remembered!—in the best light on the left-hand wall in the drawing-room. Then two glorious Titians—one of them, Christ appearing to the Magdalene" (Quarterly Review, Oct. 1888). The picture last mentioned is also now in the National Gallery (No. 270) which possesses further from his collection, Nos. 269, 271, 276, 279. At his sale in 1856 the Raphael was bought for 480 guineas by Mr. R. J. Mackintosh, son of the historian, who exhibited it at Manchester in the Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857; it was also shown at the Old Masters in 1902. From him it passed to Miss Eva Mackintosh who has now (1906) presented it to the nation. In the British Museum there is a cartoon of the picture.

2078. THE HARBOUR OF TROUVILLE.

A view from within the harbour looking out to the open sea "between the piers." Signed and dated "E. Boudin, '88," with the title on the back in the artist's handwriting, "Entre les jetées, Trouville." This picture by a fine sea-painter was presented by the National Art Collections Fund.

2081. LULLI AND HIS FELLOW MUSICIANS AT THE FRENCH COURT.

Jean Baptiste de Lulli (or Lully) was the celebrated composer (1633-1687) for whose music Louis XIV. had a great predilection. For him the King created a new company of musicians called Les Petits Violons or La Bande des Seize. Lulli composed also the incidental music for Molière's plays. The portraits of Lulli, says a contemporary, are fairly like him, but he was smaller and stouter than they show.

2082. A FLORENTINE LADY; on the reverse, A SYMBOLIC ANGEL.

The portrait is supposed to represent the unknown artist's wife; the angel holds an armillary sphere.

[Pg 694]

2083. PORTRAIT OF DR. BATTISTA FIERA.

The portrait, "warts and all," of a theologian, physician, and poet of Mantua. So he is described under the engraving of this picture, which is the frontispiece to a book published at Padua in 1649 and entitled Baptistae Fierae Mantuani Medici sua aetate clarissimi Coena notis illustrata a Carolo Avantio Rhodigino. The portrait, a chef d'œuvre of a painter whose portraits are rare, was shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1894.

2084. A YOUNG MAN IN BLACK.

"This picture has been attributed to Piero Pollajuolo and to the painter known as 'Amico di Sandro'" (National Gallery Report, 1906).

2085. BIANCA CAPELLO.

2086. THE GATE WITH A ROUND TOWER.

2087. A PASTORAL LANDSCAPE.

This painter of decorative landscape was much employed in England, and during a sojourn here from 1752 to 1773 he became one of the foundation members of our Royal Academy.

2088. CHRIST TEACHING.

The face, attitude, and design are the same as in the Christ of No. 18; but the beautiful expression is absent.

2089. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Fresco on plaster; not unlike the work of Beltraffio.

[Pg 695]

2090, 2091. ANGELS.

Companion figures, with wreaths of roses, inscribed (on the first) Ave Regina, (on the second) Coelorum.

2092, 2093. ST. JOSEPH AND ST. JEROME.

2094. IL CAVALIERE.

2095. A MAN IN BLACK.

A fine portrait, hitherto attributed to Antonello da Messina, but now assigned to Vivarini, on the analogy of similar busts attributed by Mr. Berenson to that painter.

2096. THE MAN WITH A BEARD.

2097. THE LADY WITH THE CARNATIONS.

2098. S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE.

2099. THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE

Excellent examples of the best manner of this painter.

2100. THE MARRIAGE OF THE EMPEROR FREDERICK I.

It is mentioned in the account of Tiepolo (under Nos. 1192, 1193) that he executed wall-decorations in the Royal[Pg 696] Palace, formerly the episcopal residence, at Wurzburg. The present picture is almost the same in composition as one of those. The subject—the marriage of Frederick Barbarossa in 1156, to Beatrix, daughter of the Count of Burgundy—lends itself well to Tiepolo's "feeling for splendour," and swift mastery of decorative effect. The Imperial banner, emblazoned with the black eagle, is borne by a warrior. The bishops of Wurzburg were princes of the Empire.

2101. ESTHER AT THE THRONE OF AHASUERUS.

An illustration of the Book of Esther (xv. 7-16); "Then lifting up his countenance that shone with majesty, he looked very fiercely upon her, and the queen fell down and was pale and fainted," etc.

2102, 2103. TOWN AND RIVER SCENES.

By this painter, an imitator of Canaletto, two views of Venice were bought by the National Gallery from the Beauconsin Collection, but they were consigned to the National Gallery of Dublin.

2104. A MAN WITH A WIDE COLLAR.

This painter of whom little is known, was a follower of Spagnoletto and Guido.

2105. A MAN WITH A POINTED BEARD.

2106. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.

The artist was the nephew and scholar of Guercino. He came to England in 1674, and was for some time in the service of Charles II. and James II. "I once saw," says Lanzi, "a Bathsheba of Guercino, along with a copy by one of the Gennari. The former appeared as if newly painted at the time, and the latter as if many years previously,[Pg 697] such was its inferiority in strength of hand.... Benedetto subsequently formed for himself a style in England, more polished and careful, and exemplified it more particularly in his portraits."

2107. HAGAR IN THE DESERT.

2118. MADONNA AND CHILD.

2127. PORTRAIT OF THE MARCHESE GIOVANNI BATTISTA CATTANEO.

It has been said in our notice of Van Dyck that many of his best works are to be seen in Genoa. Two of the portraits made during his "Genoese period" are now in our Gallery; having found their way to Paris and thence to England from the palace of the Marchese Cattaneo in Genoa, and having been bought by the Trustees from Messrs. Colnaghi. The price paid for the picture before us was £13,500. The portrait has not the pathetic charm of the "Gevartius" (52), to which it now forms a pendant; but in strength and vitality it is one of the painter's masterpieces. The Marchese lives before us, instinct with nervous energy; seeming, as has been well said, "at once to interrogate the spectator, and haughtily to repel interrogation."

2129. UNE PARADE.

A pupil of Boucher; painter, first of heroic and then of domestic subjects; also an etcher.

Spectators watching a turn with the foils by two mountebanks.

2130. THE WATER LANE.

It is very fitting that this painter, whose works in Continental galleries are rare, should be represented in ours; for it was the Duke[Pg 698] of Buckingham, who brought him into vogue. Passing through Antwerp, the Duke was attracted by his work, and took him in his train to England, where, according to Walpole, he was much employed by the aristocracy. "Among the landscapes of the Flemish school," says an enthusiastic critic (A. J. Wauters), "there is not one of whom we think more highly. If his colouring lacks the brilliancy and the soft transparency of the tones of Rubens, it offers others both rare and unexpected at a time when the Flemish landscape was yet enslaved by conventional laws. Sieberechts boldly met the difficulties offered by open-air scenes and foreshadowed the daring colouring attempted by modern realism. His landscapes are true pastorals. He understood the art of giving his farm-girls and hinds real attitudes, taken from life; and how to make the various hues of vermilion and silver, blue and yellow of their costumes harmonise boldly together, which makes his works so charming, and gives them such a free and entirely personal character."

2133, 2134. "ROSES" AND "APPLES."

2135. THE MARSH OF ARLEUX-DU-NORD.

Corot is one of those original painters who bring new aspects of nature and modes of beauty into ken. He is usually classed with the Barbizon School (see p. 691), but he stands alone with a peculiarly subtle and individual note of his own. "Rousseau," he once said, "is an eagle; I am only a lark." His mood, though often tinged with melancholy, is tender, and delicate; what he loved was not the grandiose in form or colour, but rather all that was glimmering, uncertain, evanescent—such as the "shade by the light quivering aspen made," or delicate effects, at early dawn, or in moonlight. To read his letter on "the day of a landscapist"[260] is the best introduction to his art. "One rises early, at three o'clock in the morning before the sun is up, one goes and sits down at the foot of a tree, one looks and waits; he does not see much at first. Nature resembles a white tablecloth, where he can hardly distinguish the profiles of some of the masses. Everything is scented, everything trembles with the fresh breeze of the dawn." And then, again, when the sun has set: "Bien! bien! twilight commences. There is now in the sky only that soft vaporous colour of pale citron. One is losing sight of everything, but one still feels that everything is there. The birds, those voices of the flowers, say their evening prayer, the dew scatters pearls [Pg 699]upon the grass, the nymphs fly ... everything is again darkened; the pond alone glitters. Good, there is my picture completed." It was only gradually that Corot reached the style upon which his fame rests. He was born in Paris of humble parents, and served for some years in a draper's shop. He was twenty-two before he was able to follow his artistic bent. He made the usual classical tour to Italy, and it was not till 1843 that he began to reveal the characteristic charm which he had found in French landscape. He painted what few eyes are wont to see and had to create the taste by which he was to be admired. But affluence came to him, and he gave as readily as he received. Many stories are told of his benevolence, and the love which he inspired is recorded in the title, "le père Corot," by which he was called. As a mark of their esteem his fellow-artists presented him with a gold medal shortly before his death. His last words were characteristic of his art and his life. It was his practice to sketch early and late in the open air, dreaming his pictures as he studied, and to "paint his dreams" in the studio. "Last night," he said as he lay on his death-bed, "I saw in a dream a landscape with a rosy sky; it will be marvellous to paint." He was seen to draw in the air with his fingers. "Mon Dieu" he said, "how beautiful that is; the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen." His old housekeeper offered to bring him his breakfast. He smiled and said, "To-day Père Corot will breakfast above."

This little picture is characteristic of one of Corot's tastes. "He loved," we are told, "water in indetermined clearness and in the shining glance of light, leaving it here in shadow and touching it there with brightness. He loved morning before sunrise, when the white mists hover over pools like a light veil of gauze; he had a passion for evening which was almost greater; he loved the softer vapours which gather in the gloom." (Muther.) The picture was painted in 1871, and was purchased by Fantin-Latour at the posthumous sale of Corot's works.

2136. ENGRAVED PORTRAIT OF LULLY, THE MUSICIAN. See 2081.

2143. LADY STANDING BY A SPINET.

Jacob Ochtervelt (sometimes called wrongly Jan, and Achtervelt or Uchtervelt) was born probably at Rotterdam. He formed his style on the model of Terburg, to whom his pictures are sometimes attributed[Pg 700] (see, for instance, an example in the Venice Academy formerly given to Terburg).

A beautiful example of a painter, by whom pictures in good condition are rare—a harmony in pink and grey and brown. There is poetical feeling, too, in the lady's attitude and the man who looks up intently at her; as also some humour in the dog turning his attention to an intruder.

2144. LA MARCHESA CATTANEO.

A companion picture to No. 2127.

2162. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.

The artist is dressed as a French Abbé, with powdered hair.

2163. THE MAGDALEN.

2204. INTERIOR OF A CHURCH.

Dated 1615. The nave of a Gothic church; in the distance a funeral procession is entering the choir; beggars and dogs in the foreground.

2205. INTERIOR OF A CHURCH.

A night scene in a church of Renaissance architecture. On a tomb on the floor is an inscription—"632 Hier legt begraven Henri Steenwick."

2206. VESPERS.

[Pg 701]

2207. AFTER VESPERS.

The chapel in No. 2207 is the same as that on the left in No. 2206.

2209. ULRICUS SIROSENIUS, DUKE OF EAST FRIESLAND.

The title is written on the back of the oak panel. The Duke's sword is inscribed—"Victor est qui nomen Domini pugnavit." Among other versions of this portrait is one in the Oldenburg Gallery, attributed to Lucas van Leyden. Another (in the Duke of Rutland's collection) has Dürer's monogram.

2211. JACQUELINE DE BOURGOGNE.

The beautiful costume and jewellery should be noticed; the girl holds an orrery. This picture was shown in the Golden Fleece Exhibition at Bruges in 1907.

2216. "LA MAIN CHAUDE."

This painter (pupil of his father, François de Troy) was employed by Louis XIV. to execute designs for tapestry in the grand style, and he carved out much decorative work. Sets of some of the tapestries from his designs are in the State Apartments in Windsor Castle. Subsequently, he adopted the style of Watteau, and painted "conversations galantes," such as in the example before us. Other specimens of his work may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in the Wallace collection.

2217. ELISA BONAPARTE, GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANY.

Jacques Louis David, the founder of the "classical school" in France and for many years the Dictator of French art, was a nephew of Boucher, from whom he received his first instruction. His cele[Pg 702]brated "Oath of the Horatii" (1784) and "Brutus" (1789), and other works of the kind, are in the Louvre. They were not without influence on the politics of the time, and David was elected a representative of Paris in the Convention in 1792. He became a follower of Robespierre, and naturally escaped execution. Abandoning politics, he became acquainted with Napoleon, who made him his First Painter. On the restoration of the Bourbons, he sought refuge in Brussels, where he died. Many of his Napoleonic pictures are at Versailles.

A vigorous portrait-sketch of Elisa, sister of Napoleon, whom he made Duchess of Tuscany, with the titles of Duchess of Lucca and Princess of Piombino. She was born in 1777 and died in 1820. We see her here in white empire costume.

2218. MADAME MALIBRAN.

A study of the famous singer; attributed to Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, a pupil of David, who imparted a grace of his own to the Classical School.

2251. PORTRAIT OF BONA OF SAVOY.

This striking full-length figure of a lady, richly attired and wearing jewels, was No. 7 in the exhibition of pictures by Milanese masters at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1894. It was then described as a portrait of Beatrice d'Este.

2256. RIVER SCENE.

2257. ILEX TREES, VILLEFRANCHE.

These two pictures, recently presented to the Gallery, are slight examples of the work, in oil and water-colour, of an artist who travelled with Corot and continued that master's method of interpreting nature.

2258. A WOODLAND SCENE.

A good example of an artist who has been called "the Ruysdael of Montmartre."

[Pg 703]

2281. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

The Virgin, a pretty woman prettily dressed, is seated between St. Jerome and St. Anthony of Padua, who holds in his hand a "Madonna lily." This bright and dainty picture belongs to the year 1522 (see Berenson's Lorenzo Lotto, 1895, p. 187).

2282. THE BOHEMIANS.

2283. DAWN.

2285. A FAMILY GROUP.

An important accession to the Gallery, as an example of the large portrait-groups in which Hals excelled. The composition whereby the ten figures are all brought into a group is ingenious—the part played by the direction of the elder boy's attention to the other being in this respect important—though in colour the harmony is somewhat disturbed by the emphatic lights of the lace and linen worn by each member of the group. There is individual character in all the portraits; among the figures which most compel admiration are those of the mother, full of quiet dignity, of the eldest daughter, standing on the right with a work-basket in her hand (both beautifully painted), and of the little girl seated in front. The picture unknown to the connoisseurs before its acquisition for the National Gallery—was purchased in 1908 from Lord Talbot de Malahide for £25,000.

2288. PORTRAIT OF DR. FORLENZE.

Dr. J. N. B. Forlenze (1769-1833) was a physician and man of fashion in Naples. He had visited England and[Pg 704] studied under John Hunter; and practised as an oculist in Paris. This portrait was exhibited at the Salon in 1808.

2289. ATTILA: AN ALLEGORY.

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was the chief of the "Romantic" school in painting, which in literature was represented by de Musset, George Sand, and Victor Hugo. The Romanticists revolted against the art of the Classicists as cold, formal, and colourless. Delacroix, whose admiration was for Byron in poetry and for Rubens in painting, sought before all things passion, emotion, and colour. He had, says Silvestre, "the sun in his head and a thunderstorm in his heart, and his grandiose and awe-inspiring brush sounded the entire gamut of human emotion." He loved strong colour, and he was one of many French artists who were influenced by the sight of Constable's pictures in the Salon. His pictures were as fiercely assailed, as they were furiously painted. "It is the massacre of painting," said Baron Gros of Delacroix's "Massacre of Chios." "I became the abomination of painting," said the artist, "I was refused water and salt;" but, he added, "I was enchanted with myself," and he won his way into favour. He was born at Charenton St. Maurice, near Paris. His father, who held high office under the First Empire, had been a partisan of the violent faction during the Revolution, and, like some other revolutionaries, was more consumed with public ardour than concerned with private affairs. The boy was exposed to accidents and neglect in his childhood which make one wonder that he survived. He had poor health throughout life, and there was in him a hectic strain which was reflected in his art. In 1817 he entered the studio of Guérin, where he had Ary Scheffer (see 1169) for a fellow-pupil and antagonist, and afterwards he worked under Baron Gros. He was deeply stirred by the War of Greek Independence; and a visit which he paid to Morocco and Algiers in 1831 had the effect of enriching his sense of colour. He had a strong supporter in Thiers, through whose influence he received many important commissions for public works—in the decoration of the Louvre, the Luxembourg, and the Chamber of Deputies. Our picture was a design for the latter. These and other large works occupied him till 1855; and at last in 1857 he was admitted into the French Academy.

In this characteristic design the spirit of Ruthless Conquest is personified in the figure of Attila, the leader of the Huns, called "The Scourge of God." He drives before him, beneath a blood-red sky and amid the ghosts of the slain, figures emblematic of Beauty, Art, and Pleasure.

[Pg 705]

2290. PARC DE SANSAC, INDRE-ET-LOIRE.

Jean Marie Armand Charnay, born at Charlieu (Loire); in 1864 entered the École des Beaux-Arts; genre and landscape painter.

This picture of autumn in the walks of a French château was presented by the artist.

2291. PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL DE RETZ.

A portrait, in Cardinal's cape and skull-cap, of Jean François Paul de Gondi (1614-1679), Archbishop of Paris, and afterwards Cardinal de Retz. As Archbishop, he aided the rising of the Fronde against Mazarin. In 1652 he was arrested and imprisoned; he escaped, and for some years wandered abroad. In 1662 he was received into favour by Louis XIV., and in his later years was often employed as an envoy to Rome. He is described as having been in his youth short, near-sighted, ugly, and exceedingly awkward.

2292. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Mirevelt (or Miereveld) was the son of an engraver on precious metals at Delft, and was trained as an engraver. He afterwards entered the studio of Blocklandt at Utrecht, and devoted himself to historical painting, still-life, and other subjects. Presently he painted the portraits of some of the princes of the House of Nassau, and these were so much admired that he came into continuous request in that branch of art. Sandrart relates that Mirevelt claimed to have painted nearly 10,000 portraits; doubtless an exaggeration, but "it may be said that it was he who made the custom of having portraits painted general in the United Provinces. His painting, thin, clean finished, and rather cold, was intended to please his elegant clients" (Havard).

This lady's stomacher embroidered with rows of pearls and pleated lace ruff are finely painted.

2293. HOLY FAMILY.

One of the scholars and assistants of Raphael; after whose death Penni is said to have attached himself to Perino del Vaga. Subsequently he became an engraver.

[Pg 706]

2294. PORTRAIT OF GALILEO.

Domenico Cresti, called Il Passignano from his native place, a village near Florence, was a pupil of Zuccaro. Moving to Venice, he studied for a while under Paolo Veronese, whose works he greatly admired and whose manner he followed. His facility and rapidity caused a play upon his surname, and he was called "Passa ognuno."

The great astronomer (1564-1642) is represented with astrolabe, books, diagram, and compasses.

2295. PORTRAIT OF A MILITARY COMMANDER.

Pourbus, son of Frans Pourbus the elder, was born at Antwerp, and by 1591 was a master in the Guild of St. Luke. He was employed by the Archduke Albert at Antwerp, at whose court he attracted the notice of the Duke of Mantua. The Duke took him into his service (1600-1609), and he shared with Rubens the title of Painter to the Ducal Court. At Mantua he worked at "a collection of the most beautiful women in the world, whether princesses or private ladies." Like Rubens, Pourbus was occasionally employed as Ambassador, and a mission to Paris caused him to forsake Italy for France. Eleanor of Mantua was a sister of Marie de' Medici, and Pourbus finally settled in Paris as Painter to the Queen. There is a portrait of the queen by him at Hampton Court.

2423. LITHOGRAPHS OF HORSES.

Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault, animal and historical painter, was a precursor of the revolt of the Romanticists against the Classicists, which was carried further by Delacroix (see 2289). His most famous picture, "The Raft of the Medusa" (Louvre), was exhibited at the Salon in 1819 and excited much controversy. He was the son of a prosperous advocate; and as a young man became a member of the Jockey Club, and lived the life of the jeunesse dorée. He had some instruction in art from Charles Vernet and Guérin, but his real master was Rubens in the Louvre. In 1816 he went to Italy. After 1819 he visited England, where he practised the then new art of lithography. His picture of "The Derby at Epsom" (1821) is in the Louvre.

[Pg 707]

2439. A RIVER SCENE.

Rousseau, one of the founders of the modern school of landscape in France, had to fight his way to fame through many difficulties and much neglect. The toast of Diaz, "à notre maître oublié," has been already recorded (p. 691). For thirteen years (1835-1848) his pictures were rejected from the Salon; and official honours came to him tardily. He had his revenge in the Exhibition of 1855, when his rejected pictures "came back as victorious exiles," and again in that of 1867, when he was chosen president of the jury. But he was of a sensitive and jealous disposition; he was estranged from his best friend, Dupré, and chagrin at being passed over for promotion in the Legion of Honour in 1867 is said to have hastened his death. A pleasanter episode in his life is his generous and timely help to Millet. The heads of the two artists are carved together on his tombstone in the cemetery of Chailly, near Barbizon. He was born in Paris, the son of a merchant-tailor. He studied painting under Rémond and Guillon Lethière, and first exhibited at the Salon in 1831. His pictures in successive years were loudly trumpeted by Thoré as those of an innovator, and for that reason perhaps excited the more hostility among the old school. His favourite ground was the forest of Fontainebleau, and he made his home at Barbizon, studying every aspect of nature with intense application. "It is a good composition," he wrote, "when the objects represented are not there solely as they are, but when they contain under a natural appearance the sentiments which they have stirred in our souls. If we contest that the trees have power of thought, at any rate we may allow that they can make us think; and in return for all the modesty of which they make use to elevate our thoughts, we owe them, as recompense, not arrogant freedom or pedantic and classic style, but the sincerity of a grateful attention in the reproduction of their being." There is a good example of his forest-pictures in the Wallace Collection.

Rousseau was the most various of the landscape painters of his time. In the present picture we see him in a peaceful mood; another picture (2635) is of a stormy sky.

2475. CHRISTINA, DUCHESS OF MILAN.

Amongst Holbein's duties as painter to Henry VIII. was that of taking portraits of the ladies whom he proposed in turn to wed. After the death of Jane Seymour, the first favourite was the lady before us, "the demure half-smile not[Pg 708] yet faded from her eyes"—Christina, daughter of Christian II. of Denmark, niece of the Emperor Charles V., and widow of the Duke of Milan. Reasons of state suggested her marriage to Henry VIII., and Holbein was sent to Brussels, where the Duchess was residing. Our portrait was painted a few years later than "The Ambassadors," from a sketch made at Brussels on March 12, 1538. The circumstances are entertainingly told in the letters of the English envoy, John Hutton, to Thomas Cromwell. On the 10th August Hutton had sent off a portrait by another artist to Henry VIII., that he might judge of the appearance of the young Duchess before making her a proposal of marriage. The next evening "Mr. Haunce" (i.e. Hans Holbein) arrived in company of a servant of the king, whereupon Hutton sent off an express-courier to fetch back the picture he had already despatched, "for that in my opinion," he said, "it was not so perfect as the case required, neither as the said Mr. Haunce could make it." "The next day following at one of the clock in the afternoon, the said Lord Benedick came for Mr. Haunce, who, having but three hours' space, both showed himself to be master of that science, for it is very perfect; the other is but slobbered in comparison to it, as, by the sight of both, your Lordships shall well perceive."

The original—the study, sketch, or miniature, the result of three hours' hard work—has disappeared; but the picture which the master made from it after he came home is now before us. The portrait, it would seem, did not make the king less anxious for the match—which, however, was broken off, it will be remembered, after long negotiations, by the hostility of the emperor. The duchess, in spite of her tender years, seems—and the picture does not belie the supposition—to have had a character of her own. The story of her reply, "that she had but one head, but that if she had two, one should be at the service of his majesty," is, indeed, now discredited; but her actual answer, "You know I am the Emperor's poor servant and must follow his pleasure," was, in the light of subsequent events, equally to the point. The English envoy specially reported "her honest countenance and the few words she wisely spoke."

The beautiful portrait before us was retained by Henry VIII., and through the Lumley, Pembroke, and Arundel Collections it passed into that of the Dukes of Norfolk. "Whether as a pictorial record of an interesting chapter of our history, or as[Pg 709] an example of the presentment of a fresh and winning young personality by the most masterful and at the same time most reserved and refined methods of the painter's craft, the picture counts among the very noblest of the art treasures still left in England. That it is so left is mainly due to the splendid generosity of a small group of private donors, the chief of whom elude our public thanks by choosing firmly to remain anonymous. At the eleventh hour, when the picture was on the very point of leaving our shores to enrich a private gallery in America, these benefactors came forward and enabled the Committee of the National Art-Collections' Fund to present the masterpiece to the nation." The price paid was £72,000. (Report of the National Art-Collections' Fund, 1909; Froude's History of England, ch. xv.) The picture had for many years been lent to the National Gallery by the Duke of Norfolk.[261]

2480. THE FISH MARKET.

Born in Paris; first exhibited at the Salon in 1834, "A View in Normandy"; afterwards made his reputation, and attained great popularity as a painter of still-life.

2482. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

This painter is better seen in the larger picture, No. 909.

2483. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

[Pg 710]

2484. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

The donor and his wife kneel in adoration before the Virgin and Child enthroned between St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena. The picture was formerly in Lord Dudley's collection.

2485. SALOME.

Leonardo da Vinci was "very successfully installed," says Vasari, "by Cesare da Sesto, who was also a Milanese." Cesare was born at Sesto Calende on the Lago Maggiore, and is supposed to have worked under Leonardo in Milan, 1507-1512. At Rome he was, according to Lomazzo, an intimate friend of Raphael.

The daughter of Herodias, with a face of haunting beauty, points to a vase, over which the executioner holds the head of John the Baptist. The table on which it rests has sphinxes for supports. This picture is a replica with variations of the one by Cesare in the Vienna Gallery, and is said to have come from the Barberini Palace in 1799.

2486. A CONCERT.

This picture was No. 14 at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1894, where it was ascribed to Lorenzo Costa. "In type, the woman resembles one of the daughters of Bentivoglio II., and it may be that this group of musicians contains family portraits of the reigning house of the Bentivogli at Bologna."

2487. BARTOLOMMEO BIANCHINI.

This picture, an early work by Francia, is an admirable example of the artist as a portrait-painter. It is "a marvel of fine condition, and betrays the technique of the goldsmith seeking for the quality of enamel. Bianchini was a Bolognese[Pg 711] senator, collector, poet, and friend of Francia." Upon a "Holy Family" in the Berlin Museum is inscribed—

Bartholomei sumptu Bianchini maxima matrum
Hic vivit manibus, Francia, picta tuis.

Our portrait, from the collection of the Princesse de Sagan, was No. 23 at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1894.

2488. THE HOLY FAMILY.

2489. THE YOUNG FLORENTINE.

The portrait of the man in his red-coloured robe and black skull-cap is set against a landscape background. Many other examples of a like treatment will have been noticed by the visitor; as, for instance, in the fine portrait by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo (2491). And it is interesting to observe how long this convention survived, though with variations. The advantage of introducing an object of locally dark colour behind the head was perceived, and a background of curtain or other drapery was used; but a piece of it was drawn back, so as still to display landscape. See, e.g., Basaiti's portrait (2498). Or, again, a window was opened with the same purpose. See, e.g., Piombo's portrait of a Venetian lady as Salome (2493) and Cariani's of a Venetian magnate (2494). A corresponding development may be traced in Madonna pictures. Often the Virgin and Child are placed in an open landscape, as in the beautiful "Madonna of the Meadow" (599). When they are brought indoors a curtain is drawn back (2503), or a window opened—e.g. 2496, 2609, and (Flemish School) 2595.

2490. COSTANZA DE' MEDICI.

The inscription records that the lady was the wife of Francis, Duke of Gaeta. This portrait was formerly ascribed to D. Ghirlandajo.

[Pg 712]

2491. GIROLAMO BENEVIENI.

This fine portrait is of "a very learned man," and an intimate friend of Lorenzo di Credi, who also, as Vasari relates, painted him. The background is studied from that in Leonardo's "Mona Lisa."

2492. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ANGELS ADORING.

This painter is mentioned by Vasari as among the pupils of Fra Filippo Lippi. He worked in the manner of Botticelli, and No. 916 in our gallery is now ascribed to him.

2493. SALOME.

2494. AN ITALIAN GENTLEMAN.

A vigorously-painted portrait of a personage of some importance or self-importance; perhaps, as the official catalogue suggests, "the principal citizen of some provincial town." His robe is of gold brocade, and he handles his gold chain. It may be a view of his town that is shown through the open window.

2495. "OUR LADY OF THE LAURELS."

This fine picture, known as La Vierge aux Lauriers from its background of a laurel-bush (and roses), was formerly in the Leuchtenberg Collection at St. Petersburg, where it was ascribed to Giorgione.

2496. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

[Pg 713]

2497. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN.

2498. A YOUNG VENETIAN.

Signed on the parapet. The young Venetians, it will be noticed, wore their hair long, and carried great weights of it at the sides of their faces: compare, e.g., No. 1121 (Catena), 2509 (Vivarini).

2499. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

This picture, if No. 599 be indeed by the same hand, must be an early work; the face and figure, both of mother and of child, are ugly and ungainly. The picture is signed in the left corner.

2500. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

2501. SALVATOR MUNDI.

Inscribed on the parapet "Andreas Privitalus, p." and dated 1518.

2502. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

This painter was the pupil, favourite assistant, and brother-in-law of Domenico Ghirlandajo (see 1230). He was born at San Gimignano, in the churches of which place pictures by him are to be seen.

The beautiful painting of jewellery, and the fine patterns, should not escape notice.

2503. HOLY FAMILY.

This beautiful picture is signed on a cartellino "Antonius da Solario V"(enetus).

[Pg 714]

2504. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

2505. DAVID AND JONATHAN.

This little picture, of David (carrying the head of Goliath) walking with Jonathan, was formerly in the Modici collection at Naples.

2506. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Formerly in the Patrizi collection at Rome.

2507. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

From the Castellani collection.

2508. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ANGELS.

Two charming angels, of whom one is garlanded with roses, hold the child before the Virgin. The scene is laid within the walls of the mystical garden ("a garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse"), behind which rise "Noah's ark" trees.

2509. PORTRAIT OF A YOUTH.

"The portrait of a boy of fifteen or sixteen, a little defiant or shy, yet frank in look, with a blond zazzera (head of hair) cropped short over the eyebrows, wearing a coat of pale turquoise blue. Formerly in the Duchatel collection at Paris, where it was seen by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle." By them ascribed to Andrea da Solario (see 734); formerly, to Antonello (see 673); now, on the authority of Mr. Berenson, to Alvise: see Berenson's Lorenzo Lotto, pp. 110-1.

[Pg 715]

2510. A PORTRAIT.

Possibly a portrait of the young Raphael.

2511. A MUSICIAN.

A master at the School of Cremona, who worked in the great church there with Boccaccino (see 806). There are also works by him at Mantua, where he is said to have studied under Giulio Romano.

2512. THE MAGDALEN.

"The art of Correggio with its deep sense of beauty and its tender sensibility was peculiarly fitted," says Signor Ricci, "to give life and grace to the figure of the Magdalen. He introduced it in many of his large compositions, and made it the subject of several separate studies, but not one of the latter has survived." If this be an authentic work, the statement requires correction; but the head of the Magdalen is not convincingly Correggiesque.

2513. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH SAINTS.

2514-2516. VIEWS IN VENICE.

No. 2514 shows the Grand Canal, with the church of the Scalzi; No. 2515, the square of St. Mark's, seen through an archway; No. 2516, the Colonnade of the Procuratie Nuove. The white spots with which the figures are picked out are not a happy instance of Canaletto's workmanship.

2517-2523. VARIOUS VIEWS.

No. 2517, "Buildings and Figures"; 2518, "Gothic Archway and Figures"; 2519, "Venetian Courtyard"; 2520,[Pg 716] "Quay-side with Warehouses"; 2521, "Ruins"; 2522, "Treasure-Seekers"; 2523, "View through an Archway."

2524. THE TOWER OF MESTRE.

It was at Mestre that travellers in old days took gondola for Venice, and the tower was a familiar landmark. Ruskin mentions it in his description of the approach to Venice (Stones, vol. i. last chapter).

2525. VENICE: PIAZZA DI SAN MARCO.

A good example of the deep, rich colour which Guardi gives to his Venetian subjects: see under 210.

2526. PEASANT AND CHILD.

This unfinished picture (once in the collection of the Earl of Clare) has been ascribed to Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio (1630-1700). He was a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, a distinguished amateur-painter and a favourite pupil of Murillo, who died in his arms.

2527. CHARLES MORDAUNT, EARL OF MONMOUTH.

A portrait-painter, who was a great admirer of Titian and a diligent copyist of his works. He was the son of a Burgundian jeweller settled at Madrid, and he was born in that city. He removed to Italy, where he was called, from his skill in portraiture, Il Borgognone dalle teste (the Burgundian of the heads). He practised his art in Brescia and Bergamo, and died in the latter city.

2528. THE MAN WITH THE GLOVE.

An excellent example of the "irresistible verve" which Hals brings to his portraits, especially to those of men: see under 1021. To what is there said, it may be interesting to add[Pg 717] the opinion of Sir Joshua Reynolds. "In the work of Frank Hals, the portrait-painter may observe the composition of a face, the features well put together, as the painters express it; from whence proceeds that strong-marked character of individual nature, which is so remarkable in his portraits, and is not found in an equal degree in any other painter. If he had joined to this most difficult part of the art, a patience in finishing what he had so correctly planned, he might justly have claimed the place which Vandyck, all things considered, so justly holds as the first of portrait-painters" (Sixth Discourse).

2529. THE LADY WITH THE FAN.

2530. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Sir Joshua Reynolds has some interesting remarks on the technique of Janssens. "There is a kind of finishing," he says, "which may safely be condemned, as it seems to counteract its own purpose; that is, when the artist, to avoid that hardness which proceeds from the outline cutting against the ground, softens and blends the colours to excess: this is what the ignorant call high finishing, but which tends to destroy the brilliancy of colour, and the true effect of representation; which consists very much in preserving the same proportion of sharpness and bluntness that is found in natural objects. This extreme softening, instead of producing the effect of softness, gives the appearance of ivory, or some other hard substance, highly polished. The portraits of Cornelius Janssen appear to have this defect, and consequently want that suppleness which is the characteristic of flesh; whereas, in the works of Vandyck, we find that true mixture of softness and hardness perfectly observed" (Eleventh Discourse).

2531. CHURCH OF ST. BAVON, HAARLEM.

In No. 1451 (by Berck-Heyde) we see the interior of the same church; in the present picture, no public service is going[Pg 718] on. In each case a dog is a church-goer; here in front of the pew on the left, where a man kneels down in prayer, a dog kneels up.

2532. A WOMAN DRIVING SHEEP.

2533. A SANDY LANE.

2534. RIVER SCENE, WITH HORSEMAN.

2535. JUDITH.

Eglon was the pupil of his father, the landscape-painter, Aart van der Neer; but the son's taste took the direction rather of interiors and portraits. He also painted some Biblical subjects.

A costume piece: note the richly embroidered white satin dress of Judith.

2536. MOONLIGHT.

2537. LANDSCAPE: WITH A CART IN THE FOREGROUND.

2538. DIANA BATHING.

A characteristically "Rembrandtesque" effect, the light concentrated on the principal figure.

2539. A MAN WITH A CAP.

This fine portrait-study was formerly in the collection of the Duke of Sutherland.

[Pg 719]

2540. THE HURDY-GURDY.

Peasants listening to a man playing the hurdy-gurdy. Signed in the left foreground "A. V. Ostade, 1653." Formerly in the collection of Lord Dudley (at whose sale in 1892 it fetched £1470).

2541. THE COBBLER.

2542. COURTSHIP.

2543. A MAN WITH A JUG.

2544. THE CART.

2545. RIVER SCENE.

2546. LADY AND CHILD IN A LANDSCAPE.

2547. CATTLE WITH HERDSMEN.

Shown at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857.

2548. BOY HOLDING A GREY HORSE.

2549. THE TAILOR'S SHOP.

2550. THE AFTERNOON NAP.

[Pg 720]

2551. A WOMAN SCOURING PANS.

A painter of Amsterdam. The year of his death is not known; 1660 is the date of the last mention of him in extant documents. A deed of 1645 records that the painter bound himself, at a yearly fee of 1200 gulden, to work exclusively for a certain picture-dealer, from 7 a.m. till dusk, daily, Sundays and Festivals alone excepted.

2552. REFUSING THE GLASS.

Formerly in the collections of Pierre de Grand Pré (Paris) and the Earl of Shaftesbury.

2553. A LADY AT HER TOILET.

2554. SADDLING A HORSE.

2555. WOMAN ASLEEP.

2556. THE PEDLAR.

2557. MERRY MAKERS.

2558. GRACE BEFORE MEAT.

Steen, though he loved scenes of rollicking conviviality and was fond of sly humour, by no means confined himself to such moods. His brush traced every episode of family life, and this little piece is as pretty as one of the "Graces for Children" in Herrick's Noble Numbers:—

[Pg 721]

This picture was formerly in the Leuchtenberg Collection at St. Petersburg.

2559. THE OYSTER FEAST.

2560. THE SKITTLE PLAYERS.

2561. VIEW NEAR HAARLEM.

A beautiful example of the master, who has signed it in full in the centre of the foreground. It will be noticed that the point of view is much the same, and that the effect of sunlight in the middle distance is the same, as in the large picture, No. 990. One may ask the question which Fromentin puts of a like instance: "The two landscapes are, the one on a large scale, the other on a small, a repetition of the same subject. Is the little canvas the study which served as text for the large? Did Ruysdael design, or did he paint from nature? Was he inspired, or did he copy directly? That is his secret. In any case the two works are charming."

2562. COUNTRY SCENE, WITH RUINED CASTLE.

This is one of the best known of Ruysdael's small pictures, much prized for its luminous quality: its pedigree has been traced through famous collections for over 100 years. In the Bredel sale (1875) it fetched £2310; in the Dudley sale (1892), £1470. It is No. 786 in vol. iv. (1912) of Smith's Catalogue Raisonné.

2563. THE ENTRANCE TO THE FOREST.

2564. A COTTAGE ON A ROCKY HILL.

2565. COTTAGE AND HAYSTACK.

2566. SKIRTS OF A FOREST.

[Pg 722]

2567. A STORMY SEA-PIECE.

2568. A LADY AT THE VIRGINALS.

No. 15 at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1900, where it was thus described: "A lady seated on the right facing to left; she wears a yellow skirt with blue overdress, the sleeves trimmed with lace, and turns her face to the spectator as she plays. Her clavichord stands upon a marble table and is open, showing a landscape painted inside the cover; a viol da gamba and bow are in the left-hand bottom corner, and a blue and yellow curtain above; a picture with three figures hangs on the wall behind. Signed to the right of the lady's head, J V Meer."

2569. THREE BOORS DRINKING.

Brouwer, Flemish by birth, Dutch by adoption, rivalled his contemporary, the younger Teniers, as a genre painter. His realism is as humorous as it is vigorous. His pictures, says M. Havard, "are marvels of arrangement and colouring. They are sober in conception, and exhibit exquisite modelling, remarkable softness, and light and shade full of transparency and truthfulness; qualities which, during his lifetime, obtained for Brouwer the admiration of his brother-artists and the enthusiasm of Rubens," who, as is known from extant documents, possessed several of his pictures. His portrait was painted by Van Dyck to be placed in a collection of the most celebrated portrait-painters.

Brouwer led an exciting life, and has been the subject of several biographies, which have alternately covered him with scandal and whitewashed him. Documents unearthed during recent years support the earlier accounts, which represent this painter of topers as a jovial, reckless, dissipated Bohemian; though his epitaph may yet have partly told truth in describing him as "a man of great mind, who rejected every splendour of the world, and who despised gain and riches." The documents are set out by Wurzbach (Niederländisches Künstler-Lexicon, 1906). Taking all the evidence together, we may picture Brouwer as a genial fellow, fond of adventure, slow in setting to work, quick in spending, inclined to libertinism and drink, constantly running into debt, a sworn foe of shams and parade, fond of his joke, a lover of poetry, and popular among all who knew him. One[Pg 723] of the stories told of him well illustrates his mocking contempt of fashionable vanities. At Amsterdam he had bought himself some coarse linen, which he had made up into a fashionable suit and then painted with a flowered pattern. Brouwer's costume became the talk of the town, and shops were ransacked to furnish copies of it; till one night at the theatre, the artist jumped on to the stage, wiped off his pattern with a wet cloth, and laughed at his audience. He was born at Oudenarde, ran away from home, had exciting adventures on the way, and turned up in Amsterdam and Haarlem. He is said to have entered the studio of Frans Hals, and to have been very badly treated there. He is known to have been an artist of repute, moving also in literary circles, in Amsterdam and Haarlem, 1625-27. He is next heard of at Antwerp, where in 1631-32 he was admitted into the Painters' Guild. Three years later he became a member of the section of the Guild for exercising rhetoric. He was cast into the state prison, probably on suspicion of espionage; and during the seven months of his incarceration, succeeded in running up new debts to the extent of £400—a feat which may be explained by the fact that the prison amenities included an excellent wine-tavern. He died—of his dissipations, according to some, but quite as probably of the plague—and was buried in the cemetery, and afterwards in the Convent Church of the Carmelites. His pictures are rare. The Wallace Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum (Ionides Collection), and the Dulwich Gallery have each one good example. It has been suggested that the Landscape, No. 72 in our Gallery, hitherto attributed to Rembrandt, is by Brouwer.

2570, 2571. WOODY LANDSCAPES.

2572. THE LITTLE FARM.

No. 57 in the Exhibition of Dutch Masters at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1900, when it was thus described: "In the centre, among sparse trees in leaf, stands a small farm; to left a man accompanied by a woman on horseback, driving a flock of sheep to pasture; in the left foreground a pool of water, with a cow drinking; in the centre, two herdsmen, with cows, sheep, and goats lying down and feeding. Cool daylight with light clouds spreading over blue sky." Signed in the centre "A. v. Velde 1663."

[Pg 724]

2573. SEA-SCAPE: WINDY DAY.

2574. CALM: SHIPPING.

2575. A MUSICAL PARTY.

Palamedes was the son of a gem-engraver at Delft. He became Dean of the Painters' Guild. He painted portraits and small "conversation pieces," and sometimes supplied figures for the architectural pictures of his friend Dirk van Delen (see 1010). "The light and spirited pose of his figures, his bold touch, and the skill with which he makes the outline of his little groups stand out, please the eye" (Havard).

2576. A FAMILY GROUP.

A painter of Amsterdam much influenced by Frans Hals.

2577. A STIFF BREEZE.

2578. A WINDMILL BY A RIVER.

2579. SCENE ON THE ICE.

2580. RIVER SCENE.

2681. A. VAN LEEUWENHOEK, F.R.S.

A portrait of the eminent Dutch savant (1632-1723) who has been called "the father of scientific microscopy." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1680.

[Pg 725]

2582. FRUIT AND FLOWERS.

David de Heem, the elder, born at Utrecht, was the father of the more celebrated still-life painter of the same name. He and his son were the founders of the "still-life" school in their country.

Except for the snail, this brightly-coloured arrangement of oysters, a lemon, a plum, cherries and nuts, with a glass of wine, is not unlike the kind of arrangement of actual eatables and drinkables which one may see to-day in the shop-windows of Italian restaurants in London. Nor, in all probability, was the motive of the picture different. "The painting of still-life in Holland," says M. Havard, "was originally sign-painting. Inn-keepers and game-dealers had real pictures as signs, painted upon their shop-fronts, and we know of several of these simple masterpieces which have found their way into important collections" (The Dutch School, p. 260).

2583. CATTLE IN A STORMY LANDSCAPE.

Signed, and dated 1647; formerly in the collection of Mr. Hope, of Deepdene.

2584. A LADY HOLDING A MIRROR.

2585. ST. MARY MAGDALEN.

Ysenbrandt was an assistant of Gerard David (see 1045). He came to Bruges, and was admitted into the Painters' Guild in 1510; he worked there till his death. He acquired a reputation for skill in painting the nude and the human countenance; his carefulness of execution and the sweetness of expression which he gave to his faces were much admired. Many of his pictures were sent to Spain (see W. H. Weale in the Burlington Magazine, vol. ii.).

This picture of the Magdalen, before whom an angel holds a crucifix, was in the Exhibition of the Primitives at Bruges in 1902. The artist's careful execution may be noted in the beautifully illuminated MS.

[Pg 726]

2586. COAST SCENE.

2587. A CALM.

2588. A DUTCH GALLIOT.

2589. THE YOUNG ASTROLOGER.

2590. A WOMAN AT A WINDOW.

2591. THE FORGE.

2592. FRUIT PIECE.

2593. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Cristus was born at Baerle, near Ghent. He purchased the right of citizenship at Bruges in 1444—that is, four years after the death of Jan van Eyck. He cannot therefore have been a pupil of that master, as has often been surmised; but he belongs to the school of the Van Eycks "by his realistic style, by the extreme care he bestowed on details, by his bold and powerful colouring, and by the tasteful arrangement of his draperies and interiors. But his works can never be mistaken for those of Van Eyck; his outline is often harsh, his types are wanting in character; his figures, designed and executed with very inferior skill, are not painted in the same impressive manner as those of the great master" (Wauters). The portrait of a Venetian consul (No. 696) is ascribed to him.

Acquired by Mr. Salting from the Earl of Northbrook's collection; No. 10 at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1892—remarkable for the preciseness and microscopic minuteness of hand displayed in it. The portrait of a devout and studious young man. He holds an open book; and on the wall of his chamber there is hung a board on which an illuminated sheet[Pg 727] of vellum, edged with a narrow red riband, has been nailed. The miniature at the top of it represents the Vernacle (our Lord's head with cruciform nimbus and rays); and below is a rhymed prayer, headed Incipit oratio ad sanctam Veronicam, and continuing "Salve sancta facies Nostri redemptoris," etc.

2594. THE DUKE OF CLEVES.

2595. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Dirk Bouts, Thieiri Bouts, Dierick of Haarlem, or Thieiri Stuerbout (by all of which names he has been called) was Dutch by birth, being born at Haarlem. At some unknown date he migrated to Flanders, and established himself at Louvain, where he was appointed Painter to the Town. In 1468 he delivered to the Council two beautiful pictures (now in the Museum of Brussels) representing "The Judgment of the Emperor Otho." His colouring, says M. Havard, "is clear and brilliant. Red and green assume under his brush the brilliancy of the ruby and the emerald. His draperies are of unusual softness, and have none of that stiffness of fold which is peculiar to Jan van Eyck and some of his pupils. His flesh tints are of a warm and vivid tone, and his shadows are remarkably transparent. But his merit is manifested especially in his picturesque and original manner of arranging his compositions. He is besides remarkable for the care and distinctness with which he treats the landscapes in the background of his pictures." Little is known of his life, and the ascription of various works to him is conjectural. To him, in the latest revision of labels in our Gallery, are now attributed Nos. 664, 774, and 943.

2596. ST. JEROME.

2597. THREE VENETIAN GENTLEMEN AND A CHILD.

"In the year 1545 I became known to," says Vasari, "and contracted much friendship with Giovanni Calcar, a Flemish painter of great merit, who so successfully practised the Italian manner that his works were not always perceived to be those of a Fleming; but he died at Naples while still young, and when the fairest hopes had been conceived respecting his[Pg 728] future progress." He worked first at Dordrecht; but in 1536 went to Venice, where he entered Titian's studio. He became a good master, says Vasari elsewhere, "whether for large or small figures, and in portraits was most admirable. By his hand—and they must do him honour to all time—were the designs for anatomical studies which the most admirable Andrea Vessalio caused to be engraved on copper and published with his works" (vol. v. p. 403).

2598. DIANA AND ENDYMION.

A sketch painted about 1636.

2599. A VISIT TO THE DOCTOR.

2600. CARD PLAYERS.

2601. AN OLD WOMAN READING.

2602. A MAN WITH A RING.

2603. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

By the master of the "Death of the Virgin" (a picture in the Munich Gallery), a painter of Cologne, the teacher, it is said, of Bruyn. The donor of the picture, with spectacles and a large straw hat, stands at a desk, reading. (The curious in such matters may consult Notes and Queries, 1890, for other early instances of spectacles in art.) The picture was No. 48 (Plate 23) in the Burlington Fine Art Club's Exhibition of Early Netherlandish Pictures, 1892.

2604. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

This painter, who worked at Augsburg, probably studied under Hans Burgkmair, and the painting of Hans Holbein the younger had an evident effect on his style, so much so that his works have been[Pg 729] sometimes mistaken for those of Holbein. In 1532 he painted the portrait of Charles V.; and Sandrart tells us that this portrait was considered by the Emperor equal to any of the pictures painted of him by Titian. He certainly honoured the artist by giving him a gold chain and medal on the occasion (Bryan's Dictionary of Painters).

2605. DR. FUCHSIUS.

This artist painted both religious subjects and portraits. His earlier works in the former kind recall the style of "The Master of the 'Death of the Virgin'" (see above, 2603). Bruyn was the last really eminent painter of the Cologne School. He was a municipal councillor of that town in 1550 and 1553.

A portrait of the celebrated German physician, Leonhard Fuchs (1501-1566), one of the fathers of scientific botany. He has obtained, says Hallam, a verdant immortality in the familiar flower which bears his name, the fuchsia. He espoused the doctrines of the Reformation; in our portrait he holds a paper inscribed (in German) "The word of the Lord endureth for ever."

2606. THE MADONNA ENTHRONED.

In the centre of the triptych, the Virgin sits on a throne of Flemish renaissance design. On the right, St. Ambrose; on the left, St. Louis of Toulouse. The royal rank of the latter Saint (nephew of St. Louis, King of France, and son of Charles of Anjou, King of Naples), who renounced his succession and became Bishop of Toulouse, is commonly indicated as here, by fleur-de-lys upon a blue ground.

2607. A MAN WITH A MEDALLION.

2608. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ANGELS.

Campin, a native of Hainault, settled at Tournai in about the year 1406, and quickly made a reputation, becoming painter-in-ordinary to[Pg 730] the town. Between 1423 and 1428 there are records showing that he filled several offices in the Painters' Guild and amassed a considerable fortune. He had several apprentices; among them, Roger Van der Weyden (see 711), who was with him from 1426 to 1432. He made many designs for tapestry and seems to have been charged with the designing of all municipal art work in whatever kind (W. H. Weale, in the Burlington Magazine, vol. xi.).

2609. VIRGIN AND CHILD IN AN APARTMENT.

The Virgin is of the same unlovely type as in the picture ascribed to Bouts, No. 2595. Behind her head is a screen of plaited straw.

2610. ANTOINE DE BOURBON.

Two painters are catalogued under this name, father and son, who are sometimes distinguished as "Corneille le Grand" and "Corneille le Petit." The elder was a Flemish painter, who became naturalised in France in 1547. In 1540 he was appointed Painter to the Dauphin; in 1551, Painter to the King. He is mentioned in a poem of 1544, and in a deed of 1564. Several portraits in the Museum of Versailles and at Chantilly are ascribed to him. (See Henri Bouchot's Les Clouet et Corneille de Lyon.)

2611. A MAN IN BLACK.

2612. LOUIS XI., KING OF FRANCE, 1423-1483.

2613. PHILIP AND MARGARET OF BURGUNDY.

These pictures are of the early Burgundian School.

2614. A LADY AS MARY MAGDALEN.

Notice the pearl embroidery.

[Pg 731]

2615. MARY, QUEEN OF FRANCE.

Formerly supposed to represent Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII., born in 1498.

2616. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

2617. THE DUCHESS D'ANGOULÊME.

2618. VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ANGELS.

Possibly by an artist of the Catalonian school.

2619. LANDSCAPE.

2620. THE HAPPY MOTHER.

The only poets who seized the spirit of the France of the eighteenth century were, said the brothers Goncourt, two painters: Watteau and Fragonard. It was Fragonard, says Sir Claude Phillips, "whose frank passion, whose irresistible élan lighted up the decline of the century much as the imaginativeness of Watteau, his reticence and wistful charm even in the midst of voluptuousness, lighted up its first years. He is the Ovid of French painting." He was born at Grasse near Cannes; and the pupil, in Paris, first of Chardin and then of Boucher (see 1258, 1090). Having won the Prix de Rome in 1752, he travelled in Italy, drawing all the sights and monuments, and studying the old masters. The works of Tiepolo (see 1192) especially attracted him, and something of their brilliant, flashing bravura was to be characteristic of Fragonard himself. Soon after his return to Paris, a picture of "Coresus and Callirhoë" made a sensation in the Salon, and inspired what Lord Morley calls "an elaborate but not very felicitous criticism" by Diderot. Fragonard did not return, however, to compositions in the classical style; he found his métier, and a highly lucrative practice, in pictures of sentimental genre, audaciously amorous in subject, and of masterly grace and lightness in execution. Some of his most famous works in this sort are to be seen in the[Pg 732] Wallace Collection. The beautifully decorative canvases, the "Roman d'Amour de la Jeunesse," which were exhibited in London in 1898 and are now in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection, were a commission from Madame du Barry, who, however, for reasons which have not been clearly explained, declined them. From Mademoiselle Guimard, the dancer, and queen of the monde galant, Fragonard had received a like commission; and the story is well known of the revenge taken by the painter when he threw up the task, and transformed his portrait of the lady as Terpsichore into Tisiphone. In 1794 Fragonard retired for security from the Terror to Grasse, and on his return to Paris he found his vogue gone. The Revolution had killed the taste for his amorous trifles. The reign of the Classical School of David had begun; and Fragonard died in comparative oblivion and poverty.

In 1769 Fragonard had married Marie Anne Gérard, the miniature painter; and to the succeeding years belong, says his biographer (the Baron de Portalis), many pictures of which the theme is the cradle. Our picture is of that kind.

2621. WILLOWS.

Daubigny was the youngest member of the "Barbizon" group; and, though he has artistic affinity with them, and regarded Corot as his master, he painted not in their chosen district, but on the banks of the Oise. His landscapes have not the poetry of Corot's, nor the force of Rousseau's; but they are more comfortable, as it were, and human. Corot's world might be inhabited by dryads; in Rousseau's landscapes man is subordinate or overpowered; Daubigny paints nature as the pleasant abode of human beings fond of the country—commons not too remote from a garden wall, the banks of pleasant streams where men may boat or fish. The country with him is full of fresh air. "There is a story told of a poor young man, afflicted with consumption, who coming suddenly before a work of Daubigny, exclaimed, 'Ah, I can breathe better now'" (Thomson's Barbizon School, p. 283).

Daubigny's life is in accord with what have been suggested above as characteristic notes of his art. He had no privations, storms, or struggles. He was born at Paris, in an artistic family; and as a youth assisted his father in painting boxes, clock-cases and the like. He was a delicate child, and had lived much with his nurse Bazot at Valmondois on the Oise, where too he afterwards spent many holidays and where in later years he made his home. At the age of 18 he went to Italy, where the pictures of Claude especially attracted him. On his return he was engaged for a time as a picture-restorer. He studied with Paul Delaroche, but struck out a line for himself in[Pg 733] landscape pictures and etchings, and his works gradually found favour. He had a boat made for voyaging on the Oise and Seine, and this served as a floating studio. He built himself a house at Auvers on the Oise, which was decorated with paintings by Corot and other artist-friends. In 1866 he was invited by Leighton and others to visit England, and he exhibited at the Academy. In 1859 he had been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and in 1874 he was promoted to the grade of Officer. On his death-bed he said to those about him "Adieu; I am going to see above if friend Corot has found me any motifs for landscapes."

Sunset effect on a lake; with brilliant colours piercing through the trees to the water. Signed, and dated 1874.

2622. THE BANKS OF A RIVER.

An earlier picture (signed, and dated 1859). The small house-boat or barge in the foreground may be the painter's floating studio, mentioned above.

2623. ALDERS.

2624. THE GARDEN WALL.

2625. THE BENT TREE.

This beautiful picture was formerly in the collection of the late Mr. Alexander Young, one of the earliest purchasers of Corots in England, and was generally considered the gem of his collection of works by that master. The writer of an account of the Young Collection calls attention, in describing this picture, to "the wonderful gradation of tones in the trees and foreground, the subtle beauty of the distant view, the massing and treatment of the trees against the luminous sky, the dignified restraint of the colour scheme" (Studio, vol. 39).

2626. THE WOOD GATHERER.

Also from the Young Collection.

[Pg 734]

2627. EVENING ON THE LAKE.

Formerly in the collection of Lord Leighton. That Corot liked the effect of trees stretching out a graceful arm across the water may be seen by comparing this picture with No. 2625.

2628. NOON.

2629. A FLOOD.

2630. COWS STANDING IN A MARSH.

How simple are the ingredients out of which Corot makes a picture! A marsh, two cows with a herdsman, and four willows; but all are suffused in a beautiful haze, and wrought into an exquisite harmony of tone and colour. Like all Corot's pictures, this should be seen from some little distance; the more it is observed, the more will its charm be felt.

2631. THE FISHERMAN'S HUT.

An exquisite harmony in tender green and pink.

2632. THE STORM.

2633. COMMON WITH STORMY SUNSET.

2634. RIVER SCENE.

Dupré, the last of the romantic school of French landscape, the friend and the survivor by many years of Millet and Rousseau, was born at Nantes. He began by painting on china, in the studio at Sèvres of his uncle, Arsène Gillet, to whom also Diaz was at one time[Pg 735] apprenticed. At the age of 22 he was already exhibiting at the Salon; and unlike other members of the group, he was well treated by the artistic powers of the day. During a visit to England he became acquainted with Constable. He lived at Isle-Adam near Paris.

2635. SUNSET AT AUVERGNE.

2636. THE WHISPER.

Millet, the peasant painter of France, occupies an important place in the history of modern art. He heard, as he said, le cri de la terre; and it is this to which he gave expression in painting. Gambetta well described the characteristics of Millet and his great contemporary. Rousseau (see 2439) "revealed the forest; Millet was the painter of the seasons, the fields, and the peasants." Rousseau and others of the school were painters of the country, of work-a-day nature; Millet painted the country-labourers. He did not idealise them, but he showed, with deep poetry, the dignity of their labour. This is the spirit of the great pictures—"The Sower," "The Gleaners," "The Angelus," by which through engravings and other reproductions he is most widely known. The depth of impression which those works are found to make was the result of intense feeling and infinite pains on the part of the artist. "The Angelus" hung on the point of finish for many months. "I mean," he said, "I mean the bells to be heard sounding, and only natural truth of expression can produce the effect." When a visitor wanted to buy "The Sheepfold," Millet would not let it go. "It is not complete," he said; "you cannot hear the dog bark in there yet." The life and character of Millet were in accord with his work. He was born of peasant ancestry, and the boy grew up, as Mr. Henley says, "in an environment of toil, sincerity, and devoutness. He was fostered upon the Bible and the great book of nature." "Wake up, my little François," was his grandmother's morning salutation, "the birds have long been singing the glory of God." He learned Latin from the parish priest, and he soon became a student of Virgil. He followed his father out into the fields, and thenceforward, as became the eldest boy in a large family, worked hard at grafting and ploughing, sowing and reaping, scything and sheaving and planting, and all the many duties of husbandmen. The life he painted was the life he knew and had led. The spirit in which he painted it was that of his own reverent, and somewhat melancholy, temperament. In 1849 he moved from Paris to Barbizon, on the borders of the Forest of Fontainebleau, which henceforward was his home. "If you could but see," he wrote, "how beautiful the forest is! It is so calm, with such a terrible grandeur, that I feel myself really afraid in it." "The most joyful[Pg 736] thing I know," he wrote in a letter of 1851, "is the peace, the silence that one enjoys in the woods or in the tilled lands. One sees a poor, heavily laden creature with a bundle of faggots advancing from a narrow path in the fields. The manner in which this figure comes suddenly before one is a momentary reminder of the fundamental condition of human life and toil. On the tilled land around, one watches figures hoeing and digging. One sees how this or that one rises and wipes away the sweat with the back of his hand. 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.' Is that merry, enlivening work, as some people would like to persuade us? And yet it is here that I find the true humanity, the great poetry."

Like most innovators, Millet had to create the taste by which he was to be admired; and, though the tale of his struggles and poverty is sometimes exaggerated, he had many discouragements and times of difficulty. He was neither "classical" nor "romantic," and both of those schools of art looked askance at him. He was born at Gruchy, near Cherbourg; and till the age of 18 lived the life of a peasant. As there were then other sons to help on the farm, his father, who had long noticed the lad's artistic talent, took him to Cherbourg, where he received some instruction under Mouchel and Langlois successively, and where the Town Council gave him assistance in pursuing his studies. The death of his father recalled him for a while to the farm; but in 1837, at the age of 23, he went to Paris and entered the studio of Delaroche (see 1909). His studio-nickname was "The Man of the Woods." He tried to sell works in his own style, but found no market for them, and had to take instead to painting pastorals, etc., in the manner of Boucher and Watteau. He married in 1841; his wife died in 1844, and in 1845 he married again. For a time, he attained a certain vogue as a painter of the nude, and a classical picture of [OE]dipus in the Salon of 1847 attracted some attention. In 1849, as already said, he settled at Barbizon, and it is from 1850 onwards that his great works date. They did not sell, or they commanded very small prices. One was bought by his devoted friend, Rousseau; for "The Angelus" he received £100. Within 20 years of his death, it fetched £22,120 at public auction. But the reputation of Millet grew gradually in his lifetime, and in 1868 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He is buried beside Rousseau at Chailly, near Barbizon.

This little "pastoral," in which a girl reclines on a rock, while a naked child whispers in her ear, belongs to the painter's earlier period.

2669. ST. CLEMENT AND DONOR.

Attributed to the master of Jean Perréal (called Jean de Paris, who lived about 1463-1529); painter to Louis XII.

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St. Clement, in cope and mitre (as Bishop of Rome), rests his right hand on the shoulder of the Donor; and in his left hand carries an anchor (the emblem referring to the legend of the Saint having been cast into the sea bound to an anchor). Londoners are familiar with the emblem, as it surmounts the steeple of St. Clement Danes in the Strand.

2670. LADY HOLDING A ROSARY.

2671. A PIETÀ.

2672. A VENETIAN GENTLEMAN.

This striking and powerful portrait is signed by the artist on the parapet. It was formerly in the Bonomi-Cereda Collection at Milan (see Berenson's Lorenzo Lotto, p. 107).

2673. NARCISSUS.

This pretty little picture was shown at the Old Masters' Exhibition of 1870, where Ruskin noted it as an example of the phase in Italian art in which "pictorial perfectness and deliciousness" were sought before everything else (Works, xix. 444-5). "The same model reappears in the profile portrait of a youth (also in the character of Narcissus) in the Uffizi Gallery; again in a profile of San Sebastian in the Frizzoni Collection at Bergamo; and again in a profile drawing in the Louvre" (No. 47a at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1898).

2709. MOTHER AND CHILD.

2710. THE DRAWBRIDGE.

Two small pictures by one of the principal masters of the modern Dutch School. Jacob Maris was born at The Hague. He studied in[Pg 738] Paris under Hebert, and exhibited at the Salon from 1862 to 1872, when he returned to The Hague. His figure-studies show, says R. A. M. S., "a perception of the rich but quiet tissue of colour which wraps all Nature if you look at it broadly enough." In landscape he and his brother Matthew are the chief of modern Dutch painters.

2711. WATERING HORSES.

Mauve, one of the favourite landscape-painters of the modern Dutch School, was born at Zaandam, the son of a Baptist minister. He studied art at Amsterdam; his pensive and peaceful landscapes, often combined with horses and other animals, rapidly became popular. "His colour," wrote W. E. Henley, "is quite his own. To a right sense of nature and a mastery of certain atmospheric effects, he unites a genuine strain of poetry. His treatment of animals is at once judicious and affectionate. He is careful to render them in relation to their aerial surroundings; but he has recognised that they too are creatures of character and sentiment, and he loves to paint them in their relations to each other and to man. The sentiment is never forced, the characterisation is never strained, the drama is never exorbitant; the proportions in which they are introduced are so nicely adjusted that the pictorial, the purely artistic qualities of the work are undiminished" (Edinburgh Exhibition Catalogue, 1886).

This picture is a good example of the luminous skies in which Mauve excelled. The sky shines, it has been said, even on a dull day (see an appreciation of Mauve by Frank Rutter in the Studio, vol. 42).

2712. THE INTERIOR OF HAARLEM CHURCH.

A characteristic piece by a painter of architecture who "rendered very delicately the play of sunbeams in the interior of picturesque churches, and warm effects of light in large halls and dusky corners" (Muther).

2713. THE PHILOSOPHER.

Joseph Israels, the head of the modern Dutch School and a painter of world-wide reputation, has been called "The Dutch Millet," and "a modern Rembrandt"; and the phrases serve to indicate his characteristics, and his place in the development of modern art. He[Pg 739] essayed to do what Rembrandt had done triumphantly two centuries before: to paint "not accidents, but life itself." He made in Dutch art the same departure that Millet made in French: he turned from conventional themes and motives to the life around him. Like Millet, Israels made a false start in art. He went to Paris in 1845, entered the École des Beaux-Arts, showing "Achilles and Patroclus" as his probationary drawing, and on his return to Amsterdam in 1848 began to paint, as Delaroche had taught him, "historical" scenes, Calabrian brigands, and other subjects in "the grand style." His health broke down, and he was ordered change of scene. At Zandvoort, a small fishing village near Haarlem, he found his Barbizon. "He lodged with a ship's carpenter, took part in all the usages of his house-mates, and began to perceive amid these new surroundings that the events of the present are capable of being painted, that the sorrows of the poor are as deep as the tragical fate of ancient heroes, that everyday life is as poetic as any historical subject, and that nothing suggests richer moods of feeling than the interior of a fishing-hut, bathed in tender light and harmonious in colour. This residence of several months in a distant little village led him to discover his calling, and determined his future career" (Muther). He was a devoted Jew, with a deep interest in the life and character of those of his race who abound in Holland. Among them, and among the Dutch toilers of the sea, he found his vocation, in painting the tragedy, the pathos, or the simple domestic joys of humble working folk. He did this with a technical mastery and with rare insight. His power of pathetic expression is remarkable; and over his work a spirit of soft tenderness is suffused. Many, perhaps most, of his pictures are sombre, but he had an eye for youth and hope, as well as age and sorrow, and few artists have painted children with so much sympathy. His method is broad and simple; his pictures having unity of effect, and telling their own story with great directness.

Joseph Israels was born at Gröningen, in the north of Holland, and for a time was occupied in his father's business as a money-changer, but he was encouraged to draw. In 1844 he went to Amsterdam, and entered the studio of Jan Kruseman. Then, as already related, came his student-years in Paris, and his false start as an historical painter. In 1855 he was represented at the Paris Exhibition by an historical picture of the Prince of Orange. In 1857 he showed at the Salon "Children by the Sea" and "Evening on the Beach." This change of subject marks the true start in an artistic career which was continuously successful, and which was prolonged into extreme old age. In 1862 his picture of "The Shipwrecked Mariner" (see below, 2732) created a sensation at the International Exhibition in London. In 1863 he married and settled down in a house midway between The Hague and Scheveningen, facing the canal. "Here the boats with their loads of herrings pass slowly along, so that the painter has only to look out of the front windows of his house in order to see the very men and women, the boats and towing-ropes, that figure in his[Pg 740] canvases. His work is done in a studio in his garden; here he has a glass house, in which he paints his open-air figures, and has likewise fitted up a corner of an old Dutch cottage, so that open-air scenes and interiors may be as lifelike as it is possible for an artist to render them. As you enter this studio, you perceive a little old gentleman at work, dressed in a brown velvet coat. His hair is silvery white, and his somewhat pale face is lit up with the kindliest of smiles. He speaks five or six languages in the pleasantest voice imaginable, and English is one of them."

Personally, Israels was one of the most breezy of men, full of life and vigour, genial and accessible: "as fresh in mind as a youngster in his teens, as versatile as he is amiable, able and always ready to talk on every conceivable subject of interest, ever contributing some caustic and pointed comment, yet never assuming the dictatorial and self-opinionated manner which genius often considers itself privileged to adopt. His modesty, his unfailing amiability to all, young and old, distinguished and insignificant, have served to endear Joseph Israels to all who come in contact with him. He does not care to talk much about his own achievements, but he is less reticent about those of his son Isaac, who, he declares, is a greater artist than himself." These personalia are quoted from notices which appeared in connection with the artist's 75th birthday (in the Daily News and in Israel). He had still twelve years of life; and "his was the rare satisfaction of the man who, beginning in advance of his time, creates his own public, and sees it growing stronger, larger, and more devoted as he passes from youth to middle life and thence to extreme old age. He was not consciously the founder of a school, but he had many close followers, and the modern Dutch painters, who are now so fashionable, owe their fundamental ideas to him" (Times, Aug. 15, 1911).

There are passages in Browning's Grammarian's Funeral which will suggest themselves to many readers as they study this picture of an old student writing by the light of a single candle. The picture may be compared with an earlier Dutch one of a like subject—"The Philosopher," by Bega (1481).

2714. GRANDFATHER'S BIRTHDAY.

Eugène Gabriel Isabey (by whom there are several pictures in the Wallace Collection) was born in Paris, the son of the celebrated miniature-painter, Jean-Baptiste Isabey. He first appeared as a genre painter; and "amid the group of Classicists of his time, he had (says Dr. Muther) the effect of a beautiful patch of colour." He afterwards took to sea painting, having in 1830 accompanied the French expedition to Algiers as marine draughtsman.

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A characteristic example of the elegant facility with which the painter rendered scenes involving gay attire.

2715. FISH MARKET, DIEPPE.

2723, 2724. LANDSCAPES.

These landscapes, only recently included in the official numbering of the collection, were presented by Mr. P. Pusey in 1849.

2725. CHRIST BLESSING.

"If Benedetto be the painter of the fine picture of 'Christ at Emmaus,' in the church of St. Salvatore, Venice, still attributed in the guidebooks to Giovanni Bellini, he must have been an artist of no ordinary merit, and one who gradually, from an unpromising commencement of his artistic career, attained a high place among the followers of the master. A half-length figure, larger than life, of the Saviour in the act of blessing, signed with the painter's name, in private possession at Venice, although in a very damaged condition, has a grand and impressive character not unworthy of Bellini, to whom, as to other Venetian masters of note, many works by Diana in sundry collections are ascribed. He was employed with the two Bellini and Alvise Vivarini in decorating the hall of the Ducal Palace" (Layard's ed. of Kugler, 1887, p. 333).

2727. LE PONT DE LA TOURNELLE, PARIS.

Born at Caen; studied under Corot; exhibited at the Salon from 1859.

The Church of Notre Dame in the middle distance.

2731. LANDSCAPE.

William Buitenweg, or Buytewech, best known for his landscape drawings, was born at Rotterdam; married at Haarlem in 1613, and in 1625 returned to Rotterdam.

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2732. THE SHIPWRECKED MARINER.

This celebrated picture—one by which the master often said he would like to be judged—created a great sensation at the International Exhibition of 1862. It was, said one critic, the most moving picture in the exhibition; before it, said another, crowds daily linger. The storm has passed, the waves have subsided, the greyish-black thunderclouds have vanished, and greenish, pallid sky smiles upon the earth once more. But upon the waves a shattered boat still rocks, and men and women and children have come down to see what victim may have been cast up by the tide—"For men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbour bar be moaning." Two fishermen reverently bear home the body of their dead comrade. His disconsolate wife and two awestruck children walk in front, and his old mother beside him. A man with a boat-hook, a woman pointing to the wreck on the reef, and others follow the procession, in the rear of which is the pathetic figure of a dog.

2757. TARTARUS: A SATIRICAL DESIGN.

"A curious and fantastic composition (in Indian ink), by a celebrated engraver and draughtsman, in which it would seem that the artist intended to satirise the ecclesiastic factions rife in France during the minority of Louis XIII. Under the vault of a huge cave, round the upper part of which evil spirits and harpies are sporting, several figures are grouped. In the centre of the foreground two Jesuits are derided by demons. On the right, Cerberus, chained to a rock, guards the entrance to Hell, while an armed warrior (Louis XIII.) stands near with his back to the spectator. On the left is Death, surrounded by his victims and the Vices. In the middle distance Charon is crossing the Styx with his boat full of passengers, whom a crowd on the shore vainly endeavour to join. Beyond are represented the tortures of the condemned, among whom Ixion, Tityus, the Danaides, and other mythological personages are conspicuous. The armorial bearings introduced on the lower edge of the drawing are supposed to be those of M. de Boyer of Baudot, who is said to have suggested the design" (Director's Report, 1884). The artist's independence of character is recorded in a familiar anecdote. He was witness to the siege and[Pg 743] capitulation of his native town, Nancy, in 1633, and the French king called on him to engrave a plate commemorative of the occurrence. When he declined, some of the courtiers are said to have remarked to the artist that there were means to make him comply. He replied that he would sooner cut off his right hand than employ it in such a work; a speech which, being reported to the king, led him to say that the Dukes of Lorraine were fortunate in the possession of such subjects.

2758. A SQUALL FROM THE WEST.

2759. STORMY LANDSCAPE.

2764. A FAMILY GROUP.

This picture once formed part of No. 1699; the right arm of the seated child and the tablecloth here are continued there.

2767. THE SEA.

Courbet is famous in the history of modern French painting as the first of the "realists"; he is the Caravaggio of France, full of force and vigour, but often somewhat coarse and brutal. His landscapes and seapieces will probably be esteemed more highly by posterity than his realistic works. He was, says Dr. Muther, "the first French painter of sea-pieces, who had a feeling for the sombre majesty of the sea. His very quietude is expressive of majesty; his peace is imposing, his smile grave; and his caress is not without a menace." Courbet was a revolutionary in politics, as in art. In September 1870 he was appointed Director of the Fine Arts by the Provisional Government, and he afterwards joined the Commune. He was instrumental in saving many works of art, but he ordered the destruction of the Column in the Place Vendôme. For this he was brought before a court-martial and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Afterwards, in a civil action, he was cast in heavy damages; his furniture and pictures were sold; and he retired to Switzerland. He died at La Tour, Vevay, a ruined man.

[Pg 744]

2790. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

This famous picture was acquired for the National Gallery from Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle, in 1911, for £42,776.[262] The picture was painted in about the year 1500 for the Abbey of Grammont in East Flanders. In 1600 it was bought for 2000 florins by the Archduke Albert to decorate the high altar of the Court Chapel in Brussels. A story which is recorded of it in those days is a tribute to its bright attractiveness. During Lent it used to be concealed by the hanging in front of it of a picture of the Crucifixion as less likely to interfere with the penitential thoughts proper to the season. In the 18th century the picture passed into the collection of Prince Charles of Lorraine, Governor-General of the Netherlands, and thence into that of the fifth Earl of Carlisle. For more than a century it remained at Castle Howard, and many connoisseurs who saw it there wrote of it as one of the chief art-treasures of Great Britain. "I do not think," wrote W. Bürger (Thoré), "that there is anywhere else a picture by Mabuse so brilliant, so well preserved, so capital as the Adoration of the Kings, belonging to the Earl of Carlisle." "For variety of character, glow of colour, and finished execution, quite unsurpassed," said Mrs. Jameson of it.

The pride of the artist himself in his work is shown by the fact that he has signed his name upon it in two places—i.e. on the head-dress of Balthasar, the black king, and on the metal collar of his attendant. The signature Jennin Gossart (diminutive, Little John), was that under which Mabuse was inscribed as a member of the Guild of St. Luke at Antwerp. In the history of Flemish art the picture is of interest as one of the last works painted before the "Italianising" influence became marked. It is one of the finest specimens of Mabuse's first period (see under 656); but it will be noticed that the architecture of the ruin is no longer Gothic, but already shows the influence of the Renaissance. The picture is after 400 years in perfect preservation. It has an artistic unity, for the parts are [Pg 745]subordinated to the whole; but it is full of incident, which adds not a little to its attractiveness and curious interest.

The Adoration of the Magi affords a remarkable instance of the way in which the Bible text, first expounded by Church legends, was then embroidered by the painters; and this example of "evolution in art" may be studied very fully in the National Gallery, which contains pictures of the subject painted in various schools and at various periods. The starting-point of the whole development is the second chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel where it is related that "wise men came from the East to Jerusalem"; that a star guided them to Bethlehem; and that "when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him; and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts—gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." Legend set itself to work on this narrative. The Wise Men, it was decided, were three in number; and the Psalmist's prediction—"the Kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring presents, the Kings of Sheba and Saba shall offer gifts"—showed that the Magi were kings. Later writers identified their realms as Tarsus, Saba, and Nubia; whence one of the kings is commonly represented as a Moor or Nubian. Their names also became known—Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Further developments of the legend—how their remains were discovered by the Empress Helena at Constantinople, and taken by Milan to Cologne—do not here concern us; it will be seen that by the time art was ready to take up the story, the painters had much material around which to let their fancy play.

The earlier painters in each school treated the story simply. Then as technical resources increased, and artistic effect rather than mere religious instruction became the motive, the theme was ever more and more expanded, until it became the most gorgeously rendered of all the Gospel scenes. Many readers will remember the severe and simple treatment of the subject by Giotto in the Arena Chapel at Padua; with which may be compared in our gallery Orcagna's small picture (574). If the visitor after looking at that will turn to the splendid pageant (1033), with its seventy figures, by Botticelli (or Filippino Lippi), he will see at a glance how the theme became embroidered and enlarged. The picture by Fra Angelico (582) represents an intermediate stage. A similar[Pg 746] contrast may be noted in the Flemish room. The picture attributed to David (1079) is simple, earnest, and homely; far less gorgeous and various than the Mabuse. The fact is that, in the more elaborate pictures of the subject, it was taken as an excuse or occasion for displaying whatever elements of pomp or circumstance appealed to the individual artist. Thus Peruzzi (167 and 218) elaborates the architecture and the horses, and introduces portraits. The Tuscans made out of the subject a Florentine pageant. Mabuse's picture is interesting, amongst other reasons, as a kind of epitome of the arts and crafts of his time. Note, for instance, the cups and chalices in which the kings bring their presents; their jewelled robes and head-dresses; and, for a minor detail, the pretty bag worn by the Black King's page: it might well be copied for a lady's reticule to-day.

No less remarkable than the variety of treatment in pictures of the Magi is the large measure of uniformity of type which may be found in them all. A few remarks on these common elements, which were for the most part symbolic, will serve the double purpose of directing attention to further details in Mabuse's picture and of connecting it with other examples in the Gallery. The scene of the drama is in the earliest pictures a stable or a shed; in the later, it is almost invariably the ruins of a temple or other ancient building—a symbol of the triumph of Christianity over paganism. The ox and the ass will be noticed among the ruins here, and the shepherds are seen approaching. The idea is to mark the event as a manifestation alike to the Jews (the shepherds) and to the Gentiles (the Magi). Angels hover above, singing the "Gloria in Excelsis," and the composition is crowned by the Star with the Dove. The background almost invariably includes a mountainous landscape, through which the retinue of the kings may be discerned winding its way—a reminder that they journeyed from a far country. This is a feature, indicated sufficiently by Mabuse, which may be seen more emphasised in the picture by Foppa (729). The Kings are nearly always shown as old, middle-aged, and young respectively, and one of them is black: when the Gentiles were called to salvation, all ages, continents, and races were included. In Mabuse's picture the equality of the races is emphasised in a further way; the Black King, conspicuous on the left, has his train borne by a white page. The eldest of the kings[Pg 747] offers a vase of gold, out of which Christ has taken a piece, which He holds in His hand. The king uncovers his head. "To most mediæval painters the Adoration envisages itself essentially as an act of feudal homage." Conspicuous in the foreground are two dogs. "The one on the right," says the Official Catalogue, "is similar to a dog by Albert Dürer in his engraving of St. Eustace, that on the left is reversed from a print by Martin Schongauer." The dog is often thus included in the "Adoration"; as, for instance, in one of the earliest (Orcagna, 574) and in one of the latest (Peruzzi, 218) of our versions; and everybody will have noticed how frequently in other religious pictures also the dog is introduced. "This custom of putting either the dog, or some inferior animal, to be either in contrast, or modest companionship, with the nobleness of human form and thought, is," says Ruskin, "a piece of what may be called mental comparative anatomy, which has its beginning very far back in art" (Eagle's Nest, ch. 8; see also Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. chs. 3, 6). The place of Joseph in the scene differs a good deal in different pictures, for the early legends varied. Orcagna (574) shows him receiving one of the presents from the hands of the Child: he plays, as it were, the part of royal treasurer or chamberlain. Dosso Dossi (640) shows him kneeling in the background. In the present picture he stands, in a red dress, under an archway, listening devoutly to the heavenly harmony. All the figures in Mabuse's picture (there are some thirty) will repay examination. The Virgin's expression is well given; and, as a study in contrasts, the reverent figures behind the kneeling king may be compared with the man on the extreme left who, catching hold of a pillar, is leaning out in curiosity to see the sights. There is much other detail which might be described—the plants, for instance, in the foreground and on the ruins; but enough has been said to indicate the wealth and variety of interest which is to be found in this picture.

2856. A CAVALIER AND A LADY.

Quast was a painter and engraver of The Hague; his pictures are in the style of Brouwer and Isaac van Ostade.

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2862. ST. JOHN GUALBERTO.

This picture represents St. John Gualberto, the Florentine (died 1073), establishing the Order of the Vallombrosans, whose proper habit is of a pale ash colour. He was Abbot of San Miniato, from which he retired to Vallombrosa, establishing there the Order called after the place of its original home.

2863. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS.

School of Benozzo Gozzoli (Florentine: 1420-1497). See 283.[Pg 749]

PICTURES ON LOAN

THE HOLY FAMILY.

This picture, not yet numbered, is lent by the Victoria and Albert (South Kensington) Museum. It is generally characteristic of Fungai, but the figure of the Infant Christ is not pleasing.

Lent by Mr. Pierpont Morgan.

THE MADONNA DI SANTI ANTONIO.

"In the same city (says Vasari)—[the city of Perugia, for which also the Ansidei Madonna was painted]—Raphael was commissioned to paint a picture of Our Lady by the nuns of Sant' Antonio of Padua; the Infant Christ is in the lap of the Virgin and is fully clothed, as it pleased those simple and pious ladies that he should be; on each side of Our Lady are figures of saints, San Pietro, namely, with San Paolo, Santa Cecilia, and Santa Catarina. To these two holy virgins the master has given the most lovely features and the most graceful attitudes; he has also adorned them with the most fanciful and varied head-dresses that could be imagined—a very unusual thing at that time. In a lunette above this picture he painted a figure of the Almighty Father, which is extremely fine, and on the[Pg 750] predella are three scenes from the history of Christ, in very small figures.... The whole work is without doubt very admirable; it is full of devout feeling, and is held in the utmost veneration by the nuns for whom it was painted. It is very highly commended by all painters likewise."

The small scenes which formed the predella have been dispersed;[263] for the rest, the picture thus described by Vasari is before us. Vasari dates the work 1505, but it is now commonly ascribed to the years 1507-8, after Raphael had experienced the influence of Fra Bartolommeo; it would thus be a little later than the Ansidei Madonna.

The history of the picture is long and eventful. In 1677 the nuns obtained permission to sell it, "to pay their debts and because the surface was in some parts flaking away." The central panel and the lunette (forming the picture as it now is) were bought by Antonio Bigazzini, a nobleman of Perugia, for a sum of about £500. Shortly afterwards, the picture passed into the hands of the great Colonna family at Rome, and it is often called "The Colonna Raphael." The fortunes of the picture now became part of those of modern Italian history. In the last century, the picture had been bought by Francis II., King of Naples. It was a great favourite of his, and was always kept in his bedroom in the Royal Palace. When the revolution of 1860 came, and the king was driven out of Naples, the Raphael accompanied him on his wanderings, and the king succeeded in conveying it in safety to the fortress of Gaeta. When Gaeta fell in 1861, and the king went into exile, he again took the picture with him, and it was safely transported to Spain. The king was accompanied in his flight by the financier and factotum, formerly Spanish Minister at Naples, upon whom he had conferred the title of Duke of Ripalda. To him the king in some way pledged the picture, and for a time it became known as the Ripalda Raphael. Its history next becomes connected with the secular jealousies of England and France. In 1867 Sir J. C. Robinson saw the picture at Madrid, and received a hint that it might possibly be for sale. Sir William Boxall, the Director of our Gallery, went to inspect the picture, which was then in fine condition; and Disraeli authorised the trustees to buy it. Negotiations [Pg 751]were commenced on the basis of £20,000; but the Duke of Ripalda was a friend of the Empress Eugénie, and the knowledge that England was in the market inspired a counter-bid of £40,000 from France. The outbreak of the Prussian War caused a hitch in the negotiations; and the picture, which had been sent to Paris, underwent rigorous "restoration." The Colonna Raphael, wrote Sir William Gregory (May 1870), "was, a few months ago, one of the most perfect and important pictures of that master. In an evil moment it had been submitted to the cleaner, and a piteous spectacle it now is in the eyes of gods and men. It is said that on the old frame being removed, the picture fell to the ground in three pieces. This is confirmed by the extraordinary winking appearance of the eye of one of the female saints, through which unfortunately one of the cracks runs, and which therefore had to be repainted by a modern hand." Ruskin, perhaps unaware of these repaintings or believing that they could be removed, strongly urged the acquisition of the picture for the nation (Works, xxii. 140, xxxiv. 512). But the authorities would not entertain the idea, and the picture, refused both by the Louvre and by the National Gallery, returned, unpurchased and unhonoured, into the hands of the Duke. In 1886 it was lent to the South Kensington Museum and there it remained for several years, until Mr. Martin Colnaghi bought it from the representatives of the late King of Naples. The Parisian repaintings were removed, and the picture was restored to much of its pristine beauty. Ultimately it passed into the possession of Mr. Pierpont Morgan (at the price, it is said, of £100,000), and by him it is for the present lent to the National Gallery.

THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

Signed "Lo Fil de Mestre Rodrigo." Lent by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

---

[Pg 752]

COPIES FROM THE OLD MASTERS

I.—VELAZQUEZ

One collection is of fifty-nine copies in oil-colour, on a reduced scale, of pictures by Velazquez in the Prado Gallery, at Madrid, presented by Lord Savile. They were painted by Mr. Chidley Molony, an English gentleman who first went to Spain as an officer in the army of General Evans, and subsequently settled at Madrid, where he was a great favourite and well known, especially to the English Colony. The following are the subjects of these copies:—

1. The Adoration of the Magi.
2. The Crucifixion.
3. The Coronation of the Virgin.
4. St. Anthony visiting St. Pablo.
5. A Group of Rustics drinking (the picture known as "Los
Borrachos").
6. The Forge of Vulcan.
7. The Surrender of Breda (the picture known as "Las Lanzas").
8. The Tapestry Fabric of St. Isabel at Madrid (the picture known
as "Las Hilanderas").
9. Velazquez in his painting room, with various members of the
Royal Family and their Attendants (the picture known as
"Las Meninas").
10. "Mercury and Argus."
11. Equestrian Portrait of King Philip III.
12. Equestrian Portrait of Queen Margarita de Austria (wife of
Philip III.).
13. Equestrian Portrait of King Philip IV.
14. Equestrian Portrait of Queen Isabel de Borbon (first wife of
Philip IV.).
[Pg 753]15. Equestrian Portrait of Prince Baltasar Carlos, as a child.
16. Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Olivares.
17. Portrait of Philip IV. as a young man, in court dress.
18. Portrait of the Infanta of Spain, Doña Maria, Queen of Hungary
(sister of Philip IV.).
19. Portrait of the Infante, Don Carlos, second son of Philip III., in
court dress.
20. Portrait of King Philip IV. in hunting dress.
21. Portrait of the Infante, Don Fernando de Austria (brother of
Philip IV.), in hunting dress.
22. Portrait of Prince Baltasar Carlos, at the age of six, in hunting dress.
23. Portrait of King Philip IV., at the age of fifty (?), clad in half
armour.
24. Portrait of Doña Mariana de Austria (second wife of Philip IV.).
25. King Philip IV. kneeling at prayer.
26. Queen Mariana de Austria, second wife of Philip IV., kneeling at
prayer.
27. Portrait of Prince Baltasar Carlos, son of Philip IV., at the age of
fourteen, in court dress.
28. Portrait of the Infanta, Maria Teresa de Austria, daughter of
Philip IV. and afterwards Queen of France.
29. Portrait (bust length) of the Cordovan poet, Don Louis de Góngora
y Argote.
30. Portrait of Doña Juana Pacheco, wife of the author (bust length;
in profile).
31. Portrait of a Girl (daughter of Velazquez?).
32. Portrait of a Girl (another daughter of Velazquez?).
33. Portrait of a middle-aged Lady (half length).
34. Portrait of Don Antonio Alonso Pimentel, ninth Count of Benavente,
Groom of the Bedchamber to King Philip IV.
35. Portrait of the Sculptor, Martinez Montanes (half length).
36. Portrait of Pablillos de Valladolid, a Jester of King Philip IV.
37. Portrait of Pernia, a Jester of King Philip IV. (commonly known
as the Portrait of "Barbarroja").
38. Portrait of a Jester of King Philip IV., nicknamed Don Juan de
Austria.
39. Portrait of a Dwarf of King Philip IV., called "El Primo."
40. Portrait of a Dwarf of King Philip IV. (Sebastian de Morra?)
41. Portrait of Don Antonio, an English (?) Dwarf of King Philip IV.
(with a mastiff).
42. The Boy of Vallecas.
43. The Idiot of Coria.
44. Æsop.
45. Menippus.
46. The God Mars.
47. Portrait of a Man (bust length).
48. Portrait of a Man (bust length).
49. Portrait of Alonso Martinez de Espinar, Groom of the Bedchamber
[Pg 754]to Prince Baltasar Carlos (bust length).
50. View in the Garden of the Villa Medici, Rome.
51. View in the Garden of the Villa Medici, Rome.
52. View of the "Calle de la Reina" in Aranjuez, with a Royal
Cavalcade on the road.
53. Study of an old Man's head, in profile.
54. Study of an old Man's head (a smaller copy).
55. Portrait of Philip IV., in court dress.
56. Portrait of Prince Baltasar Carlos, as a child, in court dress.
57. A Group of Figures, presumably painted by Velazquez, in the foreground
of a "View of Zaragoza", by Juan Bautista Martinez del
Mazo.
58. Another group of Figures in the same picture.
59. Portrait of Doña Mariana de Austria, second wife of Philip IV.,
dressed in mourning (now attributed to Juan B. M. del Mazo).

II.—REMBRANDT

A second collection (also presented by Lord Savile) consists of forty copies, painted in oil-colour, on a reduced scale by Herr Paul Roemer, from pictures by Rembrandt in the Imperial Gallery of the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. The subjects are as follows:—

Enclosed in one Frame—

1. The Denial of St. Peter.
2. Portrait of Rembrandt's Mother; half length; seated, holding a book on her knees.
3. Portrait of Rembrandt's Mother; half length; seated.
4. Portrait of a young Warrior in armour.
5. Portrait of an aged Jew; half length; seated.
6. Portrait of a Man; half length; standing.
7. Portrait of a Woman; half length; seated.
8. Portrait of the Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel; seated.
9. A young female Servant, with a broom.
10. "Le Benedicite." (A Peasant family saying grace.)

Enclosed in one Frame—

11. Abraham at Table with the Angels.
12. Jacob's elder Sons showing him Joseph's garment.
13. Potiphar's Wife accusing Joseph.
14. The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard.
15. The Incredulity of St. Thomas.
16. Portrait of Rembrandt's Mother; half length; seated.
17. Portrait of a young Jewess, crowned with flowers.
[Pg 755]18. Portrait of a Turk; half length.
19. Portrait of a Man.
20. Portrait of a young Man, with long fair hair.
21. Portrait of a young Man, dressed in black.
22. Portrait of an old Man.

Enclosed in one Frame—

23. The Sacrifice of Abraham.
24. The Holy Family.
25. The Return of the Prodigal Son.
26. Danaë.
27. Portrait of an old Officer.
28. A Young Girl at her Toilet.
29. Portrait of a Man.
30. Portrait of a Woman.
31. A Landscape; with figures representing the journey to Emmaus.
32. View on the Rhine.
33. The Toilet of a young Jewish Girl.

Enclosed in one Frame—

34. The Disgrace of Haman.
35. The Descent from the Cross.
36. Portrait of Lieven Willemszon van Copenol, the Calligrapher.
37. The Mother of Rembrandt; half length; seated.
38. Portrait of an aged Jew.
39. Portrait of an old Man.
40. A Nun teaching a Child to read.

III.—MURILLO, Etc.

A third collection (presented by Dr. E. J. Longton, of Southport) consists of forty-five small water-colour copies, by W. West, from pictures by old masters, principally in the Prado Gallery at Madrid. The following are the subjects:—

After Murillo—

1. The Adoration of the Shepherds. Prado, Madrid.
2. St. Elizabeth of Hungary tending the Sick. Academy of St. Fernando, Madrid.
3. The Dream of the Roman Senator and his Wife. Ibid.
4. The Roman Senator and his Wife telling their Dream to Pope Liberius. Ibid.
5. St. Thomas of Villanueva giving alms. Museum, Seville.
6. Christ on the Cross, supported by St. Francis. Ibid.
[Pg 756]7. SS. Justa and Rufina. Ibid.
8. St. Anthony with the Infant Saviour. Museum, Seville.
9. St. Felix restoring the Infant Christ to the Virgin. Ibid.
10. La Vergen de la Servilleta. Ibid.
11. Moses striking the Rock in Horeb. La Caridad, Seville.
12. St. John the Baptist as a Child, with the Lamb. Ibid.
13. The Charity of St. Juan de Dios. Ibid.

After Zurbaran (?)

14. A Legendary Subject.

After Velazquez—

15. Los Borrachos (The Tipplers). Prado, Madrid.
16. Portrait of Philip IV. (with a Dog). Ibid.
17. Prince Balthazar as a Boy on his Pony. Ibid.
18. Portrait of the Infanta Doña Margarita. Ibid.
19. Portrait of a Male Dwarf, with a Dog. Ibid.
20. Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour); Velazquez in his Studio painting the Infanta Margarita Maria. Ibid.
21. Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV. Ibid.
22. Portrait of the Earl of Nottingham. Ibid.

After Titian—

23. Portrait of Philip II. as a Young Man. Ibid.
24. Equestrian Portrait of Charles. Ibid.
25. The Bacchanal. Ibid.
26. Portrait of Charles V., with a Dog. Ibid.
27. Portrait of an Officer.

After Rubens—

28. The Three Graces. Ibid.
29. The Garden of Love. Ibid.

After Van Dyck—

30. The Betrayal of Christ. Ibid.
31. Portrait of Henry, Count de Berg. Ibid.
32. Portrait of a Cavalier. Ibid.

After Ribera—

33. Jacob receiving Isaac's Blessing. Ibid.
34. Jacob's Dream. Ibid.

After Jordaens—

35. Family Group in a Garden. Ibid.[Pg 757]

After Raphael—

36. The Holy Family (La Perla). Prado, Madrid.
37. The Holy Family (La Rosa). Ibid.
38. The Holy Family (Del Lagarto). Ibid.
39. Christ bearing the Cross (Lo Spasimo). Ibid.

After Correggio—

40. Noli me tangere. Ibid.

After Claude—

41. Landscape, with St. Mary Magdalen kneeling. Ibid.

After Giorgione—

42. The Virgin and Child, with St. Bridget. Ibid.

After Rembrandt—

43. Queen Artemisia. Ibid.

After Sir A. More—

44. Queen Mary of England. Ibid.

After Parmigiano—

45. Portrait of a Lady with three Children (probably Riccarda Malaspina, Wife of Lorenzo Cibo). Ibid.

IV.—THE ARUNDEL SOCIETY'S COLLECTION

The Arundel Society was formed in 1849 in order to meet "a revived interest in art by suitable instruction." In the case of early Italian art, "the materials for such instruction were abundant, but scattered, little accessible, and, in some instances, passing away." The Society set itself to secure engravings and other records of works of art which came within the description just given. A large collection of water-copies from the Old Masters was thus accumulated, and the Collection was in 1897 deposited in the National Gallery on loan. Two years later, the Society was wound up, and the collection was given to the nation. It is of great interest and value to all students of mediæval art. Many of the Arundel copies are familiar from reproductions in chromo-lithography. "The latter," as a well-known critic has remarked, "although they undoubtedly did good service in their time by calling attention to the less known and less easily available masterpieces of the earlier Italian art, were[Pg 758] often enough lamentable caricatures of the things which they professed to represent. The drawings themselves are, however, in many cases, of an exquisite accuracy, of which the reproductions give little or no idea. Of course, when the attempt is made to copy in this medium the great achievements of Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Palma Vecchio, Paolo Veronese,—or even of such earlier colourists as the Van Eycks and Memlinc,—failure, more or less complete, must inevitably be the result. It would be difficult, on the other hand, to overestimate the value of such copies as those of the famous frescoes of Mantegna in the Church of the Eremitani at Padua, those of Benozzo Gozzoli at San Gimignano and Montefalco, of Piero della Francesca at Arezzo, or of the great galaxy of Quattrocento painters—Perugino, Pinturicchio, Botticelli, Ghirlandajo, Signorelli, Cosimo Rosselli, and Piero di Cosimo—who worked in the Sixtine Chapel before Michelangelo came to dwarf and efface them with his stupendous ceiling, and, thirty years later on, with his 'Last Judgment.' For the purposes of study and comparison these copies, lent by the Arundel Society, fulfil much the same role as does a good museum of casts from antique masterpieces. They do not enable the student of art to form a complete idea of the originals, any more than the copies of the Pheidian and Praxitelean sculptures do; but they enlarge his view of the scope and significance of Italian and Netherlandish art in their greatest phases, and happily they fill up gaps which must occur even in the most various and representative collection, such as is the National Gallery."[264]

It is hoped that the following catalogue may serve to bring before the notice of visitors the importance of a collection [Pg 759]which deserves much greater attention than it has hitherto received. The artists represented are arranged alphabetically, with references to such of them as are also represented by original work in the National Gallery. After the title of each work, information is given as to the nature of the original from which the copy is made, and the place where the original is. The numerals after each picture refer to the numbers at present on the frames.

Albertinelli (see under 645).

The Visitation (11): picture, Uffizi, Florence.

Andrea del Castagno (see under 1138).

The Last Supper (120): fresco, Convent S. Apollonia, Florence.

Angelico, Fra (see under 663).

Christ and Magdalen (51): fresco, Convent of S. Marco, Florence.
Christ at Emmaus (76): " " " "
The Transfiguration (49): " " " "
The Crucifixion (91): " " " "
The Entombment (50): " " " "
The Marys at the Sepulchre (53): " " "
Madonna and Child, etc. (65): " " "
The Presentation (54): " " " "
The Annunciation: " " " "
Coronation of the Virgin: " " " "
Christ as a Pilgrim (70): " " " "
Ordination of St. Stephen (55): fresco, Vatican, Rome.
Adoration of the Magi (166): " " "
Lives of SS. Stephen and Lawrence (128, 131, 134, 193, 194, etc.): frescoes, Chapel of St. Lawrence, Vatican.

["The remote little chapel containing Fra Angelico's masterpieces." Without seeing it, no one can have any conception of "the strength and freedom of the artist." "These frescoes are the highest expression of that which the friar for many years had been striving after. They are an anthology of his artistic virtues" (Fra Angelico, by Langton Douglas: see pp. 141-158 for a full discussion of them).]

Avanzo, Jacopo d' (Veronese: painted 1377).

St. Lucy and her Judges (36): fresco, S. Antonio, Padua.
Martyrdom of St. George (183): fresco, S. Giorgio, Padua.

Bartolommeo, Fra (see under 1694).

Christ at Emmaus (72): fresco, S. Marco, Florence.
Vision of St. Dominic (45): "      "    "
Virgin and Child (24):      "      "    "
"Noli me tangere":          "      "    "

[Pg 760]

Bellini, Giovanni (see under 189).

Virgin and Child (62): picture, Frari, Venice.

["The art of Bellini is centrally represented by two pictures at Venice: one the Madonna in the sacristy of the Frari with two saints beside her, and ten angels at her feet; the second, the "Madonna with four Saints" over the second altar of San Zaccaria. In the first of these the figures are under life size, and it represents the most perfect kind of picture for rooms; in which, since it is intended to be seen close to the spectator, every right kind of finish possible to the hand may be wisely lavished; yet which is not a miniature, nor in any wise petty or ignoble, etc." (Ruskin: Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, p. 14).]

Boccaccio Boccaccino (see under 806).

Christ among the Doctors (57): fresco, Cathedral, Cremona.

Botticelli (see under 1034).

Spring (86): picture, Belle Arti, Florence.

[The most probable explanation of the allegory is this:—The picture represents a masque or joust of Spring given by Giuliano de' Medici in honour of his mistress, "La Simonetta Vespucei," who is here represented as Spring, Giuliano himself figuring as Mercury. In the centre is Venus with Cupid above her head, pointing an arrow at Giuliano. Shortly after the joust, Giuliano was murdered, and La Simonetta died. The death-like figure to the extreme left, breathing upon Spring, represents the premonition of these coming disasters. Simonetta was a favourite model of Botticelli's, the same slender and long-throated lady appearing in many of his works, though sometimes spiritualised almost past recognition (cf. Ariadne Florentina, Appendix iv.; and a sonnet by D. G. Rossetti describing this picture).]

Destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (180): fresco, Sistine Chapel.
Moses at the Well (185): fresco, Sistine Chapel.
The Temptation (110):      "        "    "
Venus rising from the Sea (87): picture, Uffizi, Florence.

[For an interesting description and interpretation of this picture, see Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance: "The light is cold—mere Sunless dawn; but a later painter would have cloyed you with sunshine; and you can see the better for that quietness in the morning air each long promontory as it slopes down to the water's edge. Men go forth to their labours until the evening; but she is awake before them, and you might think that the sorrow in her face was at the thought of the whole long day of love yet to come. An emblematical figure of the wind blows hard across the grey water, moving forward the dainty-tipped shell on which she sails, the sea 'showing his teeth' as it moves in their lines of foam, and sucking in one by one the falling roses.... What is unmistakable is the sadness with which Botticelli has conceived the Goddess of Pleasure as the depositary of a great power over the lives of men."]

Giovanna Tornabuoni and the Graces.
Lorenzo Tornabuoni and the Liberal Arts.

[Copies from the frescoes formerly in the Villa Lemmi, near Florence, now in the Louvre: for a description of them, see Ruskin's Art of England, § 69.]

Buffalmacco (Florentine: 1262-1351).

Raising of Lazarus (216): fresco, Assisi.

[Pg 761]

Carpaccio (see under 750).

St. George baptizing the Princess (79): picture, S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice.
St. Jerome in his study (89):          "        "          "
The Calling of St. Matthew (77):        "        "          "
St. George and the Dragon (190):        "        "          "

[See for full descriptions of these pictures Ruskin's "St. Mark's Rest," Shrine of the Slaves.]

St. Vitale and Saints (259); picture, Church S. Vitale, Venice.

[Signed, and dated 1514. An admirable example of the master.]

Cimabue (see under 565).

Frescoes in the upper church of Assisi (137-155).

["In these works there is an evident struggle in the mind of the artist to give to traditional form the expression of a living intention; but all that belongs to a closer imitation of nature in her individual peculiarities—all that belongs to the conception of characteristic or graceful action,—is still wanting. The form of the countenance is alike throughout; the expression, as conveyed by mien, always constrained. Yet, notwithstanding all these defects, these works must be regarded as having been mainly instrumental in opening a new path to the free exercise of art."—Kugler.]

Domenico di Bartolo (Sienese: died 1449).

Copies from two of the frescoes in the Hospital of S. Maria della Scala, at Siena (Nos. 1 and 6 of the series, "The Rearing, Education, and Marriage of Foundlings," and "Pope Celestine's approval of the building of the Hospital").

Dürer, Albert (see under 1938).

St. John and St. Peter (99): picture, Pinakothek, Munich.
St. Mark and St. Paul (103):  "        "          "
Adoration of the Trinity (101): picture, Belvedere, Vienna.

Eyck, Van, The Brothers (see under 186).

Adoration of the Lamb (107): altar-piece, Cathedral, Ghent.

[This famous picture has been put together, in the copy, from the originals, which are now distributed among Ghent (three central panels), Brussels (the Adam and Eve), and Berlin (the remaining panels).]

Foligno, Niccolo da (see under 1107).

Virgin and Child (40): altar-piece, Gualdo Tadino, Umbria.

Forli, Melozzo da (see under 755).

Pope Sixtus VI. (38): fresco, Vatican Gallery, Rome.
Angels (68, 76, 206, 217): fresco, sacristy, St. Peter's, Rome.

Francesca, Piero della (see under 665).

The Resurrection (32): fresco, Palazzo Communale, Borgo San Sepolcro.

[Pg 762]

Battle for the Recovery of the True Cross (178): fresco, S. Francesco, Arezzo.

St. Helena finding the True Cross: fresco, S. Francesco, Arezzo.

Dream of Constantine (161): fresco, S. Francesco, Arezzo.

["The movement and life in the compositions, the variety in the expressions of the numerous figures, their energy of action, and the grand treatment of the draperies, are all equally remarkable."—Kugler.]

Francia (see under 180).

Marriage of St. Cecilia: fresco, St. Cecilia, Bologna.
Burial of St. Cecilia:    "      "            "

Gaddi, Agnolo (Florentine: died 1396).

Nativity of the Virgin (207): fresco, cathedral of Prato.
Betrothal (179):              "      "          "

Gaddi, Taddeo (see under 215).

Adoration of the Magi (113): fresco, lower church, Assisi.

Ghirlandajo (see under 1230).

Calling of the Apostles (115): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.
The Last Supper (88): fresco, Ognissanti, Florence.
St. John the Baptist (90): fresco, S. Maria Novella, Florence.
Zacharias Naming his Son (92):      "        "        "
Birth of the Baptist (111):          "        "        "
Angel appearing to Zacharias (132):  "        "        "
Baptism of Christ (159):            "        "        "
Expulsion of Joachim (171):          "        "        "
Birth of the Virgin (172):          "        "        "
Marriage of the Virgin (175):        "        "        "
The Salutation (195):                "        "        "
Massacre of the Innocents (196):    "        "        "
Presentation in the Temple (226):    "        "        "

[For a criticism of Ghirlandajo's frescoes in this church, see Ruskin's Mornings in Florence, pp. 25, 26.]

The Emperor Augustus and the Sibyl (84): fresco, S. Trinita, Florence.
Death of St. Francis of Assisi: fresco, S. Trinita, Florence.
Death of S. Fina (47): fresco, Cappella S. Fina, S. Gimignano.
Burial of S. Fina (158):        "        "        "

Giorgione (see under 269).

Virgin and Child (9): altar-piece Castelfranco.

[This according to Ruskin, is one of the "two most perfect pictures in existence; alone in the world, as an imaginative representation of Christianity, with a monk and a soldier on either side, the soldier bearing the white cross of everlasting peace on the purple ground of former darkness."—Oxford Lecture, reported in Cook's Studies in Ruskin, p. 251. For a further description of the picture, see Stones of Venice, Travellers' edition, ii. pp. 177-179.]

[Pg 763]

Giotto (see under 568).

The Life of St. Francis (2, 95, 199-205, 215-220): frescoes, upper church of S. Francesco, Assisi.

The Virtues: frescoes, lower church of S. Francesco, Assisi.

[Here, in "the cradle of Florentine art," the young Giotto worked out his apprenticeship as a painter. For Ruskin's estimate of Giotto's work at Assisi, see Fors Clavigera for 1877.]

Vices and Virtues (82 A, etc.): frescoes, Arena Chapel, Padua.
Pietà:                            "          "          "

Gozzoli (see under 283).

Scenes from the Life of St. Francis (208, 222, 242, 267): frescoes, church S. Francesco, Montefalco.

Virgin and Child (97): altar-piece, church of S. Francesco, Montefalco.

Scenes from the Life of St. Agostino (46, 224, 243, 244): frescoes, church S. Agostino, S. Gimignano.

The Journey of the Three Kings to Bethlehem (37, 39, 41, 123, 248): frescoes, Riccardi Palace, Florence.

["The chapel in the Palazzo Medici, now Riccardi, is made the scene of the journey, represented in a sumptuous procession of knights, squires, and pages, with dogs and hunting leopards. He has also introduced portraits of various members of the Medici family and of some of the principal citizens of Florence."—Kugler's Italian Schools, i. 164.]

Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca: fresco, Campo Santo, Pisa.

Guido da Siena.

Virgin and Child (241): picture, S. Domenico, Siena.

[Stated on an inscription to have been painted in 1221. Relying on the date, the Sienese have disputed the claims of the Florentines to have been the regenerators of Italian art. But it has been proved that the numerals have been tampered with, the true date being 1281.]

Holbein (see under 1314).

The Meier Madonna (102): picture, Palace Princess Charles, Darmstadt.

[This is from the original, of which there is a celebrated copy at Dresden. "The received tradition respecting the Holbein Madonna is beautiful, and I believe the interpretation to be true. A father and a mother have prayed to her for the life of their sick child. She appears to them, her own Christ in her arms. She puts down her Christ beside them—takes their child into her arms instead. It lies down upon her bosom, and stretches its hand to its father and mother, saying farewell."—Ruskin's On the Old Road, i. pp. 234, 235.]

Libri, Girolamo dai (see under 748).

Virgin and Child (44): picture, S. Giorgio, Verona.

Leonardo da Vinci (see under 1093).

Virgin and Child: fresco, St. Onofrio, Rome.

[Pg 764]

Lippi, Fra Filippo (see under 666).

Virgin and Child (34): picture, Uffizi, Florence.
Virgin and Child (100): picture, Belle Arti, Florence.

[This is one of the four pictures selected by Mr. Ruskin for his series of "Lesson Photographs."—See Fors Clavigera, 1875, pp. 307-310; 1876, p. 187.]

Burial of St. Stephen (238): fresco, cathedral of Prato.
Heads from frescoes (157, 170): "      "          "

Lippi, Filippino (see under 293).

Virgin and Child (66): fresco, cathedral, Prato.

Vision of S. Bernard (1): altar-piece, Badia, Florence.

Glorification of St. Thomas Aquinas, two heads from: fresco (157); Cappella, Carafa, S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome.

[For a description of this remarkable fresco, "barbarously restored and repainted in 1874," see Kugler's Italian Schools of Painting, i. 160.]

St. Peter delivered from prison: fresco, Brancacci chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter and St. Paul before Nero, and Martyrdom of St. Peter: fresco, Brancacci chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter visited by St. Paul: fresco, Brancacci chapel, Carmine, Florence.

[See also Masaccio and Masolino; the Arundel Society's ascriptions are here followed, but the ascription of these frescoes to one or other of the three artists, Filippino Lippi, Masaccio, and Masolino is doubtful.]

Lorenzetti, Pietro (see under 1113).

The Deposition (29): fresco, lower church, Assisi.
Good Government: frescoes, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

Lorenzo, Fiorenzo di (see under 1103).

Events in the Life of St. Bernardino (30, 229, 230): pictures, Pinacoteca, Perugia.

Luini (see under 18).

Ippolita Sforza in prayer, with attendant saints (74): fresco, S. Maurizio, Milan.
Donor and Saints (266): fresco, S. Maurizio, Milan.
St. Catherine (268): fresco, Santuario della Madonna, Saronno.
St. Apollonia (260):            "        "              "
Head of an Attendant (125):    "        "              "
Head of the Virgin (117):      "        "              "
Marriage of the Virgin:        "        "              "
Adoration of the Magi:          "        "              "
Christ among the Doctors:      "        "              "
Presentation:                  "        "              "

[Pg 765]

Madonna and Child (160): fresco, S. Maria degli Angioli, Lugano.

[In a side chapel to the right of the entrance. "One of the loveliest little pictures in Italy. It is dated 1530, and is probably the last work which the golden hand of Luini bequeathed to the world."—Lund's Como and Italian Lake-land, p. 432.]

Mantegna (see under 274).

The Histories of SS. James and Christopher (38, 42, 227, 230, 236, 239); frescoes, Eremitani Chapel, Padua.

[The most important works of Mantegna's youth. "His early frescoes in the Eremitani look as though they had been painted from statues or clay models, carefully selected for the grandeur of their forms, the nobility of their attitudes, and the complicated beauty of their drapery."—Symonds: Renaissance, iii. 197.]

Masaccio (Florentine: 1401-1428).

St. Peter and St. John giving alms: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter and St. John healing the sick: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

St. Peter preaching: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

The Expulsion from Paradise: " " "

The Tribute Money: " " "

St. Peter and St. Paul raising the King's son: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

Homage of St. Peter: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

[For Masaccio, as the first "naturalist" in landscape, see Ruskin's notices of the frescoes in Modern Painters, vols. i. and iii.]

Masolino (Florentine: 1383-1447).

The History of the Baptist (119, 127, 169, 211): frescoes, Castiglione d' Olona (near Varese).

The Prophet Isaiah (167): fresco, Castiglione d' Olona (near Varese).

The Temptation: fresco, Castiglione d' Olona (near Varese).

St. Peter and St. John raising Petronilla: fresco, Brancacci Chapel, Carmine, Florence.

[Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini, known as Masolino da Panicale, from the place of his birth, is supposed to have been the teacher of Masaccio. He was for some time in the service of Cardinal Branda Castiglione. These frescoes, on one of which he inscribed his name, were executed 1426-1437. They "indicate a careful study of nature, though the type of composition is still that of the 14th century."]

Meister Wilhelm (see under 687).

Virgin and Child (104): picture, collection Archbp. of Cologne.

Memlinc (see under 686).

Panels from Triptych (105): Hospital St. John, Bruges.
Crucifixion (106): triptych, Lübeck Cathedral.

[Pg 766]

Memmi, Simone (Sienese: born 1283).

Annunciation (78): picture, Louvre, Paris.

Death-bed of St. Martin (277): fresco, church S. Francesco, Assisi.

Investiture of St. Martin: fresco, church S. Francesco, Assisi.

St. Martin renouncing the Emperor's service (124): fresco, church S. Francesco, Assisi.

[The real name of this Sienese painter was Simone Martini. He is celebrated by Petrarch: "I have known two painters," he writes, "talented both and excellent, Giotto of Florence and Simone of Siena."]

Michael Angelo (see under 790).

Delphic Sibyl (20): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.
Persic Sibyl (262):  "            "        "
Ezekiel (17):        "            "        "
Jeremiah (16):        "            "        "

[For Ruskin's criticism of these frescoes, see (among other places) Ariadne Florentina, ch. iv.]

Montagna (see under 802).

St. John Baptist and St. Benedict (6): picture, SS. Nazzaro e Celso, Verona.
SS. Nazzaro e Celso (8): picture, SS. Nazzaro e Celso, Verona.
St. Blaise led to execution: "          "                "

Morando (see under 735).

The Deposition (80): picture, Municipal Museum, Verona.

Pacchiarotto (see under 1849).

St. Catherine and St. Agnes (10): fresco, oratory of S. Catherine, Siena.

Palma Vecchio (see under 636).

Virgin and Child (212): picture, church S. Stefano, Vicenza.

[S. Lucia stands on the left; on the right, St. George in armour with his banner—a grand figure recalling the S. Liberale in Giorgione's picture at Castelfranco. One of Palma's finest works.]

Perugino (see under 288).

Christ's charge to Peter (56): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.
Baptism of Christ (181):        "            "        "
Moses and the Angel (197):      "            "        "

[Attributed by Morelli to Pinturicchio: see German Galleries, p. 264.]

Adoration of the Magi (96): fresco, S. Maria de' Bianchi, Città della Pieve.

Crucifixion (5): fresco, S. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, Florence.

Marriage of the Virgin (73): fresco, Convent of S. Girolamo, Spello.

[Pg 767]

Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (28): fresco, chapel of convent at Panicale.

Nativity and Adoration (7): fresco S. Francesco del Monte, Perugia.

The Transfiguration (4): fresco, Sala del Cambio, Perugia.

Peruzzi (see under 218).

Augustus and the Sibyl (250): fresco, church of Fonte Giusta, Siena.

[Peruzzi imparted to this picture, says Lanzi, "such a divine enthusiasm that Raffaelle himself never surpassed him in his treatment of this subject."]

Pinturicchio (see under 693).

Glorification of St. Bernardino (186): fresco, church of Aracoeli, Rome.

Burial of St. Bernardino (130): fresco, church of Aracoeli, Rome.

["Somewhat slight and hard in execution, but full of expression and individual life."—Kugler.]

Betrothal of Frederick III. (75): fresco, Piccolomini Library, Siena.

Piccolomini receiving a Cardinal's hat (71): fresco, Piccolomini Library, Siena.

A drawing of the interior of the Piccolomini Library, showing Pinturicchio's frescoes (43).

The Nativity (82): fresco, S. Maria del Popolo, Rome.

St. Catherine of Alexandria (59): fresco, Appartamenti Borgia, Vatican.

Virgin in Glory (3): altar-piece at Monte Oliveto.

Annunciation: fresco, Cathedral, Spello.

Nativity: " ""

Christ among the doctors: ""

Pordenone (see 272).

Adoration of the Magi (176): fresco, castle of Coll' Alto, near Conegliano.

Flight into Egypt (225): fresco, castle of Coll' Alto, near Conegliano.

Raphael (see under 1171).

Philosophy (22): fresco, in one of the Stanze, Vatican.
Poetry (25):      "            "            "
Poets on Mt. Parnassus (21):    "            "
St. Peter delivered from Prison (19):          "
Theology (23):    "            "            "
Justice (26):      "            "            "
Expulsion of Heliodorus (213):  "            "
Mass of Bolsena (121):          "            "

[Pg 768]

[These frescoes, in one of the chambers of the Vatican, are those by which, according to Ruskin, Raphael "wrote upon its walls the Mene, Tekel, Upharsin of the Arts of Christianity." See Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, pp. 213, 214.]

The Four Sibyls (63): fresco, S. Maria della Pace, Rome.

Roman Wall Painting.

The Nursing of Bacchus (13): Farnesina Gardens, Rome.

Romanino (see under 297).

Visit of Christian II., King of Denmark, in 1475 to Bartolomeo Colleoni (58, 182, 188, 228, 234, 240): frescoes, Castle of Malpaga, near Bergamo.

["There is perhaps no edifice of the kind which gives so complete an idea of the residence of a great Italian nobleman in the middle ages." The frescoes are fully described in Mr. Oscar Browning's Life of Bartolomeo Colleoni, published by the Arundel Society in 1891. "These pictures are extremely interesting as showing the manners and customs of the time; and we cannot but feel that an age which could have crowded into so short a space so many scenes replete with life and colour, with dignity and magnificence, must be worthy of our study. Romanino, the reputed author of the frescoes, was born ten years after the events which they portray. He must, therefore, have worked from the family records of what occurred, although in his own age the life of chivalry was not altogether dead. It is more probable, however, that they were executed by one of his pupils."]

Rosselli, Cosimo (Florentine: 1439-1507).

Worship of the Golden Calf (135): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.
The Last Supper (184):              "            "        "
Passage of the Red Sea (192):      "            "        "
Sermon on the Mount (198):          "            "        "

[The latter is the most successful. The landscape and perhaps other parts are by his pupil, Piero di Cosimo. To Rosselli was formerly attributed No. 227 in our Gallery.]

Santi, Giovanni (see under 751).

Nativity and Resurrection (4): fresco, St. Domenico, Cagli.

Sarto, Andrea del (see under 690).

The Last Supper (122): fresco, S. Salvi, Florence.

[A celebrated work in a convent, now a lunatic asylum, near Florence: commissioned in 1519, finished in 1527. Described and highly praised by Vasari (iii. 224), who says that the beauty of the fresco saved the convent from destruction during the siege of Florence in 1529-30.]

Charity (94): fresco, cloisters of Campagnia dello Scalzo, Florence.

[This fresco is the subject of an interesting dissertation by Max Müller, published by the Fine Art Society, 1887.]

St. John Baptist preaching (93): fresco, cloisters of Campagnia dello Scalzo, Florence.

Birth of the Virgin (51): fresco, Annunziata, Florence.

[Pg 769]

Procession of the Magi (33): fresco, Annunziata, Florence.
St. Filippo Benizzi (52):      "        "          "
Madonna del Saco:              "        "          "

Signorelli (see under 1128).

Scenes from Life of Moses (60): fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.

St. Benedict receiving the true King Totila (144): fresco, Monte Oliveto.

St. Benedict receiving the false King Totila (257): fresco, Monte Oliveto.

[For a description of these frescoes at Monte Oliveto, see Maud Cruttwell's Luca Signorelli, p. 58.]

The Crowning of the Elect (165): fresco, cathedral, Orvieto.
Portraits of Dante and Virgil (from the same): "      "

[For a description of these see Bevir's Visitor's Guide to Orvieto, p. 43, etc.]

Sodoma (see under 1144).

Presentation of SS. Placidas and Maurus to St. Benedict (233): fresco, Monte Oliveto.
St. Benedict Preaching (98): fresco, Monte Oliveto.
Christ (12): fresco, convent of S. Anna, near Siena.
Christ bound to the Column (61): picture, Academy, Siena.
Swoon of St. Catherine (69): fresco, S. Domenico, Siena.
Vision of St. Catherine (64):  "          "        "
Presentation of the Virgin (263): fresco, S. Bernardino, Siena.

Tiepolo (see under 1192).

Anthony and Cleopatra (162, 168): frescoes, Palazzo Labia, Venice.

[The best of Tiepolo's works. "His frescoes in the Palazzo Labia, representing the embarkation of Anthony and Cleopatra on the Cydnus, and their famous banquet at Canopus, are worthy to be classed with the finest decorative work of Paolo Veronese."—J. A. Symonds: Century Guild Hobby Horse, April 1889.]

Timoteo della Vite (Ferrarese: 1469-1523).

The Magdalen (265): picture, Pinacoteca, Bologna.

[By the first master of Raphael. The picture is mentioned by Vasari (iii. 114): "She is standing upright, her vestment is a short mantle, but the figure is covered principally with the long hair, which falls to her feet; and this is so beautiful and natural that, while observing it, one cannot but fancy that the light silky tresses are stirred by the wind. The countenance, also, has the most divine beauty of expression, and clearly exhibits the love which this Saint bore to her Lord."]

Titian (see under 4).

Miracles of St. Anthony of Padua (14, 133): frescoes, Scuola del Santo, Padua.

[Pg 770]

Tura, Cosimo (see under 772).

Triumph of Venus (112): fresco, Schifanoia Palace, Ferrara.
Triumph of Minerva (129): " " "

Unknown Painter.

Richard II. before the Madonna (27): picture, Wilton House.

Vasco, Fernandez ("Gran Vasco") (Portuguese: born 1552).

St. Peter enthroned as Pope (48): picture, sacristy of the cathedral, Vizen, Portugal.

Veronese, Paolo (see under 26).

Allegorical Subjects, "Justice," "Temperance," etc. (15, 18, 155, 156): frescoes, Villa Giacomelli, Masèr.

[This villa, built by Palladio for Daniele Barbara in 1580, is reached from Cornuda, a station on the line between Treviso and Belluno. It contains some of Veronese's most beautiful wall-paintings.]

Viterbo, Lorenzo di (painted 1648).

Betrothal of the Virgin (67): fresco, S. Maria della Verita, Viterbo.
Presentation: fresco, S. Maria della Verita, Viterbo.

---

There is also a copy, presented by Mrs. Bywater, of Domenico Veneziano's "Madonna and Child" (No. 1215).

SCULPTURES AND MARBLES

Many of the sculptures belonging to the National Gallery have been removed to the Hall of Sculpture at the Tate Gallery or to the National Portrait Gallery. Among those that remain in Trafalgar Square are:—

"The Dying Alexander" (in the Vestibule).—A Renaissance copy in Egyptian porphyry of the bust, in the Uffizi at Florence, known as "The Dying Alexander." The bust is now generally recognised as the work of a Pergamene sculptor, and is supposed to represent a youthful giant. The influence of the "Alexander type" is in any case noticeable in this fine work; a type embodying "the traces of human passion, the imperfection of human longing, the divine despair, which attach to the highest mortal natures because they are high and because they are mortal."—Presented by Mr. Henry Yates Thompson.

Bust of Mantegna.—A plaster cast from the bust of Mantegna in the Mantegna Chapel at Mantua: see the description quoted under 274.—Presented by Mr. Henry Vaughan.

---

[Pg 771]

APPENDIX I

INDEX LIST OF PAINTERS

With the Subjects of their Pictures.

In the following list all the painters (of Foreign Schools) represented in the National Gallery are enumerated. Painters only represented by pictures belonging to, but now removed from, the Gallery are not included. The painters are given in alphabetical order, and are cited by the names by which they are most commonly known. But where such names differ from the proper patronymics, the latter are also given, with references to the former. Similar double references are given in other cases where doubt is likely to arise.

In the case of names with the prefix "de" or "van," the painter should be looked for under the initial letter of his surname: e.g. "Van Dyck" under "Dyck," "Van de Cappelle" under "Cappelle."

Pictures by unknown artists will be found under the schools to which they severally belong: "Dutch," "Florentine," etc.

In the case of painters represented by several pictures, the first reference after each name is to the page in the Handbook where some general account of the painter will be found. The references after each picture are to the official number on its frame, under which number the description of the picture will be found in the preceding catalogue.

[Pg 772]

Agii, A. Cordelle
Marriage of St. Catherine, 1409

Agnolo, Andrea d'. See Sarto

Albertinelli
Virgin and Child, 645

Aldegrever, H.
Young Man (portrait), 1232

Allegri. See Correggio

Allori, Alessandro, p. xix
Portrait of a Lady, 650

Allori, Cristofano
A Lady (portrait), 21

Alunno. See Niccolo da Foligno

Amberger, Christoph
Portrait of a Young Man, 2604

Ambrogio. See Predis

Amerighi. See Caravaggio

Angelico, Fra, p. 329
Adoration of the Magi, 582
The Resurrection, 663

Angelico, School of
The Annunciation, 1406

Angelo di Taddeo Gaddi, p. xix
Coronation of Virgin, 568

Antonello da Messina, p. 343
Crucifixion, 1166
His own Portrait, 1141
St. Jerome, 1418
Salvator Mundi, 673

Aretino. See Spinello

Assisi, Andrea d'. See Ingegno

Avercamp, H. van, p. 633
Winter Scenes, 1346, 1479


Bacchiacca, Il
History of Joseph, 1218, 1219

Bakhuizen, L., p. 204
Coast Scene, 818
Estuary, 1000
Gale, 223
Mouth of Thames, 819
Ships in a Gale, 1442

Baldung, Hans, p. 224
A Pietà, 1427
A Senator (portrait), 245

Barbarelli. See Giorgione

Barbieri. See Guercino

Barnaba da Modena
Descent of Holy Ghost, 1437

Baroccio, F.
Madonna del Gatto, 29

Bartolommeo, Fra
Virgin and Child, 1694

Basaiti, Marco, p. 244
Madonna of the Meadow, 599
St. Jerome reading, 281
Virgin and Child, 2499
Young Venetian (portrait), 2498

Bassano, Il, p. 182
A Gentleman (portrait), 173
Christ and the Money Changers, 228
The Good Samaritan, 277

Bastiani, Lazzaro, p. 388
Virgin and Child, 1953
See also 750 (p. xx)

Bazzi. See Sodoma

Beccafumi, Domenico
Esther and Ahasuerus, 1430

Beerestraaten, J.
Winter Scene, 1311

Bega, C. P.
A Philosopher, 1481

Bellini, Gentile, p. 584
G. Malatini (portrait), 1213
St. Dominic, 1440
St. Peter Martyr, 808

Bellini, Giovanni, p. 190
Agony in the Garden, 726
Blood of the Redeemer, 1233
Circumcision, 1455
Doge Loredano, 189
Madonna (Pomegranate), 280
Madonna and Child (fresco), 1696
St. Peter Martyr (landscape), 812.
See also 599, 808, 1440 (pp. xix & xx)

—— School of
The Doge Mocenigo, 750

Beltraffio, G. A., p. 375
Madonna and Child, 728
—— (Columbine), 2496
Narcissus, 2673

—— School of
Madonna and Child, 2089

Benozzo. See Gozzoli

Benson, Ambrosius, p. xix
Reading Magdalen, 655

[Pg 773]Benvenuti, Giov. Batt. See Ortolano

Benvenuto da Siena, p. 462
Madonna and Child, 2482
—— (with St. Peter and St. Nicholas), 909

Berchem, N., p. 150
Crossing the Ford, 240
Hurdy-Gurdy, 1006
Italian Landscape, 1004
Landscape with Ruin, 820
Ploughing, 1005

Berck-Heyde, G. A., p. 644
Church Interior, 1451
View in Haarlem, 1420

Bertucci, p. 245
Glorification of the Virgin, 282
Incredulity of St. Thomas, 1051

Betto, Bernardino di. See Pinturicchio

Bibiena, F.
Teatro Farnese, Parma, 936

Bigio. See Franciabigio

Bigordi. See Ghirlandajo

Bissolo, Fr., ascribed to
A Lady (portrait), 631

Bles, H., ascribed to
Christ on the Cross, 718
The Magdalen, 719

Boccaccino, B.
Procession to Calvary, 806

Boel, Pieter, p. xxi
Dogs and Game, 1903

Bol, F.
An Astronomer (portrait), 679

Boltraffio. See Beltraffio

Bonfigli, B.
Adoration of Magi, 1843

Bonheur, Rosa
The Horse Fair, 621

Bonifazio (the elder)
Madonna and Child, 1202

Bono da Ferrara
St. Jerome in the Desert, 771

Bonsignori, F.
Venetian Senator (portrait), 736

Bonvicino. See Moretto

Bonvin, F. S.
Village Green in France, 1448

Bordone, Paris, p. 317
Daphnis and Chloe, 637
Lux Mundi, 1845
Portrait of a Lady, 674
Portrait of a Lady, 2097

Borgognone, A., p. 266
A Triptych, 1077
The two St. Catherines, 298
Virgin and Child, 1410
See also 779-780 (p. xx)

—— School of
Family Portraits, 779-780

Bosboom, Johannes
Interior of Haarlem Church, 2712

Bosch, P. van den
Woman scouring Pans, 2551

Both, Jan, p. 147
Goatherds, 957
Italian Landscape, 956
—— 1917
Judgment of Paris, 209
Muleteers, 71
Walls of Rome, 958

Botticelli, Sandro, p. 495
Adoration of Magi, 592
—— (circular), 1033
Madonna and Child (circular), 275
Mars and Venus, 915
Nativity of Christ, 1034
Young Man (portrait), 626
See also 782, 1126 (p. xx)

—— School of
Adoration of Magi, 1124
Florentine Lady and Symbolic Angel, 2082
Madonna and Child, 782
Virgin and Child, etc. (circular), 226
—— 2497
—— with St. John, 1412
See also 916 (p. xx)

Botticini, Francesco, pp. xix, 536n.
Assumption of the Virgin, 1126
Raphael and Tobias, 781
St. Jerome in the Desert, 227

Boucher, F.
Pan and Syrinx, 1090

Boudin, L. E.
Squall from the West, 2758
Trouville Harbour, 2078

Bourdon, Sebastien
Return of the Ark, 64

Bouts, Albrecht, p. xx
[Pg 774]Christ Crowned with Thorns, 1083

Bouts, Dierick, pp. xix, 727
Deposition in the Tomb, 664
Madonna and Child Enthroned, 774
Portrait of a Man, 943
Virgin and Child, 2595

Brekelenham, Q., p. 628
Afternoon Nap, 2550
Interior, 1329
Tailor's Shop, 2549

British School.  See 1652 (p. xxi)

Bronzino, Angelo, p. 322
Piero de' Medici, 1323
Portrait of a Boy, 649
Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, 651
See also 650, 670, 704 (pp. xix & xx)


—— School of
Bianca Capello, 2085
Cosimo I., 704
Knight of St. Stephen, 670

Brouwer, Adrian
Boors Drinking, 2569

Browne, Henriette
A Greek Captive, 1969

Brueghel, Jan
Pan and Syrinx, 659

Bruyn, Bartolomaus
Dr. Fuchsius, 2605

Buitenweg, W.
Landscape, 2731

Buonaccorso, Niccolò di
Marriage of Virgin, 1109

Buonarroti. See Michael Angelo

Burgundian School
Louis XI., 2612
Philip and Margaret, 2613

Busi, Giovanni. See Cariani


Calame, Alexandre
Lake of Thun, 1786

Calcar, J. S.
Venetian Gentleman and Child, 2597

Caliari. See Veronese, Paolo

Callot, James
Tartarus (drawing), 2757

Campaña, Pedro
Christ preaching in the Temple, 1241

Campi, Giulio
A Musician, 2511

Campin, Robert, p. 729
Virgin and Child, 2609
—— with Angels, 2608

—— School of
Christ Appearing, 1086
Death of the Virgin, 658
The Magdalen, 654

Canaletto, p. 163
Eton College, 942
Rotunda at Ranelagh, 1429
Ruins, 135
Venice;
Canal Reggio, 1058
Ducal Palace, 940
Grand Canal, 2514
Grimani Palace, 941
Piazza S. Marco, 2515
Piazzetta, 939
Procuratie Nuove, 2516
Regatta, 938
San Pietro in Castello, 1059
San Simeone Piccolo, 163
Scuola della Carità, 127
Scuola di San Rocco, 937

Cappelle, Jan van de, p. 448
A Calm, 2587
Coast Scenes, 865, 2586
Dutch Galliot, 2588
River Scenes, 964, 965, and 966
Shipping, 967

Caravaggio
Christ at Emmaus, 172

Cariani, p. 582
An Italian Nobleman, 2494
Madonna and Child, 1203
Vierge aux Lauriers, 2495

—— ascribed to
Death of Peter Martyr, 41

Carpaccio, Vittore. See 750

Carracci, Agostino, p. 168
Cephalus and Aurora, 147
Galatea, 148

Carracci, Annibale, p. 68
Bacchus and Silenus, 94
"Domine quo vadis?" 9
Erminia and the Shepherds, 88
Landscape with Figures (lake), 56
—— (Giustiniani), 63
[Pg 775]Man with a Beard, 2105
St. John in the Wilderness, 25
Silenus, 93
Temptation of St. Anthony, 198

Carracci, Ludovico
Entombment of Christ, 86
Susannah and the Elders, 28

Carucci. See Pontormo

Casentino. See Landini

Castagno, Andrea del
The Crucifixion, 1138

Catena, p. 218
Portrait of a Young Man, 1121
St. Jerome in his Study, 694
Warrior adoring, 234

Cavallino, B.
Nativity, 1157

Cavazzola. See Morando

Cesare da Sesto, p. 710
Salome, 2485
Virgin and Child, 2504

Champaigne, Philippe de, p. 418
Cardinal J. F. P. de Retz, 2291
Cardinal Richelieu (heads), 798
Cardinal Richelieu (full length), 1449

Chardin, J. B. S., p. 599
La Fontaine, 1664
Still Life, 1258

Charnay, Armand
Parc de Sansac, 2290

Chimenti, J., da Empoli
San Zenobio, 1282

Cima da Conegliano, p. 270
David and Jonathan, 2505
"Ecce Homo!" 1310
Incredulity of St. Thomas, 816
Madonna and Child (goldfinch), 634
Madonna, 300
St. Jerome in the Desert, 1120
Virgin and Child, 2506

Cimabue
Madonna and Child, 565

Cione, Andrea di. See Orcagna

Claude Lorrain, p. 57
Annunciation (or Angel and Hagar), 61
Cave of Adullam, 6
Cephalus and Procris, 2
Classical Landscape, 1018
Death of Procris, 55
Isaac and Rebecca, 12
Landscape ("Study of Trees"), 58
Narcissus and Echo, 19
Seaport: Queen of Sheba, 14
Seaport: St. Ursula, 30
—— Sunset, 5
View in Rome, 1319

Clays, P. J., p. 425
Dutch Shipping, 814, 815

Clouet, F., ascribed to, p. 329
Boy (portrait), 1190
Man (portrait), 660

Codde, Pieter, p. 724
Dutchman with Wife and Son, 2576
Lady with Mirror, 2584

Cologne School. See German

Conca, Sebastiano
Angel with Keys, 1870

Coques, Gonzales, p. 428
Family Group, 821
Five Senses, The, 1114-1118
Lady (portrait), 1011

Cordelle. See Agii

Corneille de Lyons
Antoine de Bourbon, 2610
A Man in Black, 2611

Cornelissen, J., p. 327
Gentleman and Lady, 657
Duke Ulricus, 2209

Corot, J. B. C., p. 698
Bent Tree, 2625
Cows in a Marsh, 2630
Evening on the Lake, 2627
Fisherman's Hut, 2631
Flood, 2629
Marsh of Arleux, 2135
Noon, 2628
Wood Gatherer, 2626

Correggio, p. 69
"Ecce Homo!" 15
Magdalen, 2512
Mercury, Cupid, and Venus, 10
"Vierge au Panier," 23

—— copies after
Agony in the Garden, 76
Groups of Heads, 7, 37

Cosimo, Piero di, p. 360
Death of Procris, 698
[Pg 776]Francesco Ferruccio, 895

Cossa, Francesco del
St. Hyacinth, Dominican, 597

Costa, Giovanni
Carrara Mountains, 1493

Costa, Lorenzo
Madonna and Child Enthroned, 629
Portrait of Dr. Fiera, 2083

Cotignola. See Zaganelli

Courbet, Gustave
The Sea, 2767

Cranach, Lucas, p. 254
Portrait of a Man, 1925
Young Lady (portrait), 291

Credi, Lorenzo di, p. 295
Costanza de' Medici, 2490
Virgin adoring, 648
Virgin and Child, 593

Cristus, Petrus, pp. xx, 726
Marco Barbarigo, 696
Portrait of a Man, 2593

Crivelli, Carlo, p. 300
Annunciation, 739
Beato Ferretti, The, 668
Dead Christ, The, 602
Madonna and Child (swallow), 724
—— (large altar-piece), 788
—— (with St. Francis), 807
Madonna in Ecstasy, 906
St. Catherine and Mary Magdalene, 907

Cuyp, A., p. 136
Boy holding Horse, 2548
Cattle and Figures ("The Large Dort"), 961
—— ("The Small Dort"), 962
—— (small), 1289
—— (large: evening), 53
Cattle with Herdsman, 2547
Horseman and Cows, 822
Landscape (Lady and Child), 2546
Man's Portrait, 797
On the Meuse, 823
River Scene, 2545
Ruined Castle, 824
Study of a Horse, 1683
Windmills, 960


Dalmasio. See Lippo

Daubigny, C. F., p. 732
Alders, 2623
Banks of a River, 2622
Garden Wall, 2624
Willows, 2621

David, Gerard, p. 502
Canon and Patron Saints, 1045
Marriage of St. Catherine, 1432
St. Jerome, 2596

David, G., attributed to
Adoration of Magi, 1079
Deposition from the Cross, 1078

David, J. L.
Eliza Bonaparte, 2217

Decker, C. G.
Landscape, 1341

Delacroix, F. V. E.
Attila, 2289

Delaroche, Paul
Lady Jane Grey, 1909

Delen, Dirck van
Renaissance Architecture, 1010

Diana, Benedetto
Christ Blessing, 2725

Diaz de la Peña, p. 691
Common: Sunset, 2633
Sunny Days in the Forest, 2058
The Storm, 2632

Dietrich, J. W. E.
Itinerant Musicians, 205

Dolci, Carlo
Virgin and Child, 934

Domenichino, p. 128
Landscape (St. George and Dragon), 75
—— (Tobias and Angel), 48
St. Jerome, 85
Stoning of St. Stephen, 77

Domenico Veneziano. See Veneziano

Dosso Dossi, p. 318
Adoration of Magi, 640
Muse and Court Poet, 1234

Dou, Gerard, p. 193
Painter's own Portrait, 192
Painter's Wife (portrait), 968
Portrait of a Lady, 1415
[Pg 777]Poulterer's Shop, 825

Dubbels, H.
Sea-Piece, 1462

Duccio, p. 277
Annunciation, 1139
Christ healing the Blind, 1140
Madonna and Child (triptych), 566
Transfiguration, 1330

Duchatel, François
Portrait of a Boy, 1810

Ducreux, Joseph
His own Portrait, 2162

Dughet. See Poussin, Gaspard

Dupré, Jules
River Scene, 2634

Dürer, Albrecht
Portrait of his Father, 1938

Dutch School (artists unknown)
An Art Gallery, 1287
Interior of a Stable, 1851
Madame van der Goes, 1652 (see p. xxi)
Old Woman Sewing, 1397
Portrait of a Young Man, 1680
Portrait of a Gentleman, 1700

Duyster, W. C.
Players at Tric-Trac, 1387
Soldiers Quarrelling, 1386

Dyck, Sir Anthony van, p. 130
Charles I. (Blenheim portrait), 1172
Cornelius van der Geest ("Gevartius"), 52
His own Portrait, 877
Marchesa Cattaneo, 2144
Marchese Cattaneo, 2127
Miraculous draught of Fishes, 680
"Portrait of Rubens," 49
Study of Horses, 156
Theodosius and St. Ambrose, 50
For drawings by Van Dyck, see 877 A, B

Dyckmans, J. L.
Blind Beggar, 600


Eeckhout, G. van den
The Wine Contract, 1459

Elsheimer, Adam, p. 486
St. Lawrence, 1014
Tobias and the Angel, 1424

Emmanuel
Sts. Cosmas and Damian, 594

Engelbertsz, Cornelis. See 714 p. xx

Ercole da Ferrara. See Grandi

Everdingen, Allart van
Landscape, 1701

Eyck, Jan van, p. 187
Jan Arnolfini and Wife, 186
Man's Portrait, 222
—— (Leal Souvenir), 290


Fabritius, B.
Adoration of Shepherds, 1338
Birth of St. John, 1339

Fantin-Latour, H., p. 689
Apples, 2134
Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Edwards, 1952
Roses, 2133
Study of Flowers, 1686

Fava, Giangiacomo. See Macrino d'Alba

Ferrarese School (artist unknown)
A Battle Piece, 1062

Ferrari, Gaudenzio
Christ rising from the Tomb, 1465

Fiammingo, Enrico
Man with a collar, 2104

Filipepi. See Botticelli

Fiorenzo di Lorenzo
Altar-piece, 1103
Virgin and Child, 2483

Flemish School, 15th-16th centuries (artists unknown)
Christ Appearing, 1280
Count and St. Ambrose, 264
Exhumation of St. Hubert, 783
Head of John the Baptist, 1080
Lady with Rosary, 2670
Madonna and Child (book), 265
—— (curtain), 708
Madonna Enthroned, 2606
Man and Wife, 653
Man with Medallion, 2607
Man with a Ring, 2602
Portrait of a Lady, 1433
Portrait of a Man (gold chain), 947
—— (praying), 1081
—— (skull), 1036
[Pg 778]Portrait of a Young Man (praying), 1063
Portrait of a Monk, 710
Virgin and Child, with St. Elizabeth, 1089
See also 696, 709, 774, 943, 1017, 1078, 1079, 1083, 1086, 1419, 1433 (pp. xx & xxi)

Florentine School, 15th century (artists unknown)
Amor and Castitas, 1196
Savonarola (portrait), 1301
Virgin and Child, 2508
Young Man in Black, 2084
See also 227, 296, 781, 1199 (pp. xix & xx)

Foligno, Niccolò da
Crucifixion, 1107

Foppa, Vincenzo
Adoration of Kings, 729

Forli, Melozzo da
"Rhetoric" and "Music," 755, 756

Fragonard, G. H.
The Happy Mother, 2620

Francesca, Piero della, p. 334
Baptism of Christ, 665
Lady's Portrait, 758
Nativity, 908
St. Michael and Dragon, 769

Francesco di Giorgio
St. Dorothy, 1682

Francia, p. 184
Bartolommeo Bianchini, 2487
Pietà (lunette of above), 180
Pietà, 2671
Virgin and Child (altar-piece), 179
Virgin and Child (smaller), 638

Francia Bigio
Portrait of a Young Man, 1035

French School, 15th century (artists unknown)
Duchesse d'Angoulême, 2617
Lady as Mary Magdalen, 2614
Legend of St. Giles, 1419 (see p. xxi)
Madonna, 1335
Mary, Queen of France, 2615
Portrait of a Lady, 2616
Virgin and Child with Angels, 2618
—— with Saints, 1939

Fungai, B.
Madonna and Child, 1331.
And see p. 749

Fyt, Jan
Dead Birds, 1003
See also 1903 (p. xxi)


Gaddi, Taddeo, School of, p. 211.
See Nos. 215, 216, 579, 579 A (and p. xix)

Gaetano. See Pulzone

Garofalo, p. 151
Agony in the Garden, 642
Holy Family, 170
Madonna and Child (altar-piece), 671
Vision of St. Augustine, 81

Geertgen Tot Sint Jans, p. xx
Virgin and Child (triptych), 1085

Gellée. See Claude

Gennari, Benedetto
His own Portrait, 2106

Géricault, J. L. A. T.
Lithographs of Horses, 2423

German: School of Cologne
Holy Family, 2603
St. Peter and St. Dorothy, 707
Sancta Veronica, 687
See also Lyversberg

German: Westphalian School
Crucifixion, 1049
See also Master of Liesborn

German Schools, 15th-16th century
Crucifixion, 1088
Mocking of Christ, 1087
Portrait of a Lady, 722
Portrait of a Medical Professor, 195
See also Schongauer

Ghirlandajo, Domenico, p. 591
Portrait of a Girl, 1230
Portrait of a Youth, 1299
The young Florentine, 2489

Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo
Girolamo Benevieni, 2491
Procession to Calvary, 1143

Giolfino Niccolo
Giusti Family, 749

Giorgione, p. 230
Adoration of Magi, 1160
Knight in Armour, 269

—— School of
Garden of Love, 930
Unknown Subject, 1173
Venus and Adonis, 1123
[Pg 779]See also 1160, No. 636 (p. xix)

Giotto, School of, p. 278
See also 276, 568 (p. xix)

Giovanni da Milano, p. xix
Panels of altar-piece, 579 A

Giovenone, Girolamo
Madonna and Child, 1295

Girolamo dai Libri
Madonna and Child, with St. Anne, 748

Girolamo da Santa Croce, p. 313
A Saint, 633
—— reading, 632

Girolamo da Treviso
Madonna and Child, Enthroned, 623

Gonzalez, Juan G.
Earl of Monmouth, 2527

Gossart. See Mabuse

Goya, Francesco, p. 660
Dr. Peral, 1951
The Bewitched, 1472
The Picnic, 1471
Lady's Portrait, 1473

Goyen, Jan van, p. 166
Landscape, 137
River Scenes, 151, 2580
Scene on the Ice, 2579
Stiff Breeze, 2577
Windmill, 2578
Winter Scene, 1327

Gozzoli, Benozzo, p. 245
Virgin and Child, 283
See also 591 (p. xix)

—— School of
Rape of Helen, 591
Virgin and Child, 2863

Grandi, Ercole di Giulio, p. 531
Conversion of St. Paul, 73
Madonna and Child (altar-piece), 1119

Greco. See Theotocopuli

Greek Portraits: 2nd cent. A.D.
Eleven Portraits, 1260-1270

Greuze, p. 205
Girl (with apple), 1020
—— (with lamb), 1154
—— (looking up), 1019
—— 206

Guardi, Francesco, p. 207
Buildings and Figures, 2517
Courtyard in Venice, 2519
Ducal Palace, 2099
Gondola, 1454
Gothic Archway, 2518
Piazza S. Marco, 210
—— (awnings), 2525
Quay-side, 2520
Ruins, 2521
S. Maria della Salute, 2098
Tower of Mestre, 2524
Treasure-seekers, 2522
View in Venice, 1054
View through Archway, 2523

Guercino
A Pietà, 22

Guido Reni, p. 73
Christ and St. John, 191
Coronation of Virgin, 214
"Ecce Homo!" 271
Lot and his Daughters, 193
Magdalen, The, 177
St. Jerome, 11
Susannah and the Elders, 196


Hackaert, Jan
Stag Hunt, 829

Hals, Dirk
An Oyster Supper, 1074

Hals, Frans, p. 490
A Family Group, 2285
Lady with fan, 2529
Man with glove, 2528
Man's Portrait, 1251
Woman's Portrait, 1021

Harpignies, Henri
Flax Trees, Villefranche, 2257
River Scene, 2256

Heda, W. K.
Fruit-piece, 2592
Still Life, 1469

Heem, David de
Fruit and Flowers, 2582

Heimbach, C. W.
Portrait of a Youth, 1243

Helst, Barth. van der, p. 167
Lady's Portrait, 1937
Young Lady's Portrait, 1248

Hemessen, Catharina van
Man's Portrait, 1042

Herrera, Francesco de
[Pg 780]Christ disputing, 1676

Heyden, Jan van der, p. 448
Architectural Scene, 992
Château, 1914
Church, 1915
Landscape, 993
Street in Cologne, 866
Street in a Town, 994

Hobbema, p. 347
Avenue, Middelharnis, 830
Brederode Castle, 831
Cottage in a Wood, 2570
Forest Scenery, 833
Path through a Wood, 2571
Showery Weather, 685
Village, with Watermills, 832
Woody Landscape, 995

Holbein, Hans, p. 613
Christina of Denmark, 2475
The Ambassadors, 1314
See also under 195

Holbein, Sigmund. See 722

Hondecoeter, p. 203
Domestic Poultry, 202
Geese and Ducks, 1013
Study of Foliage, Insects, etc., 1222

Honthorst, G. van
Peasants, 1444

Hooch, Pieter de, p. 416
Dutch House (courtyard) 794
—— (courtyard and porch), 835
—— (interior), 834
Refusing the Glass, 2552

Huchtenburgh, Johan van
Battle Piece, 211

Huysman, Jacob
Isaak Walton, N.P.G., 125

Huysmans, Cornelis
Landscape, 954

Huysum, Jan van, p. 416
Vase with flowers, 796
—— (small), 1001


Ingegno, L'
Madonna and Child, 1220
Virgin and Child, with Saints, 2484

Ingres, J. A. D.
Madame Malibran, 2218

Isabey, Eugène
Fish Market, Dieppe, 2715
Grandfather's birthday, 2714

Israels, Josef, p. 738
Shipwrecked Mariner, 2732
The Philosopher, 2713

Italian School, 15th cent.
Virgin and Child, 1456

Italian School, 16th cent. (artists unknown)
An Apostle, 272
Portrait of Knight of Malta, 932
See also 1048 (p. xx)


Jacopo Di Cione, p. xxi
Crucifixion, 1468

Janssens, C., p. 626
Aglonius Voon (portrait), 1320
Cornelia Remoens, 1321
Portrait of a Lady, 2530

Jardin, Karel du, p. 431
Figures and Animals, 826
Fording the Stream, 827
Landscape with Cattle, 828
Sheep and Goats, 985

Jordaens, Jacob
Baron de Linter, 1895

Justus of Padua
Coronation of Virgin, 701


Keyser, T. de
Merchant and Clerk, 212

Koninck, P. de, p. 435
View in Holland, 836
View of the Scheldt, 974


La Fargue
Market-place, the Hague, 1918

Lancret, Nicholas
The Four Ages, 101-104

Landini, Jacopo, p. 287
Ascension of St. John, Evangelist, 580
Holy Trinity and Annunciation, 580 A

Lanini, Bernardino
Holy Family, 700

Leal. See Valdes

Le Brun, Madame Vigée
[Pg 781]Her own portrait, 1653

Lely, Sir Peter
Portrait of a Girl, 1016

Le Nain
A Portrait Group, 1425

Leonardo da Vinci
The Virgin of the Rocks, 1093

Lepine, Stanislas
Le Pont de la Tournelle, 2727

Le Sueur, Eustache
Holy Family, 1422

Liberale de Verona, p. 548
Death of Dido, 1336
Virgin and Child, 1134

Libri, Girolamo dai
Madonna, Child, and St. Anne, 748

Licinio, B.
Man's Portrait, 1309

Liesborn, Meister von
Adoration of Magi, 258
Annunciation, 256
Christ on the Cross, 259
Crucifixion, 262
Purification, 257
Sts. Cosmas, Damianus, and Virgin, 261
Three Saints, 260
——, 254
——, 255

Lievens, Jan
Anna Maria van Schurman, 1095

Lingelbach, Jan
Hay Harvest, 837

Lippi, Filippino, p. 257
Angel Adoring, 927
St. Francis in Glory, 598
Virgin and Child, St. Jerome, etc., 293
See also 592, 1033, 1124, 1412 (pp. xix & xx)

Lippi, Fra Filippo, p. 337
Annunciation, 666
Madonna and Child, 589
St. John and six Saints, 667
Vision of St. Bernard, 248
See also No. 586

Lippo di Dalmasii
Madonna and Child, 752

Lochner, Stephen
Three Saints, 705

Lodovico da Parma
Bishop Hugo of Grenoble, 692

Lombard, Lambert
The Deposition, 266

Lombard School (artist unknown)
Dead Christ, 219
Portrait of a Young Man, 1052

Longhi, Pietro, p. 526
Andrea Tron (portrait), 1102
Domestic Group, 1100
Exhibition of Rhinoceros, 1101
Fortune Teller, 1334

Lorenzetti, Ambrogio
Heads of Nuns, 1147

Lorenzetti, Pietro
Legendary Subject, 1113

Lorenzo da San Severino
Marriage of St. Catherine, 249

Lorenzo, Il Monaco, p. 683
Coronation of the Virgin, 1897
St. John Gualberto, 2862
Various Saints, 215, 216

Lotto, Lorenzo, p. 363
Family Group, 1047
Portraits of Ag. and Nic. della Torre, 699
Portrait of Prothonotary-Apostolic Juliano, 1105
Virgin and Child, 2281

Luciani. See Piombo, Seb. del

Lucidel, Nicolas
Young Lady (portrait), 184

Luini, Bernardino
Christ and the Pharisees, 18
Head of Christ, 2088

Lundens, Gerrit
"The Night Watch," 289

Lyons. See Corneille

Lyversberg Passion, Master of the Presentation in the Temple, 706


Mabuse, p. 327
Adoration of the Kings, 2790
Jacqueline de Bourgogne, 2211
Magdalen, 2163
Man and Wife (portraits), 1689
Man's Portrait (small), 946
—— (with rosary), 656

Macchiavelli, Zenobio
[Pg 782]Madonna and Child, 586

Macrino d'Albo
Group of Saints, 1200, 1201

Maes, Nicolas, p. 171
A. van Leuwenhoek, 2581
Card Players, The, 1247
Cradle, The, 153
Dutch Housewife, The, 159
Man's Portrait, 1277
Servant, The Idle, 207

Mainardi, Bastiano
Virgin and Child, 2502

Maître de Jean Perréal
St. Clement and Donor, 2669

Manni, Giannicola
Annunciation, 1104

Mansueti, Giovanni
The Crucifixion, 1478

Mantegna, Andrea, p. 236
Agony in the Garden, 1417
Samson and Delilah, 1145
Summer and Autumn, 1125
Triumph of Scipio, 902
Virgin and Child, 274

Mantegna, Francesco, p. 318
"Noli me tangere," 639
Resurrection, 1106
The Holy Women at the Sepulchre, 1381

Mantovano. See Rinaldo

Maratti, Carlo
Cardinal Cerri, 174

Marco d' Oggionno
Madonna, 1149

Margaritone
Virgin and Child, etc., 564

Marieschi, Jacopo
Towns and Rivers, 2102, 2103

Marinus van Romerswael
Two Usurers, 944

Maris, Jacob
Drawbridge, 2710
Mother and Child, 2709

Marmion, Simon
Choir of Angels, 1303
St. Bertin, 1302

Martino da Udine. See Pellegrino

Marziale, Marco, p. 419
Circumcision, 803
Madonna and Child Enthroned, 804

Master of the Death of the Virgin
Holy Family, 2603

Matteo di Giovanni, p. 561
Assumption of the Virgin, 1155
"Ecco Homo!" 247
St. Sebastian, 1461

Mauve, Anton
Watering Horses, 2711

Mazo, J. B. Martinez del
Man's Portrait, 1308

Mazzola, Filippo
Virgin and Child, 1416

Mazzola, Francesco. See Parmigiano

Mazzolino da Ferrara, p. 179
Christ Disputing, 1495
Holy Family (St. Francis, etc.), 82
—— (St. Nicolas, etc.), 169
Woman taken in Adultery, 641

Meldolla. See Schiavone

Melone, Altobello
Christ on the way to Emmaus, 753

Melozzo da Forli. See Forli

Memlinc, Hans, p. 349
Duke of Cleves, 2594
Virgin and Child, 709
Virgin and Child, Enthroned, 686

—— ascribed to
St. John and St. Lawrence, 747

Mengs, A. R.
Virgin and Child, 1109 A (1099)

Merian, Matthew, the younger
Portrait of a Man, 1012

Merigi. See Caravaggio

Messina. See Antonello

Metsu, Gabriel, p. 436
Drowsy Landlady, The, 970
Duet, The, 838
Forge, The, 2591
Music Lesson, The, 839
Woman at Window, 2590

Metsys, Quentin, p. 261
Crucifixion, 715
"Salvator Mundi," 295

Meulen, A. F. van der
A Hunting Party, 1447
[Pg 783]
Michael Angelo, p. 410
Dream of Human Life, 8
Entombment, 790
Madonna, etc., 809

Michel, Georges
Stormy Landscape, 2759
Woodland Scene, 2258

Michele da Verona
Coriolanus, etc., 1214

Miereveld, M. J. van
Portrait of a Lady, 2292

Mieris, Frans van, p. 436
Lady and Parrot, 840
Young Astrologer, 2589

Mieris, Willem van
Fish and Poultry Shop, 841

Milanese School, 15th-16th century
Head of John the Baptist, 1438
Virgin and Child, 1300

Millet, J. F.
The Whisper, 2636

Mocetto, Girolamo
Massacre of the Innocents, 1239, 1240

Modena. See Barnaba

Mola, P. F., p. 146
St. John, 69
The Repose, 160

Molenaer, Jan Miense
Musical Pastime, 1293

Mompers, Joos
Landscape, 1017

Montagna, Bart., p. 419
Madonna and Child (asleep), 1098
—— (with cherry), 802

Morales, Luis de
Virgin and Child, 1229

Morando, Paolo, p. 379
Madonna and Child, 777
St. Roch with the Angel, 735

More, Sir Antonio, p. 524
Portrait of a Man, 1231

—— ascribed to
Portrait of a Man, 1094
Portrait of a Lady, 1860

Moretto, Il, p. 267
Angels, 2090, 2091
Italian Nobleman, 299
Italian Nobleman, 1025
St. Bernardino of Siena, 625
St. Hippolytus, 1165
St. Jerome, 2093
St. Joseph, 2092

Morone, Domenico
Scenes at a Tournament, 1211, 1212

Morone, Francesco
Madonna and Child, 285

Moroni, p. 359
Ecclesiastic (portrait), 1024
Il Cavaliere, 2094
Italian Lady (portrait), 1023
Italian Nobleman (portrait), 1022
—— (Longford picture), 1316
Lawyer (portrait), 742
Tailor (portrait), 697

Mostaert, Jan See 713 (p. xx)

Moucheron, Frédéric de, p. 437
Garden Scene, 842
Landscape, 1352

Murillo, p. 79
Boy Drinking, 1286
Holy Family, 13
Nativity of Virgin, 1257
St. John and the Lamb, 176
Spanish Peasant Boy, 74
For Copies from Murillo, see p. 755


Neeffs, Pieter, p. 468
Church Interiors, 924, 2205
Vespers, 2206
After Vespers, 2207

Neer, Aart van der, p. 171
Canal Scene, 732
Dawn, 2283
Evening Landscape, 152
Frost Scene, 969
—— 1288
Landscape, 2537
Moonlight Scenes, 239, 2536
River Scene, 2534

Neer, Eglon H. van der
Judith, 2535

Netscher, Gaspard, p. 437
Blowing Bubbles, 843
1st Earl of Berkeley, 1332
Lady and Spinning Wheel, 845
[Pg 784]Maternal Instruction, 844

Niccolò da Foligno. See Foligno

Niccolò di Buonaccorso. See Buonaccorso

Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, p. xix
Baptism of Christ, 579


Ochtervelt, J., p. 699
Lady at her Toilet, 2553
Lady at a Spinet, 2143

Oggionno. See Marco

Oost, Jacob van
Portrait of a Boy, 1137

Orcagna, p. 281
Coronation of the Virgin (altar-piece), 569-578
St. John the Baptist, etc., 581

Oriolo, Giovanni
Leonello, d'Este (portrait), 770

Orley, Bernard von
Madonna and Child, 714
See also 655

Orsi, Lelio
The Walk to Emmaus, 1466

Ortolano, L'
St. Sebastian, etc., 669

Os, Jan van, p. 487
Fruit and Flowers, 1380
Fruit-piece, 1015

Ostade, Adrian van, p. 438
Alchymist, 846
Cobbler, The, 2541
Courtship, 2542
Hurdy-Gurdy, 2540
Man with a Jug, 2543

Ostade, Isaak van, p. 440
Cart, The, 2544
Farmyard, 1347
Frost Scene, 848
Frozen River, 963
Village Scene, 847


Pacchia, Girolamo del
Madonna and Child, 246

Pacchiarotto, J.
The Nativity, 1849

Padovanino, p. 147
Boy with a Bird, 933
Cornelia and her Jewels, 70

Palamedes, A.
A Musical Party, 2575

Palma Vecchio
Portrait of a Poet, 636

Palmezzano, Marco
Entombment, 596

Panini, Giov. Antonio
A View in Rome, 138

Pape, Abraham de
Cottage Interior, 1221

Parma. See Lodovico

Parmigiano
Vision of St. Jerome, 33

Passignano (Domenico Cresti)
Portrait of Galileo, 2294

Patinir, Joachim, p. 370
Flight into Egypt, 1084
River Scene, 1298
St. Agnes adoring, 945
St. Christopher, 716
St. John on Patmos, 717
Visitation, 1082
See also 715 (p. xx)

Pellegrino da San Daniele
Madonna and Child, 778

Penni, Luca
Holy Family, 2293

Perugino, p. 249
Adoration (fresco), 1441
Baptism of Christ, 1431
Virgin and Child (small), 181
—— (archangel), 288
—— (St. Francis, etc.), 1075

Peruzzi, Baldassare, p. 212
Adoration of Kings (drawing), 167
—— (picture), 218

Pesellino, Francesco
The Trinity, 727

Piazza, Martino
St. John Baptist, 1152

Pier, Francesco Fiorentino, p. xxi
Madonna and Child, 1199

Piero della Francesca. See Francesca

Piero di Cosimo. See Cosimo

Pinturicchio, p. 355
Madonna and Child, 703
Return of Ulysses, 911
St. Catherine of Alexandria, 693

Piombo, Sebastiano del, p. 56
Daughter of Herodias, 2493
[Pg 785]His own Portrait and Ippolito de' Medici, 20
Holy Family, 1450
Portrait of Lady as St. Agatha, 24
Resurrection of Lazarus, 1

Pippi. See Romano, Giulio

Pisano, Vittore, p. 401
St. Anthony and St. George, 776
Vision of St. Eustace, 1436

Poel, Egbert van der
Explosion at Delft, 1061

Poelenburgh, Cornelis van
Judgment of Paris, 209
River, with women bathing, 955

Pollajuolo, p. 255
Apollo and Daphne, 928
Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, 292

—— School of
Portrait of a Lady, 585

Ponte, Jacopo da. See Bassano

Pontormo, Jacopo da
Joseph and his Brethren, 1131

—— ascribed to
Portrait of a Man, 1150

Poorter, W. van de
Allegorical Subject, 1294

Pordenone. See 272

Pot, Hendrik Gerritsz
Convivial Party, 1278

Potter, Paul, p. 440
Cattle in Stormy Landscape, 2583
Landscape with Cattle, 849
Old Grey Hunter, 1009

Potter, Pieter
Stag Hunt, 1008

Pourbus, Frans, the younger
A Military Commander, 2295

Poussin, Charles
Pardon Day in Brittany, 810

Poussin, Gaspard, p. 102
Abraham and Isaac, 31
Calling of Abraham, 1159
Dido and Æneas, 95
Italian Landscape, 161
Land Storm, 36
Landscapes, 2723, 2724
View near Albano, 68
—— of La Riccia, 98

Poussin, Nicolas, p. 116
Bacchanalian Dance, 62
Bacchanalian Festival, 42
Cephalus and Aurora, 65
Landscape, 2619
Nursing of Bacchus, 39
Phocion, 40
Plague at Ashdod, 165
Venus and Satyrs, 91

Predis, Ambrogio de, p. 667
Bona of Savoy, 2251
Portrait of a Young Man, 1665
Wings of the altar-piece No. 1093, 1661, 1662

Previtali, Andrea, p. 358
Madonna and Child (with monk), 695
Madonna and Child, 2500
Salvator Mundi, 2501

Prevost, Jan, p. xx
Virgin and Child, 713

Pulzone, Scipione
Portrait of a Cardinal, 1048


Quast, Pieter
Cavalier, 2856


Raguineau, A.
Portrait of a Youth, 1848

Raibolini. See Francia

Raphael, p. 567
Ansidei Madonna, 1171
Bridgewater Madonna (copy), 929
Garvagh Madonna, 744
Madonna di San Sisto (tracing), 661
Madonna di Sant' Antonio, p. 749
Madonna of the Tower, 2069
Pope Julius II. (portrait), 27
St. Catherine of Alexandria, 168
Vision of a Knight, 213

Ravesteijn, A. van
Lady's Portrait, 1423

Rembrandt, p. 121
Adoration of the Shepherds, 47
Burgomaster, 1674
Capuchin Friar (portrait), 166
Christ before Pilate, 1400
Christ taken down from the Cross, 43
Diana Bathing, 2538
His own Portrait (young), 672
—— (old), 221
[Pg 786]Jew Merchant (portrait), 51
Jewish Rabbi (portrait), 190
Landscape (Tobias and Angel), 72
Man's Portrait (with collar), 850
—— (date 1659), 243
—— (with cap), 2539
Old Lady's Portrait (dated 1634), 775
—— ("Burgomaster's Wife"), 1675
Woman Bathing, 54
Woman's Portrait (dated 1666), 237
Woman taken in Adultery, 45
For copies from Rembrandt, see p. 754 and No. 289

Rembrandt, School of
Christ blessing Little Children, 757

Reni. See Guido

Rhine, School of the, See 1080, 1085 (p. xx)

Ribera. See Spagnoletto

Ricci, Sebastiano, p. 441
Esther and Ahasuerus, 2101
Venus Sleeping, 851

Rigaud, Hyacinthe, p. 459
Cardinal Fleury, 903
Lulli and Musicians, 2081

Rimini, Giovanni Francesco da
Madonna and Child, 2118

Rinaldo Mantovano, p. 320
Capture of Carthagena, etc., 643
Rape of Sabines, etc., 644

Roberti, Ercole de', p. 540
Adoration of the Shepherds, 1411
A Concert, 2486
Israelites gathering Manna, 1217
The Last Supper, 1127

Robusti. See Tintoretto

Rokes, Hendrik. See Sorgh

Romanino, p. 264
Portrait of a Man, 2096
The Nativity, 297

Romano, Giulio, p. 306
Beatific Vision of the Magdalen, 225
Infancy of Jupiter, 624

Romerswael. See Marinus

Rosa, Salvator, p. 153
Hagar, 2107
Landscape and Figures, 1206
Mercury and Woodman (landscape), 84
River Scene, 935
Tobias and Angel (landscape), 811

Rosselli, Cosimo. See No. 227

Rossi, Francesco
Charity, 652

Rottenhammer. See 659 (p. xix)

Rousseau, P. E. Théodore, p. 707
River Scene, 2439
Sunset at Auvergne, 2635

Rousseau, Philippe
The Fish Market, 2480

Rubens, p. 111
Apotheosis of William the Silent, 187
Birth of Venus (design for salver), 1195
Brazen Serpent, 59
Chapeau de Poil, 852
Conversion of St. Bavon, 57
Diana and Endymion, 2598
Drawings, 853 a-p
Holy Family, St. George, etc., 67
Horrors of War, 279
Judgment of Paris, 194
Landscape (Château de Stein), 66
—— (sunset), 157
Peace, 46
Rape of the Sabines, 38
Triumph of Julius Cæsar, 278
Triumph of Silenus, 853
See also 680

Ruysch, Rachel
Flower-pieces, 1445, 1446

Ruysdael, Jacob, p. 309
Bleaching Ground, 44
Broken Tree, 991
Cottage and Haystack, 2565
Cottage on a Hill, 2564
Entrance to the Forest, 2563
Forest Scene, 854
Landscapes with Waterfall, 627, 628, 737
Landscape with Ruins, 746
Landscape with Torrent, 987
Old Oak, 988
Ruined Castle, 2562
[Pg 787]Shore at Scheveningen, 1390
Skirts of a Forest, 2566
Stormy Sea-piece, 2567
View near Haarlem, 990, 2561
Waterfall, 855
Watermills, 986, 989

Ruysdael, Salomon, p. 632
Fishing in the River, 1439
Landscape, 1344

Ryckhaert, Martin
Landscape, 1353


Saenredam, Pieter, p. 683
Interior of a Church, 1896
Interior of St. Bavon, 2531

St. Aubin, Augustin de
J. B. Lalli (engraving), 2136

St. Aubin, Gabriel de
Une Parade, 2129

Safleven, Herman
Christ in Peter's Ship, 2062

Salvi. See Sassoferrato

Salviati. See Rossi

San Daniele, Pellegrino da
Madonna and Child, 778

San Severino. See Lorenzo

Santa Croce. See Girolamo

Santi, Giovanni
Madonna and Child, 751

Sanzio. See Raphael

Sarto, Andrea del, p. 352
His own Portrait, 690
Holy Family, 17

Sassetta, Stefano di Giovanni
Heads of Angels, 1842 (p. xxi)

Sassoferrato, p. 203
Madonna and Child, 740
Madonna in Prayer, 200

Savoldo, Giov. Girolamo, p. 462
Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre, 1031
See also 1377

Schalcken, Godfried, p. 202
Candle Light, 999
Duet, 998
Lesbia and the Sparrow, 199
Scouring the Kettle, 997

Scheffer, Ary, p. 566
St. Augustine and St. Monica, 1170
Mrs. R. Hollond (portrait), 1169

Schiavone, Andrea
Jupiter and Semele, 1476

Schiavone, Gregorio, p. 312
Madonna and Child, 904
Madonna Enthroned, 630

Schongauer, Martin, after
See also 658 (p. xix)

Schorel, Jan van, p. 372
Portrait of a Lady, 721
The "Repose," 720

Segna di Buonaventura
A Crucifixion, 567

Sellaio, Jacopo del, p. 712
Venus and Cupids, 916
Virgin and Child, 2492

Siberechts, Jan
The Water Lane, 2130

Sienese School (artists unknown)
Marriage of the Virgin, 1317
Virgin Enthroned, 1108

Signorelli, Luca, p. 541
Adoration of the Shepherds, 1776
Circumcision, 1128
Holy Family, 2488
Nativity, 1133
Triumph of Chastity, 910
Virgin crowned by angels, 1847

Snyders, Frans
Fruit-piece, 1252

Snyers, Pieter
Still Life, 1401

Sodoma, Il, p. 556
"Ecce Homo!" 1337
Madonna and Child, 1144

Solario, Andrea da, p. 377
Giro. Cr. Longono (portrait), 734
Venetian Senator (portrait), 923

Solario, Antonio da
Holy Family, 2503

Sorgh, Hendrick, p. 507
Boors at Cards, 1055
Two Figures drinking, 1056

Spagna, Lo, p. 493
Agony in the Garden, 1032

—— ascribed to
Agony in the Garden, 1812
"Ecce Homo!" 691

Spagnoletto, p. 220
Dead Christ, 235
[Pg 788]Shepherd with Lamb, 244

Spanish School
Adoration of Magi, p. 751
Peasant and Child, 2526

Spinello, Aretino, p. 288
Rebel Angels (fresco fragments), 1216
Two Apostles, 276
See also 581, 1468 (pp. xix, xxi)

Steen, Jan, p. 445
Grace before meat, 2558
Interior, 1378
Merry-makers, 2557
Music Master, 856
Oyster Feast, 2559
Pedlar, 2556
Skittle Players, 2560
Terrace Scene, 1421
Woman Asleep, 2555

Steenwyck, Hendrick, p. 547
An Interior, 1132
Church Interiors, 1443, 2204

Steenwyck, Herman
Study of Still Life, 1256

Stephan, Master. See Lochner

Storck, Abraham
View on the Maas, 146


Tacconi, Francesco
Virgin Enthroned, 286

Teniers, David, the elder, p. 476
Conversation, 950
Playing at Bowls, 951
Rocky Landscape, 949

Teniers, the younger, p. 172
Backgammon, 242
Boors Regaling, 158
Card Players, 2600
Château at Perck, 817
Country Scene, 861
Dives in Hell, 863
Four Seasons, 857-860
Money Changers, 155
Music Party, 154
Old Woman peeling Pears, 805
Old Woman reading, 2601
Surprise, 862
Toper, 953
Village Fête, 952
Visit to the Doctor, 2599

Terburg, Gerard, p. 447
Guitar Lesson, 864
Man's Portrait, 1399
Peace of Münster, 896

Theotocopuli, Domenico, p. 533
Christ in the Temple, 1457
St. Jerome, 1122

Tiepolo, Giov. Battista, p. 577
Deposition, 1333
Designs for Altar-pieces, 1192, 1193
Marriage of Barbarossa, 2100
Virgin and Child, 2513

Tintoretto, p. 84
Christ washing Disciples' Feet, 1130
St. George and the Dragon, 16
The Milky Way, 1313

Tisio. See Garofalo

Titian, p. 63
Bacchus and Ariadne, 35
Holy Family (landscape), 4
Madonna and Child, St. Catherine, etc., 635
"Noli me Tangere," 270
Portrait of Ariosto, 1944
Venus and Adonis, 34
See also 636 (p. xix)

—— School of
Concert, 3
Rape of Ganymede, 32
Tribute Money, 224

Treviso. See Girolamo

Troy, J. F. de
"La Main Chaude," 2216

Tura, Cosimo, p. 399
Madonna and Child, 772
St. Jerome in the Desert, 773
The Virgin Mary, 905

Tuscan School. See 1842 (p. xxi)


Ubertini. See Bacchiacca

Uccello, Paolo
Battle of Sant' Egidio, 583

Ugolino da Siena, p. 576
Betrayal of Christ, 1188
Procession to Calvary, 1189

Umbrian School (artists unknown)
Griselda, 912-914
Madonna and Child, 702
Marcus Curtius, 1304
[Pg 789]Portrait of Raphael (?), 2510
St. Catherine, 646
St. Ursula, 647
See also 585 (p. xix)

Unknown. (See under Dutch, Ferrarese, Flemish, Florentine, German, Greek, Italian, Milanese, Sienese, Tuscan, Umbrian, Venetian, and Veronese)


Valdes, Leal, Juan de
Assumption of Virgin, 1291

Vallin, Jacques Antoine
Dr. Forlenze (portrait), 2288

Vannucci, Pietro. See Perugino

Varotari. See Padovanino

Vecellio. See Titian

Velazquez, p. 196
Admiral Pulido Pareja, 1315
Christ at the Column, 1148
Christ in the House of Martha, 1375
Dead Warrior ("El Orlando Muerto"), 741
Philip IV. (portrait bust), 745
—— (portrait; full length), 1129
Venus and Cupid, 2057
Wild Boar Hunt, 197
For copies from Velazquez, see p. 752
See also 1376, 1434 (p. xxi)

—— ascribed to
Betrothal, 1434
Duel in the Prado (sketch), 1376

Velde, Adrian van de, p. 449
Bay Horse, 983
Farm Cottage, 867
Ford, 868
Forest Scene, 982
Frost Scene, 869
Landscape, 1348
Landscape and Cattle, 984
The Little Farm, 2572

Velde, Jan van de
Still Life, 1255

Velde, Willem van de, the younger, p. 169
Calm at Sea, 149, 2573
Calm at Sea (Sir R. Peel's), 874
Coast Scene, 871
Coast of Scheveningen, 873
Dutch Ships of War, 980
Gale, 876
Gale at Sea, 150
Light Breeze, 875
River Scene, 978
Sea Piece, 977
Shipping, 979
—— in a Calm, 870
—— off the Coast, 872
Storm at Sea, 981
Windy Day, 2573

Venetian School (artists unknown)
Adoration of the Shepherds, 1377
Landscape with Nymphs, 1695
Portrait of a Lady, 595
Portraits of Senators, 1489, 1490
See also 1121 (p. xx)

Veneziano, Bartolommeo, p. 249
Portrait of a Lady, 2507
Portrait of Ludovico Martinengo, 287

Veneziano, Domenico, p. 395
Heads of Saints, 766
Madonna and Child, 1215

Venusti, Marcello, p. 578
Christ and the Traders, 1194
Virgin and Child, etc., 1227

Vermeer, Jan, p. 636
Young Lady at the Virginals, 1383
A Lady at the Virginals, 2568
See also 1699 (p. xxi)

—— attributed to
A Family Group, 2764
The Lesson, 1699

Vermeulen, Andries
Scene on the Ice, 1850

Vernet, Claude Joseph, p. 222
Castle of Sant' Angelo, 236
Mediterranean Seaport, 1393

Vernet, Horace
Napoleon I. (portrait), 1285

Veronese, Paolo, p. 95
Adoration of the Magi, 268
Consecration of St. Nicholas, 26
Family of Darius, 294
Happy Union, 1326
Magdalen and her Jewels, 931
Rape of Europa, 97
Respect, 1325
Scorn, 1324
Unfaithfulness, 1318
Vision of St. Helena, 1041

Veronese, Paolo, after
See also 97 (p. xix)

Veronese School (artist unknown)
[Pg 790]The Clemency of Trajan, 1135, 1136

Verrocchio, Andrea
Virgin Adoring, 296

Victoors, Jan
Village Cobbler, 1312

Vinci. See Leonardo

Vivarini, Alvise, p. 682
Madonna and Child, 1872
Man in Black, 2095
Portrait of a Youth, 2509
Venetian Gentleman, 2672

Vivarini, Antonio, p. 396
Sts. Francis and Mark, 1284
Sts. Peter and Jerome, 768

Vivarini, Bartolommeo
Virgin and Child, 284

Vliet, Willem van der
Portrait of a Jesuit, 1168


Walscappelle, Jacob
Flowers, Insects, etc., 1002

Weenix, Jan, the younger
Dead Game, 238

Weenix, Jan Baptist
Hunting Scene, 1096

Weier, J.
Battle Scene, 1470

Werden, Meister van
Four Saints, 250
—— 251
Mass of St. Hubert, 253

Werff, Adrian van der
His own portrait, 1660

Wet, Jan de
Landscape, 1342

Weyden, Roger van der, p. 332
"Ecce Homo!" 712
Mater Dolorosa, 711
Portrait of a Lady, 1433
See also 654, 664

Wils, Jan
Rocky Landscape, 1007

Witte, Emanuel, de
Church Interior, 1053

Wouwerman, J.
Landscape, 1345

Wouwerman, Philips, p. 453
Battle Piece, 976
Bohemians, 2282
Gathering Faggots, 881
Interior of Stable, 879
Landscape, 882
"Pretty Milkmaid," 878
Sandbank, 973
Sea Shore, 880
Shoeing a Horse, 2554
Stag Hunt, 975
The Bohemians, 2282
Vedettes on the Watch, 1060

Wynants, Jan, p. 454
Landscape (crippled beggar), 883
—— (sand dunes), 884
—— (woman on donkey), 971
—— (sportsman and dog), 972
Sandy Lane, 2533
Woman driving Sheep, 2532


Ysenbrandt, Adrian
St. Mary Magdalen,2585


Zaganelli
St. Sebastian, 1092

Zais, Giuseppe, p. 607
River Scene, 1297
Rural Landscape, 1296

Zampieri. See Domenichino

Zoppo, Marco
Deposition in the Tomb, 590

Zuccarelli
Gate of Tower, 2086
Pastoral Landscape, 2087

Zurbaran, Francisco, p. 216
Adoration of the Shepherds, 232
Franciscan Monk, 230
St. Margaret, 1930

[Pg 791]

---

APPENDIX II

INDEX LIST OF PICTURES

In this Index all the pictures (of Foreign Schools) belonging to the National Gallery are enumerated in the order of the numbers given to them on the frames and in the Official Catalogues.

Following the title and painter of each picture, there has been in previous editions of the Handbook a reference to the room in the Gallery in which the picture was hung; but as the Gallery is now, and will for some time be, under extensive rearrangement (see above, p. xxv), these references are for the present omitted.

Several pictures belonging to the National Gallery have, however, been removed on loan to other institutions (under a Treasury Minute, 1861, and the "National Gallery Loan Act," 1883). These pictures are distinguished in the Index by their titles being printed in italics; whilst the name of the institution, or (in the case of provincial galleries) the name of the town in which they are now to be seen is stated in the fourth column.

In the next two columns, the manner and date of each picture's acquisition are given. The names are those of the persons from whom the pictures were purchased, or by whom they were given or bequeathed.

In the last column, the prices paid for all the purchased pictures are given. Except where otherwise specified, the funds out of which pictures were purchased have been provided by Parliamentary Grants. The Trustees have at their disposal other funds derived from the Clarke, Lewis, Mackrell, Temple West, and Walker bequests. (The Wheeler bequest is available for the purchase of English pictures only.) The letter C., L., M., or W. before the price in the last column denotes that the funds were derived from one or other of those bequests.

The dates of the appointment of successive Keepers or Directors are also given at their proper places in the Index, so that the curious reader may discover the use made by these officers of the funds at their disposal. It should, however, be remembered that up to 1855 the responsibility for purchases rested rather with the Trustees and the Treasury than with the Keeper.

The following is a summary of the cost of the pictures (both British[265] and Foreign) purchased up to the end of 1906:—

[Pg 792]

It will be seen from this table that 701 pictures in all have been purchased at a total cost of £814,648: 16: 7, an average of £1162 per picture.

A. Mr. Angerstein's Collection (38 pictures) was purchased in one lot for £57,000.

(1) Nos. 9, 35, and 62 were purchased together for £9000.

(2) Nos. 10 and 15 were purchased together for £11,500.

(3) Nos. 13 and 59 were purchased together for £7350.

(4) The Krüger Collection (64 pictures) was purchased in 1854 by, and on the responsibility of, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone), for £2800. Seventeen of them were originally hung in the Gallery; 10 were sent to Dublin; and the remaining 37 were sold at Christie's in 1857, and realised £249: 8s., or £6: 14s. each. Of the 17 originally hung in the Gallery, all but 4 were weeded out in 1862, the rejected pictures being divided between Dublin and the Science and Art Department.

(5) Nos. 280, 285, and 286, together with five others deposited in the National Gallery of Ireland, and two which were sold at Christie's for £130: 9s., were purchased from the Baron Galvagna, Venice, for £2189: 16: 10.

(6) The Lombardi-Baldi Collection (Florence), 31 pictures, was purchased in one lot for £7035.

(7) The Beaucousin Collection of 46 pictures (13 of which were not kept for the Gallery) was purchased at Paris in one lot for £9205: 3: 1.

(8) The Peel Collection of 77 pictures and 18 drawings was purchased in one lot for £75,000.

BOOKS ON ART

A POPULAR HANDBOOK TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. Including Notes collected from the Works of Mr. Ruskin. By Sir Edward T. Cook. Revised and rearranged throughout. In two vols. Crown 8vo. Thin paper. Leather binding.

Vol. I. Foreign Schools. Eighth Edition. 10s. net.

Vol. II. British Schools (including the Tate Gallery). Sixth Edition. 10s. net.

POPULAR HANDBOOK TO THE GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. By Sir E. T. Cook. Crown 8vo. 10s. net.

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