The conquests, commerce and possessions of Venice in the Levant, and
thence its uninterrupted intercourse with the Greeks, give probability
to the conjecture, that Venetian art drew its origin from the same
source, and that the first institution of a company, or, as it is there
called, a School (Schola) of Painters, may be dated up to the Greek
artists who took refuge at Venice from the fury of the Iconoclasts at
Constantinople. The choice of its Patron, which was not St. Luke, but
Sta. Sophia, the patroness of the first temple at that time, and
prototype of St. Mark's, distinguishes it from the rest of the Italian
Schools. _Anchona_, the vulgar name of a picture in the technic
language, the statutes,[134] and documents of those times, is evidently
a depravation of the Greek _Eikon_. The school itself is of considerable
antiquity; its archives contain regulations and laws made in 1290, which
refer to anterior ones; and though not yet separated from the mass of
artisans, its members began to enjoy privileges of their own.
In various cities of the Venetian State we meet with vestiges of art
anterior in date[135] to the relics of painting and mosaic in the
metropolis, which prove that it survived the general wreck of society
here, as in other parts of Italy. Of the oldest Venetian monuments,
Zanetti has given a detailed account, with shrewd critical conjectures
on their chronology; though all attempts to discriminate the nearly
imperceptible progress of art in a mass of works equally marked by dull
servility, must prove little better than nugatory; for it does not
appear that Theophilus of Byzantium, who publicly taught the art at
Venice about 1200, or his Scholar Gelasio[136], had availed themselves
of the improvements made in form, twenty years before, by Joachim the
Abbot, in a picture of Christ. Nor can the notice of Vasari, who informs
us that Andrea Tafi repaired to Venice to profit by the instructions of
Apollonios in mosaic, prove more than that, from the rivalship of Greek
mechanics, that branch of art was handled with greater dexterity there
than at Florence, to which place he was, on his return, accompanied by
Apollonios. The same torpor of mind continued to characterise the
succeeding artists till the first years of the fourteenth century, and
the appearance of Giotto, who, on his return from Avignon 1316, by his
labours at Padua, Verona, and elsewhere in the state, threw the first
effectual seeds of art, and gave the first impulse to Venetian energy
and emulation[137] by superior example.
He was succeeded by Giusto, surnamed of Padova, from residence and city
rights, but else a Florentine and of the Menabuoi. To Padovano, Vasari
ascribes the vast work of the church of St. John the Baptist; incidents
of whose life were expressed on the altar-piece. The walls Giusto spread
with gospel history and mysteries of the Apocalypse, and on the Cupola a
glory filled with a consistory of saints in various attire: simple
ideas, but executed with incredible felicity and diligence. The names
'Joannes & Antonius de Padova,' formerly placed over one of the doors,
as an ancient MS. pretends, related probably to some companions of
Giusto, fellow pupils of Giotto, and show the unmixed prevalence of his
style, to which Florence itself had not adhered with more scrupulous
submission, beyond the middle of the century, and the less bigoted
imitation of Guarsiento, a Padovan of great name at that period, and the
leader of Ridolfi's history. He received commissions of importance from
the Venetian senate, and the remains of his labours in fresco and on
panel at Bassano and at the Eremitani of Padova, confirm the judgment of
Zanetti, that he had invention, spirit, and taste, and without those
remnants of Greek barbarity which that critic pretends to discover in
his style.
Of a style still less dependant on the principles of Giotto, are the
relicks of those artists whom Lanzi is willing to consider as the
precursors of the legitimate Venetian schools, and whose origin he dates
in the professors of miniature and missal-painting, many contemporary,
many anterior to Giotto. The most conspicuous is Niccolo Semitecolo,
undoubtedly a Venetian, if the inscription on a picture on panel in the
Capitular Library at Padova be genuine, viz., _Nicoleto Semitecolo da
Venezia_, 1367. It represents a Pietà, with some stories of S.
Sebastian, in no contemptible style: the nudities are well painted, the
proportions, though somewhat too long, are not inelegant, and what adds
most to its value as a monument of national style, it bears no
resemblance to that of Giotto, which, though it be inferior in design,
it equals in colour. Indeed the silence of Baldinucci, who annexes no
Venetian branch to his Tuscan pedigree of Art, gives probability to the
presumption, that a native school existed in the Adriatic long before
Cimabue.
A fuller display of this native style, and its gradual approaches to the
epoch of Giorgione and Tizian, were reserved for the fifteenth century:
an island prepared what was to receive its finish at Venice. Andrea da
Murano, who flourished about 1400, though still dry, formal, and vulgar,
designs with considerable correctness, even the extremities, and what is
more, makes his figures stand and act. There is still of him at Murano
in S. Pier Martire, a picture, on the usual gold ground of the times,
representing, among others, a Saint Sebastian, with a Torso, whose
beauty made Zanetti suspect that it had been copied from some antique
statue. It was he who formed to art the family of the Vivarini, his
fellow-citizens, who in uninterrupted succession maintained the school
of Murano for nearly a century, and filled Venice with their
performances.
Of Luigi, the reputed founder of the family, no authentic notices
remain. The only picture ascribed to him, in S. Giovanni and Paolo, has,
with the inscription of his name and the date 1414, been retouched.[138]
Nor does much more evidence attend the names of Giovanni and Antonio de'
Vivarini, the first of which belonged probably to a German, the partner
of Antonio,[139] who is not heard of after 1447, whilst Antonio, singly
or in society with his brother Bartolommeo Vivarini, left works
inscribed with his name as far as 1451.
Bartolommeo, probably considerably younger than Antonio, was trained to
art in the principles before mentioned, till he made himself master of
the new-discovered method of oil-painting, and towards the time of the
two Bellini became an artist of considerable note. His first picture in
oil bears the date of 1473; his last, at S. Giovanni in Bragora, on the
authority of Boschini, that of 1498; it represents Christ risen from the
grave, and is a picture comparable to the best productions of its time.
He sometimes added A Linnel Vivarino to his name and date, allusive to
his surname.
With him flourished Luigi, the last of the Vivarini, but the first in
art. His relics still exist at Venice, Belluno, Trevigi, with their
dates; the principal of these is in the school of St. Girolamo at
Venice, where, in competition with Giovanni Bellini, whom he equals, and
with Vittore Carpaccia, whom he surpasses, he represented the Saint
caressing a Lion, and some monks who fly in terror at the sight.
Composition, expression, colour, for felicity, energy, and mellowness,
if not above every work of the times, surpass all else produced by the
family of the Vivarini.
At the beginning of the century, Gentile da Fabriano, styled Magister
Magistrorum, and mentioned in the Roman School, painted, in the public
palace at Venice, a naval battle, now vanished, but then so highly
valued that it procured him an annual provision, and the privilege of
the Patrician dress. He raised disciples in the state: Jacopo Nerito, of
Padova, subscribes himself a disciple of Gentile, in a picture at S.
Michele of that place, and from the style of another in S. Bernardino,
at Bassano, Lanzi surmises that Nasocchio di Bassano was his pupil or
imitator. But what gives him most importance, is the origin of the great
Venetian School under his auspices, and that Jacopo Bellini, the father
of Gentile and Giovanni, owned him for his master. Jacopo is indeed more
known by the dignity of his son's than his own works, at present either
destroyed, in ruins, or unknown. What he painted in the church of St.
Giovanni at Venice, and, about 1456, at the Santo of Padova, the chapel
of the family Gattamelata, are works that exist in history only. One
single picture, subscribed by his name, Lanzi mentions to have seen in a
private collection, resembling the style of Squarcione, whom he seems to
have followed in his maturer years.
A name then still more conspicuous, though now nearly obliterated, is
that of Jacopo, or as he is styled Jacobello, or as he wrote himself,
Jacometto del Fiore, whose father Francesco del Fiore, a leader of art
in his day, was honoured with a monument and an epitaph in Latin verse
at S. Giovanni and Paolo: of him it is doubtful whether any traces
remain, but of the son, who greatly surpassed him, several performances
still exist, from 1401 to 1436. Vasari has wantonly taxed him with
having suspended all his figures, in the Greek manner, on the points of
their feet: the truth is, that he was equalled by few of his
contemporaries, for few like him dared to represent figures as large as
life, and fewer understood to give them beauty, dignity, and that air of
agility and ease, which his forms possess; nor would the lions in his
picture of Justice at the Magistrato del Proprio, have shared the first
praise, had not the principal figures, in subservience to the time, been
loaded with tinsel ornament and golden glitter.
Two scholars of his are mentioned: Donato, superior to him in style, and
Carlo Crivelli, of obscure fame, but deserving attention for the colour,
union, grace, and expression, of the small histories in which he
delighted.
The ardour of the capital for the art was emulated by every town of the
state; all had their painters, but all did not submit to the principles
of Venice and Murano. At Verona the obscure names of Aldighieri and
Stefano Dazevio, were succeeded[140] by the vaunted one of Vittore
Pisanello, of S. Vito: though accounts grossly vary on the date in which
he flourished, and the school from which he sprang, that his education
was Florentine is not improbable, but whoever his master, fame has
ranked him with Masaccio as an improver of style. His works at Rome and
Venice, in decay at the time of Vasari, are now no more; and fragments
only remain of what he did at Verona. S. Eustachio caressing a Dog, and
S. Giorgio sheathing his Sword and mounting his horse, figures extolled
to the skies by Vasari, are, with the places which they occupied,
destroyed: works which seem to have contained elements of truth and
dignity in expression with novelty of invention, and of contrast, style,
and foreshortening in design: a loss so much the more to be lamented, as
the remains of his less considerable works at S. Firmo and Perugia, far
from sanctioning the opinion which tradition has taught us to entertain
of Pisano, are finished indeed with the minuteness of miniature, but are
crude in colour, and drawn in lank and emaciated proportions. It appears
from his works, that he understood the formation, had studied the
expression, and attempted the most picturesque attitudes of animals. His
name is well known to antiquaries, and to the curious in coins, as a
medallist, and he has been celebrated as such by many eminent pens of
his own and the subsequent century.[141]
From the crowd[142] of obscure contemporary artists, which the
neighbouring Vicenza produced, the name of Marcello, or as Ridolfi calls
him Gio. Battista Figolino, deserves to be distinguished: a man of
original manner, whose companion, in variety of character, intelligence
of keeping, landscape, perspective, ornament, and exquisite finish, will
not easily be discovered at Venice, or elsewhere in the State, at that
period; and were it certain that he was anterior to the two Bellini,
sufficiently eminent to claim the honours of an epoch in the history of
Art: in proof of which Vicenza may still produce his Epiphany in the
church of St. Bartolommeo.
But the man who had the most extensive influence on Art, if not as the
first artist, as the first and most frequented teacher, was Francesco
Squarcione,[143] of Padova; in whose numerous school perhaps originated
that eclectic principle which characterised part of the Adriatic and all
the Lombard schools. Opulent and curious, he not only designed what
ancient art offered in Italy, but passed over to Greece, visited many an
isle of the Archipelago in quest of monuments, and on his return to
Padova formed, from what he had collected, by copy or by purchase, of
statues, basso-relievos, torsos, fragments, and cinerary urns, the most
ample museum of the time, and a school in which he counted upwards of
150 students, and among them Andrea Mantegna, Marco Zoppo, Girolamo
Schiavone, Jacopo Bellini.
Of Squarcione, more useful by precept than by example, little remains,
and of that little, perhaps, not all his own. From the variety of
manner observable in what is attributed to him, it may be suspected that
he too often divided his commissions among his scholars; such as some
stories of St. Francis, in a cloister of his church, and the miniatures
of the Antifonario in the temple della Misericordia, attributed by the
vulgar to Mantegna. Only one indisputably genuine, though retouched work
of his, is mentioned by Lanzi; which, in various compartments,
represents different saints, subscribed 'Francesco Squarcione,' and
conspicuous for felicity of colour, expression, and perspective.
These outlines of the infancy of Venetian art show it little different
from that of the other schools hitherto described; slowly emerging from
barbarity, and still too much busied with the elements to think of
elegance and ornament. Even then, indeed, canvass instead of panels was
used by the Venetian painters; but their general vehicle was, a tempera,
prepared water-colour: a method approaching the breadth of fresco, and
friendly to the preservation of tints, which even now retain their
virgin purity; but unfriendly to union and mellowness. It was reserved
for the real epoch of oil-painting to develope the Venetian character,
display its varieties, and to establish its peculiar prerogative.
Tiziano, the son of Gregorio Vecelli, was born at Piave, the principal of
Cadore on the Alpine verge of Friuli, 1477.[144] His education is said
to have been learned, and Giov. Battista Egnazio is named as his master
in Latin and Greek;[145] but his proficiency may be doubted, for if it
be true that his irresistible bent to the art obliged the father to send
him in his tenth year to the school of Giov. Bellini at Venice, he could
be little more than an infant when he learnt the rudiments under
Sebastiano Zuccati.[146]
At such an age, and under these masters, he acquired a power of copying
the visible detail of the objects before him with that correctness of
eye and fidelity of touch which distinguishes his imitation at every
period of his art. Thus when, more adult, in emulation of Albert Durer,
he painted at Ferrara[147] Christ to whom a Pharisee shows the tribute
money, he out-stript in subtlety of touch even that hero of minuteness:
the hair of the heads and hands may be counted, the pores of the skin
discriminated, and the surrounding objects seen reflected in the pupils
of the eyes; yet the effect of the whole is not impaired by this extreme
finish: it increases it at a distance, which effaces the fac-similisms
of Albert, and assists the beauties of imitation with which that work
abounds to a degree seldom attained, and never excelled by the master
himself, who has left it indeed as a single monument, for it has no
companion, to attest his power of combining the extremes of finish and
effect.