Six Centuries of Painting Part 7

A more generous comparison between these two painters is made by Reynolds in a note on du Fresnoy's poem on Painting respecting the qualities of regularity and uniformity. "An instance occurs to me where those two qualities are separately exhibited by two great painters, Rubens and t.i.tian: the picture of Rubens is in the Church of S.

Augustine at Antwerp, the subject (if that may be called a subject where no story is represented) is the Virgin and Infant Christ placed high in the picture on a pedestal with many saints about them and as many below them, with others on the steps to serve as a link to unite the upper and lower part of the picture. The composition of this picture is perfect in its kind; the artist has shown the greatest skill in composing and contrasting more than twenty figures without confusion and without crowding; the whole appearing as much animated and in motion as it is possible where nothing is to be done.

"The picture of t.i.tian which we would oppose to this is in the Church of the S. Frari at Venice (the "Pesaro Madonna," where the two donors kneel below the Virgin enthroned). One peculiar character of this piece is grandeur and simplicity, which proceed in a great measure from the regularity of the composition, two of the princ.i.p.al figures being represented kneeling directly opposite to each other, and nearly in the same att.i.tude. This is what few painters would have had the courage to venture; Rubens would certainly have rejected so unpicturesque a mode of composition had it occurred to him. Both these pictures are excellent in their kind, and may be said to characterize their respective authors.

There is a bustle and animation in the work of Rubens, a quiet solemn majesty in that of t.i.tian. The excellence of Rubens is the picturesque effect he produces; the superior merit of t.i.tian is in the appearance of being above seeking after any such "artificial excellence."

The most important artist besides t.i.tian who was a pupil of Giorgione was SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO, as he was called--his father's name was LUCIANI. But as two other notable influences determined his career, he is not to be taken as typical of the Venetian School in general or that of Giorgione in particular. Born in Venice about the year 1485, he first studied under Giovanni Bellini, as appears from the signature as well as from the style of a _Pieta_ by him in the Layard collection, which we may hope soon to see in the National Gallery. Of his Giorgionesque period there is only one important picture known to us, the beautiful altar-piece in S. Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice, which is not far removed from the richness of t.i.tian's earlier work. The picture represents the mild and dignified S. Chrysostom seated, reading aloud at a desk in an open hall; S. John the Baptist leaning on his cross is looking attentively at him; behind him are two male and on the left two female saints listening devoutly, and in the foreground the Virgin looking majestically out of the picture at the spectator--a splendid type of the full and grand Venetian ideal of female beauty of that time.

The true expression of a _Santa Conversazione_ could not be more worthily given than in the relation in which the listeners stand to the reader, and in glow of colour this work is not inferior to the best of Giorgione's or t.i.tian's.

As early as 1510, however, he not only left Venice, but also his Venetian manner. He was invited to Rome by the rich banker and patron of the arts, Agostino Chigi, where he met Raphael, and with astonis.h.i.+ng versatility succeeded as well in emulating the excellences of that master as he had those of Bellini and Giorgione. The half-length _Daughter of Herodias_ bequeathed to the National Gallery by George Salting is dated 1510, and in 1512 he painted the famous _Fornarina_ in the Uffizi, which until the middle of the last century was supposed to be a _chef d'oeuvre_ of Raphael. To this period also belongs the _S.

John in the Desert_, at the Louvre.

Within the next seven years a still mightier influence found him, that of Michelangelo, and how far he was capable of responding to it may be judged by our great _Raising of Lazarus_, painted at Rome in 1517-19 for Giulio de'Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., to be placed with Raphael's _Transfiguration_ in the Cathedral of Narbonne. Both pictures were publicly exhibited in Rome, and by some people Sebastiano's was preferred to Raphael's. According to Waagen the whole composition was designed by Michelangelo, with whom Sebastiano had entered into the closest intimacy; and Kugler states that the group of Lazarus and those around him was actually drawn by the master. However that may be, we can hardly fail to see how entirely the Venetian influence is obscured by that of the great Florentine, and to recognise the extraordinary genius of a painter who could do something more than imitate from such masters as Bellini, Giorgione, Raphael and Michelangelo.

The last traces of the Vivarini influence are to be seen in the earlier works of LORENZO LOTTO(1480-1556), who was a pupil of Alvise, though his pictures after 1508, when he had left Venice, Treviso and Reccanti, where he had been employed, show the effect of his changed surroundings.

To this date is a.s.signed the _Portrait of a Young Man_, at Hampton Court. At Rome in 1509 he was painting with Raphael in the Vatican, and in his next dated work, the _Entombment_, at Jesi, the echoes of Raphael's Disputation and the _School of Athens_ are clear. The Dresden _Madonna and Child with S. John_ was probably painted at Bergamo in 1518, and the _Madonna and Saints_, lately bequeathed to the National Gallery, is dated 1521.

At Madrid is a picture by him of _A Bride and Bridegroom_ dated 1523, to which year probably belongs the _Family Group_ in the National Gallery.

These are early instances of the comparatively rare inclusion of more than a single figure in a pure portrait. In our example the father and mother and two children are composed into a delightful picture, in which for once we may see the actual people of the time in something like their natural surroundings, instead of being posed, however effectively, to a.s.sist in the representation of some historic or legendary scene.

In 1527 Lotto was back again in Venice, and was probably influenced by Palma Vecchio when he painted the superb portrait of the sculptor _Odoni_, which is at Hampton Court. A little later the influence of t.i.tian is more visible. Two other portraits are in our National Gallery, those of the Protonotary Juliano and of Agostino and Niccolo della Torre.

BONIFAZIO DI PITATI (1487-1553), sometimes called Bonifazio Veronese or Veneziano, was born at Verona, but studied in Venice under Palma Vecchio. The influence of his native city distinguishes his work in some degree from the pure Venetian, as it did that of the more famous Paolo in later years; but the atmosphere created by Giorgione was so strong as to cause Bonifazio's masterpiece (if we except the _Dives and Lazarus_ at the Academy in Venice) to be attributed until quite lately to Giorgione. It is thus described by Kugler:--"A picture in the Brera in Milan, very deserving of notice, is perhaps one of Giorgione's most beautiful works; it is historic in subject, but romantic in conception.

The subject is the finding of Moses; all the figures are in the rich costume of Giorgione's time. In the centre the princess sits under a tree, and looks with surprise at the child who is brought to her by a servant. The seneschal of the princess, with knights and ladies, stand around. On one side are seated two lovers on the gra.s.s, on the other side musicians and singers, pages with dogs, a dwarf with an ape, etc.

It is a picture in which the highest earthly splendour and enjoyment are brought together, and the incident from Scripture only gives it a more pleasing interest. The costume, however inappropriate to the story, disturbs the effect as little as in other Venetian pictures of the same period, since it refers more to a poetic than to a mere historic truth, and the period itself was rich in poetry; its costume too a.s.sists the display of a romantic splendour. This picture, with all its glow of colour, is softer than the earlier works of the master, and reminds us of t.i.tian...."

The beautiful _Santa Conversazione_ in the National Gallery, again, which was formerly in the Casa Terzi at Bergamo, was there attributed to Palma Vecchio. Here the Virgin in a rose-coloured mantle is the centre of the composition, with the Child on her knee, whose foot the little S.

John is bending to kiss. On the right is S. Catherine and on the left S.

James the Less and S. Jerome. In the landscape are seen a shepherd lying beside his flock, while other shepherds are fleeing from a lion who has seized their dog. A copy of this composition is in the Academy at Venice.

Oddly enough it was a pupil of Bonifazio who employed the grand Venetian manner in the humbler and more commonplace walks of life, and neglecting alike the _Sacra Conversazione_ and the pompous scenes of festivity, developed into the first Italian painter of _genre_. This was JACOPO DA PONTE, called from his birthplace Ba.s.sANO, who was working in Venice under Bonifazio as early as 1535. He afterwards returned to Ba.s.sano, and selecting those scenes in which he could most extensively introduce cottages, peasants, and animals, he connected them with events from sacred history or mythology. A peculiar feature by which his pictures may be known is the invariable and apparently intentional hiding of the feet of his figures, for which purpose sheep and cattle and household utensils are introduced. He confines himself to a bold, straightforward imitation of familiar objects, united, however, with pleasing composition, colour, and chiaroscuro. His colours, indeed, sparkle like gems, particularly the greens, in which he displays a brilliancy quite peculiar to himself. His lights are boldly infringed on the objects, and are seldom introduced except on prominent parts of the figures. In accordance with this treatment his handling is spirited and peculiar, somewhat in the manner of Rembrandt; and what on close inspection appears dark and confused, forms at a distance the very strength and magic of his colouring. The picture of the _Good Samaritan_ in the National Gallery is a good example, and was formerly in the collection of Reynolds, who it is said always kept it in his studio. The _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 173) is excelled by that of an _Old Man_ at Berlin.

III

PAOLO VERONESE AND IL TINTORETTO

It cannot be said that the Venetian artists of the second half of the sixteenth century equalled in their collective excellence the great masters of the first, but in single instances they are frequently ent.i.tled to rank beside them. At the head of these is JACOPO ROBUSTI (1518-1594), called IL TINTORETTO (the dyer), in allusion to his father's trade. He was one of the most vigorous painters in all the history of art; one who sought rather than avoided the greatest difficulties, and who possessed a true feeling for animation and grandeur. If his works do not always charm, it should be imputed to the foreign and non-Venetian element which he adopted, but never completely mastered; and also to the times in which he lived, when Venetian art had fallen somewhat into the mistaken way of colossal and rapid productiveness. His off-hand style, as Kugler calls it, is always full of grand and significant detail, and with a few patches of colour he sometimes achieves the liveliest forms and expressions. But he fails in that artistic arrangement of the whole and in that n.o.bility of motives in the parts which are necessary exponents of a really high ideal. His compositions are achieved less by finely studied degrees of partic.i.p.ation in the princ.i.p.al action than by great ma.s.ses of light and shade. Att.i.tudes and movements are taken immediately from common life, not chosen from the best models. With t.i.tian the highest ideal of earthly happiness in existence is expressed by beauty; with Tintoretto in mere animal strength, sometimes of an almost rude character.

For a short time he was a pupil of t.i.tian, but for some unknown reason he soon left him, and struck out for himself. In the studio which he occupied in his youth he had inscribed, as a definition of the style he professed, "The drawing of Michelangelo, the colouring of t.i.tian." He copied the works of the latter, and also designed from casts of Florentine and antique sculpture, particularly by lamplight--as did Romney a couple of centuries later--to exercise himself in a more forcible style of relief. He also made models for his works, which he lighted artificially, or hung up in his room, in order to master perspective. By these means he united great strength of shadow with the Venetian colouring, which gives a peculiar character to his pictures, and is very successful when limited to the direct imitation of nature.

But apart from the impossibility of combining two such totally different excellences as the colouring of t.i.tian and the drawing of Michelangelo, it appears that Tintoretto's acquaintance with the works of the latter only developed his tendency to a naturalistic style. That which with Michelangelo was the symbol of a higher power in nature was adopted by Tintoretto in its literal form. Most of his defects, it is probable, arose from his indefatigable vigour, which earned for him the nickname of _Il Furioso_. Sebastian del Piombo said that Tintoretto could paint as much in two days as would occupy him two years. Other sayings were that he had three brushes, one of gold, one of silver, and a third of bra.s.s, and that if he was sometimes equal to t.i.tian he was often inferior to Tintoretto! In this last category Kugler puts two of his earliest works, the enormous _Last Judgment_, and _The Golden Calf_, in the church of S. Maria dell'Orto, while on his much later _Last Supper_ he is still more severe. "Nothing more utterly derogatory," he writes, "both to the dignity of art and to the nature of the subject can be imagined. S. John is seen with folded arms, fast asleep, while others of the Apostles with the most burlesque gestures are asking, 'Lord, is it I?' Another Apostle is uncovering a dish which stands on the floor without remarking that a cat has stolen in and is eating from it. A second is reaching towards a flask; a beggar sits by, eating. Attendants fill up the picture. To judge from an overthrown chair the scene appears to have been a revel of the lowest description. It is strange that a painter should venture on such a representation of this subject scarcely a hundred years after the creation of Leonardo da Vinci's _Last Supper_."

It was in 1548, when but thirty years old, that Tintoretto first became famous, with the large _Miracle of S. Mark_, now in the Venice Academy.

This is perhaps his finest as well as his most celebrated work; but the greatest monument to his industry and general ability is the Scuola di'San Rocco, where he began to work in 1560 under a contract to produce three pictures a year for an annuity of a hundred ducats. In all there are sixty-two of his pictures in this building, the greater part of them very large, the figures throughout being of the size of life. _The Crucifixion_, painted in 1565, is the most extensive of them, and on the whole the most perfect. In 1590, four years before his death, he completed the enormous _Paradise_ in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, measuring seventy-four feet in length and thirty in height.

In the National Gallery we have three characteristic examples, fortunately on a smaller scale, namely, the _S. George_ on a white horse, which, with its greyish flesh tones and the blue of the princess's mantle, is cooler in tone than the generality of his pictures; _Christ was.h.i.+ng the Disciples' Feet_, and the very beautiful and radiant _Origin of the Milky Way_, purchased from Lord Darnley in 1890. At Hampton Court a still finer example, _The Nine Muses_, is so discoloured by age and hung in such a difficult light that it is impossible to enjoy its full beauty.

PAOLO CALIARI, better known as VERONESE, was born ten years later than Tintoretto, and died six years before him (1528-1588). He studied in his native city of Verona till he was twenty, and after working for some time at Mantua he came to Venice in 1555, where he was quickly recognised by t.i.tian and by Sansovino, the sculptor and Director of Public Buildings, and was commissioned in that year to paint a _Coronation of the Virgin_ and other works in the church of S.

Sebastian. The _Martyrdom of S. Giustino_, now in the Uffizi, and the _Madonna and Child_ in the Louvre are also among his earlier works. As early as 1562 he was at work on the enormous _Feast at Cana_, now in the Louvre, and a similar work at Dresden is of the same date. In 1564 he went to Rome, where he studied the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. On his return to Venice in

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XVII.--TINTORETTO

ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

_National Gallery, London_]

1565--after visiting Verona, where he painted in his parish church, and also married--he was employed to decorate the Ducal Palace, but much of his best work there was destroyed by fire. Two of his most important works completed before 1573 are in the Academy at Venice, _The Battle of Lepanto_ and the _Feast in the House of Levi_. In this last he incurred strictures from the Inquisition more severe than those of Kugler upon Tintoretto's _Last Supper_, and possibly with as much reason, it being objected that the introduction of German soldiery, buffoons, and a parrot was "irreligious." His _Family of Darius_, now in the National Gallery, was one of his latest works.

Veronese, even more than t.i.tian, whom in colouring he sought to emulate, and Tintoretto, whom in this respect he certainly excelled, expresses the spirit of the Venetians of his time--a powerful and n.o.ble race of human beings, as Kugler calls them, elate with the consciousness of existence, and in full enjoyment of all that renders earth attractive.

By the splendour of his colour, a.s.sisted by rich draperies and other materials, by a very clear and transparent treatment of the shadows, he infused a magic into his great canvases which surpa.s.ses almost all the other masters of the Venetian School. Never had the pomp of colour, on a large scale, been so exalted and glorified as in his works. This, his peculiar quality, is most decidedly and grandly developed in scenes of worldly splendour; he loved to paint festive subjects for the refectories of rich convents, suggested of course from particular pa.s.sages in the Scriptures, but treated with the greatest freedom, especially as regards the costume, which is always of his own time.

Instead, therefore, of any religious sentiment, we are presented with a display of the most cheerful human scenes and the richest worldly splendour. That which distinguishes him from Tintoretto, and which in his later period, after the death of t.i.tian and Michelangelo, earned for him the rank of the first living master, was that beautiful vitality, that poetic feeling, which as far as it was possible he infused into a declining period of art. At the same time it becomes more and more evident, as our attention is turned to the deeper and n.o.bler spirit of the earlier masters in Venice, that the beauty of his figures is more addressed to the senses than to the soul, and that his naturalistic tendencies are often allowed to run wild.

The most celebrated, and as it happens the most historically interesting, of his great pictures is the _Feast at Cana_, in the Louvre, measuring thirty feet wide and twenty feet high. This was formerly in the refectory of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. The scene is a brilliant atrium, surrounded by majestic pillars. The tables at which the guests are seated form three sides of a parallelogram. The guests are supposed to be almost entirely contemporary portraits, so that the figures of Christ and His mother, of themselves insignificant enough, lose even more in the general interest of the subject. Servants occupy the foreground, while on the raised bal.u.s.trades and the balconies of distant houses are innumerable onlookers. The most remarkable feature of the whole composition is a group of musicians in the centre of the foreground, which are portraits of the artist himself and Tintoretto, playing on violon-cellos, and t.i.tian, in a red robe, with the contra-ba.s.s.

_Christ in the House of Simon_, the Magdalen was.h.i.+ng His feet, is another scarcely less gigantic picture in the Louvre; but it is much simpler in arrangement, and is distinguished by the fineness of the heads, especially that of the Christ. An interesting piece of technical criticism on the _Feast at Cana_ occurs in Reynolds's Eighth Discourse:--

"Another instance occurs to me," he says, "where equal liberty may be taken in regard to the management of light. Though the general practice is to make a large ma.s.s about the middle of the picture surrounded by shadow, the reverse may be practised, and the spirit of rule may still be preserved.... In the great composition of Paul Veronese, the _Marriage at Cana_, the figures are for the most part in half shadow; the great light is in the sky; and indeed the general effect of this picture, which is so striking, is no more than what we often see in landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country feasts; but those principles of light and shadow, being transferred to a large scale, to a s.p.a.ce containing near a hundred figures as large as life, and conducted to all appearance with as much facility and with an attention as steadily fixed upon the _whole together_ as if it were a small picture immediately under the eye, the work justly excites our admiration; the difficulty being increased as the extent is enlarged."

With the death of the great Venetians, t.i.tian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the history of Italian painting of the first rank comes to an end. In Florence, the imitation of Michelangelo was the chief object striven after, and, as might be expected, the attempt was not eminently successful. The greater number of the Italian painters of the early seventeenth century who attained any fame are known by the name of Eclectics, from their having endeavoured, instead of imitating any one of their great predecessors, to select and unite the best qualities of each, without, however, excluding the direct study of nature. The fallacy of this aim, when carried to an extreme, is, of course, that the greatness of the earlier masters consisted really in their individual and peculiar qualities, and to endeavour to unite characteristics essentially different involves a contradiction.

The most important of the Eclectic schools was that of the Carracci, at Bologna, which was founded by LODOVICO CARRACCI (_c_. 1555-1619), a scholar of Prospero Fontana and Pa.s.signano at Florence. In his youth he was nicknamed "the ox," partly from his slowness, but possibly also for his study of long-forgotten methods, by which he arrived at the decision that reform was necessary to counteract the independence of the mannerists. He therefore obtained the a.s.sistance of his two nephews, AGOSTINO and ANNIBALE CARRACCI, sons of a tailor, and in concert with them opened an academy at Bologna in 1589. This he furnished with casts, drawings, and engravings, and provided living models and gave instruction in perspective, anatomy, etc. In spite of opposition this academy became more and more popular, and before long all the other schools of art in Bologna were closed.

The principles of their teaching was succinctly expressed in a sonnet written by Agostino, in substance as follows:--"Let him who wishes to be a good painter acquire the design of Rome, Venetian action and chiaroscuro, the dignified colouring of Lombardy (that is to say, of Leonardo da Vinci), the terrible manner of Michelangelo, t.i.tian's truth and nature, the sovereign purity of Correggio, and the perfect symmetry of Raphael. The decorum and well-grounded study of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, and a _little_ of the grace of Parmigiano."

This "patchwork ideal," as Kugler calls it, was, however, but a transition step in the history of the Carracci and their art. In the prime of their activity they threw off a great deal of their eclecticism, and attained an independence of their own. The merit of Lodovico is chiefly that of a reformer and a teacher, and the pictures by Agostino are few and of no great account. But in Annibale we find much more than imitation of the characteristics of great masters. In his earlier works there are rather obvious traces of Correggio and Paul Veronese, but under the influence of the works of Raphael and Michelangelo and of the antique, as he understood it, he developed a style of his own. Though in recent years he is a little out of fas.h.i.+on with the public, there is no question about his having a place among the greater artists. To show how opinion can change, I venture to quote a pa.s.sage from a letter written to me on the subject of Carracci's _The Three Maries_, lately presented to the National Gallery by the Countess of Carlisle:--"I saw the gallery at Castle Howard in 1850. _The Three Maries_ was then still regarded as one of _the_ great pictures of the world; and they told the story of how Lord Carlisle and Lord Ellesmere and Lord----, who shared the Paris purchases [after the Peace of 1815]

between them, had to cast lots for this, because it was thought to be worth more than all the rest of the spoil."

The most important, or at any rate one of the most popular, of the pupils of Carracci was DOMENICO ZAMPIERI, commonly called DOMENICHINO (1581-1641). If we are less enthusiastic about him at the present, it may still be remembered that Constable particularly admired him, but it is significant that the four examples in the National Gallery are numbered 48, 75, 77 and 85--there is no more recent acquisition. He had great facility, and his compositions--not always original--are treated with great charm if with no real depth. His most famous picture, the _Communion of S. Jerome_, now in the Vatican, is closely imitated from Agostino Carracci's.

GUIDO RENI (1575-1642), even more popular in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than Domenichino, was as skilful in some respects, but hardly as admirable. The _Ecce h.o.m.o_, bequeathed by Samuel Rogers to the National Gallery, is an excellent example of his ability to charm the sentimentalist, and if ever there should be a popular revival of taste in the direction of the now neglected school of the Carracci, he will possibly resume all the honour formerly paid to him. The same can hardly be predicted for the far inferior Carlo Maratti, Guercino, and Carlo Dolce.

s.p.a.ce forbids me more than the bare mention in these pages of the brilliant revival of painting in Venice during the earlier part of the eighteenth century by ANTONIO Ca.n.a.lE (1697-1768), GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO (1692-1769), PIETRO LONGHI (1702-1785), and FRANCESCO GUARDI (1712-1793). Charming as their excellent accomplishments were, they must give place to more important claims awaiting our attention in other countries.

_SPANISH SCHOOL_

One of the sensations of the Exhibition of Spanish Old Masters at the Grafton Gallery in the autumn of 1913 was an altar panel, dated 1250, which was acquired by Mr Roger Fry in Paris, and catalogued as of the "Early Catalan School." In view of the fact that this picture is "certainly to be regarded as one of the very oldest of primitive pictures painted on wood in any country ... a decade earlier than the picture by Margaritone in the National Gallery," it seems somewhat dogmatic to a.s.sert that while retaining a strongly Byzantine character "the style is distinctly that of Catalonia." What was the style of Catalonia?

So far as the history of the art is concerned, the chapter on Spain is, with one exception, a very short and a singularly uninteresting one, whether Mr Fry's panel was painted in Catalonia or whether it was not; and in spite of every effort to find in this uncongenial country that expansion of painting that might reasonably have been expected to flow from Italy and moisten its barren soil for the production of so wonderful a genius as Velasquez, there is positively nothing earlier than Velasquez, and not very much after him, that has more than what we may call a doc.u.mentary interest. While in Italy or the Netherlands the names of scores of painters earlier than the seventeenth century are endeared to us by the recollection of the works they have left us, the enumeration of those of the few Spaniards of whom we have any knowledge awakens no such thrill, and if we have ever heard of them, their works mean little more to us than their names. Only when we come within touch of Velasquez does our interest awaken--as in the case of Ribera and Zurbaran--and that is less because of them than because of Velasquez. El Greco was not a Spaniard by birth, but a Cretan; and if he were ranged with the Italians, to whom he more properly belongs, he would scarcely be more famous than some Bolognese masters whose names are now--or perhaps we ought to say, at the present moment--almost forgotten. The announcement that one of his portraits has been sold to an American for 30,000 is of commercial rather than of artistic interest.

If one had to sum up the career and the art of Velasquez in a sentence, it might be done by calling him a Court painter who never flattered.