Great Pictures, As Seen and Described Part 11

The upper wings, when closed, represented the Annunciation, and this was so arranged that on the outer and wider ones (the backs of the two pictures of angels singing and playing) were the figures of the Virgin and the Angel Gabriel,--on the inner narrower ones (that is, on the back of the Adam and Eve), a continuation of the Virgin's chamber. Here, as was often the case in the outside pictures of large altar-pieces, the colouring was kept down to a more uniform tone, in order that the full splendour might be reserved to adorn with greater effect the princ.i.p.al subject within. The angel and the Holy Virgin are clothed in flowing white drapery, but the wings of the angel glitter with a play of soft and brilliant colour, imitating those of the green parrot. The heads are n.o.ble and well painted; the furniture of the room is executed with great truth, as well as the view through the arcade which forms the background of the Virgin's chamber, into the streets of a town, one of which we recognize as a street in Ghent.

In the semicircles which close these panels above, on the right and left, are the prophets Micah and Zechariah, whose heads have great dignity, but are somewhat stiff and unsatisfactory in their att.i.tudes.

In the centre (corresponding with the figures in chiaroscuro over Adam and Eve) are two kneeling female figures represented as sibyls.

The exterior portion of the lower wings contains the statues of the two St. Johns. These display a heavy style of drapery, and there is something peculiarly angular in the breaks of the folds, imitated perhaps from the sculpture of the day, which had also already abandoned the older Northern mould. This peculiarity by degrees impressed itself more and more on the style of painting of the Fifteenth Century, and the drapery of the figures in the Annunciation already betrays a tendency towards it. The heads exhibit a feeling for beauty of form which is rare in this school. John the Baptist, who is pointing with his right hand to the Lamb on his left, is appropriately represented, as the last of the Prophets, as a man of earnest mien and dignified features, with much hair and beard. John the Evangelist, on the other hand, appears as a tender youth with delicate features, looking very composedly at the monster with four snakes which, at his benediction, rises from the chalice in his hand.

The likenesses of the donors are given with inimitable life and fidelity. They show the careful hand of Jan van Eyck, but already approach that limit within which the imitation of the accidental and insignificant in the human countenance should be confined. The whole, however, is in admirable keeping, and the care of the artist can hardly be considered too anxiously minute, since feeling and character are as fully expressed as the mere bodily form. The aged Jodocus Vydts, to whose liberality posterity is indebted for this great work of art, is dressed in a simple red garment trimmed with fur; he kneels with his hands folded, and his eyes directed upwards. His countenance, however, is not attractive; the forehead is low and narrow, and the eye without power. The mouth alone shows a certain benevolence, and the whole expression of the features denotes a character capable of managing worldly affairs. The idea of originating so great a work as this picture is to be found in the n.o.ble, intellectual, and expressive features of his wife, who kneels opposite to him in the same att.i.tude, and in still plainer attire.

At Hubert van Eyck's death, on the 16th of September, 1426, Jodocus Vydts engaged Jan van Eyck, the younger brother and scholar of Hubert, to finish the picture in the incomplete parts.[14] A close comparison of all the panels of this altar-piece with the authentic works of Jan van Eyck shows that the following portions differ in drawing, colouring, cast of drapery, and treatment, from his style, and may therefore with certainty be attributed to the hand of Hubert:--of the inner side of the upper series, the Almighty, the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, St.

Cecilia with the angels playing on musical instruments, and Adam and Eve; of the inner side of the lower series, the side of the centre picture with the apostles and saints, and the wings with the hermits and pilgrims, though with the exception of the landscapes. On the other hand, of the inner side of the upper series, the wing picture with the singing angels is by Jan van Eyck; of the inner side of the lower series, the side of the centre picture of the Adoration of the Lamb, containing the patriarchs and prophets, etc., and the entire landscape; the wing with the soldiers of Christ and the Righteous Judges, and the landscapes to the wing with the hermits and pilgrims; finally, the entire outer sides of the wings, comprising the portraits of the founders, and the Annunciation. The Prophet Zechariah and the two sibyls alone show a feebler hand.[15]

About one hundred years after the completion of this altar-piece an excellent copy of it was made by Michael c.o.xis for Philip II. of Spain.

The panels of this work, like those of the original, are dispersed; some are in the Berlin Museum, some in the possession of the King of Bavaria, and others in the remains of the King of Holland's collection at the Hague. A second copy, which comprises the inside pictures of this great work, from the chapel of the Town-house at Ghent, is in the Antwerp Museum.

_Handbook of Painting: the German, Flemish, and Dutch Schools_, based on the handbook of Kugler remodelled by Dr. Waagen and revised by J.A. Crowe (London, 1874).

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Carton, _Les Trois Freres van Eyck_, p. 36.

[12] Marc van Vaernewijck in a MS. of 1566-8, describing the Ghent troubles, states that on the 19th of August, two days before the iconoclasts plundered St. Bavon, the picture of the Mystic Lamb was removed from the Vijdts chapel and concealed in one of the towers. See the MS., _Van die Beroerlicke Tijden in die Nederlanden_{b}, recently printed at Ghent (1872), p. 146. On the same page in which Vaernewijck relates this story he says that he refers his readers, for the lives of the Van Eycks to his book, _Mijn leecken Philosophie int xx^e bouck_.

This book, which probably still exists on the shelves of some library, has not as yet been discovered.

[13] "The pictures here exhibited as the works of Hemmelinck, Messis, Lucas of Holland, A. Durer, and even Holbein, are inferior to those ascribed to Eyck in colour, execution, and taste. The draperies of the three on a gold ground, especially that of the middle figure, could not be improved in simplicity, or elegance, by the taste of Raphael himself.

The three heads of G.o.d the Father, the Virgin, and St. John the Baptist, are not inferior in roundness, force, or sweetness to the heads of L. da Vinci, and possess a more positive principle of colour."--_Life of Fuseli_, i. p. 267. This is a very remarkable opinion for the period when it was written.

[14] This appears from the following inscription of the time, on the frame of the outer wing:--

"Pictor Hubertus ab Eyck, major quo nemo repertus Incepit; pondusque Johannes arte secundus Frater perfecit, Judoci Vyd prece fretus [VersV s.e.xta MaI Vos CoLLoCat aCta tVerI]."

[The last verse gives the date of May 6, 1432.] The discovery of this inscription, under a coating of green paint, was made in Berlin in 1824, when the first word and a half of the third line, which were missing, were [imperfectly] supplied [with "frater perfectus"] by an old copy of this inscription, found by M. de Bast, the Belgian connoisseur.

[15] [Dr. Waagen did not always hold decided opinions as to what portions of the altar-piece of Ghent are by Hubert and John van Eyck, respectively. There is no doubt that some of "the sublime earnestness"

which Schlegel notes in the Eternal, the Virgin, and John the Baptist, and much of the stern realism which characterizes those figures, is to be found in the patriarchs and prophets, and in the hermits and pilgrims, and in the Adam and Eve; but it is too much to say that these wing pictures can "with certainty be a.s.signed to Hubert," and it is not to be forgotten that John van Eyck worked in this picture on the lines laid down by his elder brother, and must have caught some of the spirit of his great master.]

THE DEATH OF PROCRIS

(_PIERO DI COSIMO_)

EDWARD T. COOK

A very characteristic work by Piero, called di Cosimo, after his G.o.dfather 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 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEATH OF PROCRIS.

_Piero di Cosimo._]

The subjects of his pictures were generally allegorical. In _Romola_ he paints t.i.to 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, straight-way 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.

But Procris lay among the white wind-flowers, Shot in the throat. From out the little wound The slow blood drained, as drops in autumn showers Drip from the leaves upon the sodden ground.

None saw her die but Lelaps, the swift hound, That watched her dumbly with a wistful fear, Till at the dawn, the horned wood-men found And bore her gently on a sylvan bier, To lie beside the sea,--with many an uncouth tear.

AUSTIN DOBSON: _Old World Lyrics_.

_A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery_ (London and New York, 1888).

THE DEATH OF PROCRIS

(_PIERO DI COSIMO_)

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

The point that connects him with Botticelli is the romantic treatment of his cla.s.sical mythology, best exemplified in his pictures of the tale of Perseus and Andromeda.[16] Piero was by nature and employment a decorative painter; the construction of cars for pageants, and the adornment of dwelling rooms and marriage chests, affected his whole style, rendering it less independent and more quaint than that of Botticelli. Landscape occupies the main part of his compositions, made up by a strange amalgam of the most eccentric details--rocks toppling over blue bays, sea-caverns and fantastic mountain ranges. Groups of little figures upon these s.p.a.ces tell the story, and the best invention of the artist is lavished on the form of monstrous creatures like the dragon slain by Perseus. There is no attempt to treat the cla.s.sic subject in a cla.s.sic spirit: to do that and to fail in doing it, remained for Cellini....[17] The same criticism applies to Piero's picture of the murdered Procris watched by a Satyr of the woodland.[18]

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 b.e.s.t.i.a.l, 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 cla.s.sic 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 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.

_The Renaissance in Italy_ (London, 1877).

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Uffizi Gallery.

[17] See the bas-relief upon the pedestal of his 'Perseus' in the Loggia de' Lanzi.

[18] In the National Gallery.

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA

(_TINTORET_)

JOHN RUSKIN

The Church of the Salute is farther a.s.sisted by the beautiful flight of steps in front of it down to the ca.n.a.l; and its facade is rich and beautiful of its kind, and was chosen by Turner for the princ.i.p.al object in his well known view of the Grand Ca.n.a.l. The princ.i.p.al faults of the building are the meagre windows in the sides of the cupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the b.u.t.tresses under the form of colossal scrolls; the b.u.t.tresses themselves being originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is stated by Lazari to be of timber, and therefore needs none.

The sacristy contains several precious pictures: the three on its roof by t.i.tian, much vaunted, are indeed as feeble as they are monstrous; but the small t.i.tian, _St. Mark with Sts. Cosmo and Damian_, was, when I first saw it, to my judgment, by far the first work of t.i.tian's in Venice. It has since been restored by the Academy, and it seemed to me entirely destroyed, but I had not time to examine it carefully.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MARRIAGE IN CANA.

_Tintoret_]