ITALIAN PAINTING.
GOTHIC PERIOD. 1250-1400.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Burckhardt, Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, Eastlake, Lafenestre, Lanzi, Lindsay, Reber;
also Burton, _Catalogue of Pictures in the National Gallery,
London_ (_unabridged edition_); Cartier, _Vie de Fra
Angelico_; Förster, _Leben und Werke des Fra Angelico_;
Habich, _Vade Mecum pour la Peinture Italienne des Anciens
Maîtres_; Lacroix, _Les Arts au Moyen-Age et à la Époque de
la Renaissance_; Mantz, _Les Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Peinture
Italienne_; Morelli, _Italian Masters in German Galleries_;
Morelli, _Italian Masters, Critical Studies in their Works_;
Rumohr, _Italienische Forschungen_; Selincourt, _Giotto_;
Stillman, _Old Italian Masters_; Vasari, _Lives of the Most
Eminent Painters_; consult also General Bibliography (p.
xv).
SIGNS OF THE AWAKENING: It would seem at first as though nothing but
self-destruction could come to that struggling, praying,
throat-cutting population that terrorized Italy during the Mediæval
Period. The people were ignorant, the rulers treacherous, the passions
strong, and yet out of the Dark Ages came light. In the thirteenth
century the light grew brighter, but the internal dissensions did not
cease. The Hohenstaufen power was broken, the imperial rule in Italy
was crushed. Pope and emperor no longer warred each other, but the
cries of "Guelf" and "Ghibelline" had not died out.
Throughout the entire Romanesque and Gothic periods (1000-1400) Italy
was torn by political wars, though the free cities, through their
leagues of protection and their commerce, were prosperous. A
commercial rivalry sprang up among the cities. Trade with the East,
manufactures, banking, all flourished; and even the philosophies, with
law, science, and literature, began to be studied. The spirit of
learning showed itself in the founding of schools and universities.
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, reflecting respectively religion,
classic learning, and the inclination toward nature, lived and gave
indication of the trend of thought. Finally the arts, architecture,
sculpture, painting, began to stir and take upon themselves new
appearances.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS: In painting, though there were some portraits
and allegorical scenes produced during the Gothic period, the chief
theme was Bible story. The Church was the patron, and art was only the
servant, as it had been from the beginning. It was the instructor and
consoler of the faithful, a means whereby the Church made converts,
and an adornment of wall and altar. It had not entirely escaped from
symbolism. It was still the portrayal of things for what they meant,
rather than for what they looked. There was no such thing then as art
for art's sake. It was art for religion's sake.
The demand for painting increased, and its subjects multiplied with
the establishment at this time of the two powerful orders of Dominican
and Franciscan monks. The first exacted from the painters more learned
and instructive work; the second wished for the crucifixions, the
martyrdoms, the dramatic deaths, wherewith to move people by emotional
appeal. To offset this the ultra-religious character of painting was
encroached upon somewhat by the growth of the painters' guilds, and
art production largely passing into the hands of laymen. In
consequence painting produced many themes, but, as yet, only after the
Byzantine style. The painter was more of a workman than an artist. The
Church had more use for his fingers than for his creative ability. It
was his business to transcribe what had gone before. This he did, but
not without signs here and there of uneasiness and discontent with the
pattern. There was an inclination toward something truer to nature,
but, as yet, no great realization of it. The study of nature came in
very slowly, and painting was not positive in statement until the time
of Giotto and Lorenzetti.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--GIOTTO, FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. ARENA CHAP.
PADUA.]
The best paintings during the Gothic period were executed upon the
walls of the churches in fresco. The prepared color was laid on wet
plaster, and allowed to soak in. The small altar and panel pictures
were painted in distemper, the gold ground and many Byzantine features
being retained by most of the painters, though discarded by some few.
CHANGES IN THE TYPE, ETC.: The advance of Italian art in the Gothic
age was an advance through the development of the imposed Byzantine
pattern. It was not a revolt or a starting out anew on a wholly
original path. When people began to stir intellectually the artists
found that the old Byzantine model did not look like nature. They
began, not by rejecting it, but by improving it, giving it slight
movements here and there, turning the head, throwing out a hand, or
shifting the folds of drapery. The Eastern type was still seen in the
long pathetic face, oblique eyes, green flesh tints, stiff robes, thin
fingers, and absence of feet; but the painters now began to modify and
enliven it. More realistic Italian faces were introduced,
architectural and landscape backgrounds encroached upon the Byzantine
gold grounds, even portraiture was taken up.
This looks very much like realism, but we must not lay too much stress
upon it. The painters were taking notes of natural appearances. It
showed in features like the hands, feet, and drapery; but the anatomy
of the body had not yet been studied, and there is no reason to
believe their study of the face was more than casual, nor their
portraits more than records from memory.
No one painter began this movement. The whole artistic region of Italy
was at that time ready for the advance. That all the painters moved at
about the same pace, and continued to move at that pace down to the
fifteenth century, that they all based themselves upon Byzantine
teaching, and that they all had a similar style of working is proved
by the great difficulty in attributing their existing pictures to
certain masters, or even certain schools. There are plenty of pictures
in Italy to-day that might be attributed to either Florence or Sienna,
Giotto or Lorenzetti, or some other master; because though each master
and each school had slight peculiarities, yet they all had a common
origin in the art traditions of the time.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--ORCAGNA, PARADISE (DETAIL). S. M. NOVELLA,
FLORENCE.]
FLORENTINE SCHOOL: Cimabue (1240?-1302?) seems the most notable
instance in early times of a Byzantine-educated painter who improved
upon the traditions. He has been called the father of Italian
painting, but Italian painting had no father. Cimabue was simply a man
of more originality and ability than his contemporaries, and departed
further from the art teachings of the time without decidedly opposing
them. He retained the Byzantine pattern, but loosened the lines of
drapery somewhat, turned the head to one side, infused the figure with
a little appearance of life. His contemporaries elsewhere in Italy
were doing the same thing, and none of them was any more than a link
in the progressive chain.
Cimabue's pupil, Giotto (1266?-1337), was a great improver on all his
predecessors because he was a man of extraordinary genius. He would
have been great in any time, and yet he was not great enough to throw
off wholly the Byzantine traditions. He tried to do it. He studied
nature in a general way, changed the type of face somewhat by making
the jaw squarer, and gave it expression and nobility. To the figure he
gave more motion, dramatic gesture, life. The drapery was cast in
broader, simpler masses, with some regard for line, and the form and
movement of the body were somewhat emphasized through it. In methods
Giotto was more knowing, but not essentially different from his
contemporaries; his subjects were from the common stock of religious
story; but his imaginative force and invention were his own. Bound by
the conventionalities of his time he could still create a work of
nobility and power. He came too early for the highest achievement. He
had genius, feeling, fancy, almost everything except accurate
knowledge of the laws of nature and art. His art was the best of its
time, but it still lacked, nor did that of his immediate followers go
much beyond it technically.
Taddeo Gaddi (1300?-1366?) was Giotto's chief pupil, a painter of much
feeling, but lacking in the large elements of construction and in the
dramatic force of his master. Agnolo Gaddi (1333?-1396?), Antonio
Veneziano (1312?-1388?), Giovanni da Milano (fl. 1366), Andrea da
Firenze (fl. 1377), were all followers of the Giotto methods, and were
so similar in their styles that their works are often confused and
erroneously attributed. Giottino (1324?-1357?) was a supposed imitator
of Giotto, of whom little is known. Orcagna (1329?-1376?) still
further advanced the Giottesque type and method. He gathered up and
united in himself all the art teachings of his time. In working out
problems of form and in delicacy and charm of expression he went
beyond his predecessors. He was a many-sided genius, knowing not only
in a matter of natural appearance, but in color problems, in
perspective, shadows, and light. His art was further along toward the
Renaissance than that of any other Giottesque. He almost changed the
character of painting, and yet did not live near enough to the
fifteenth century to accomplish it completely. Spinello Aretino
(1332?-1410?) was the last of the great Giotto followers. He carried
out the teachings of the school in technical features, such as
composition, drawing, and relief by color rather than by light, but he
lacked the creative power of Giotto. In fact, none of the Giottesque
can be said to have improved upon the master, taking him as a whole.
Toward the beginning of the fifteenth century the school rather
declined.
SIENNESE SCHOOL: The art teachings and traditions of the past seemed
deeper rooted at Sienna than at Florence. Nor was there so much
attempt to shake them off as at Florence. Giotto broke the immobility
of the Byzantine model by showing the draped figure in action. So also
did the Siennese to some extent, but they cared more for the
expression of the spiritual than the beauty of the natural. The
Florentines were robust, resolute, even a little coarse at times; the
Siennese were more refined and sentimental. Their fancy ran to
sweetness of face rather than to bodily vigor. Again, their art was
more ornate, richer in costume, color, and detail than Florentine art;
but it was also more finical and narrow in scope.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--A. LORENZETTI. PEACE (DETAIL). TOWN-HALL,
SIENNA.]
There was little advance upon Byzantinism in the work of Guido da
Sienna (fl. 1275). Even Duccio (1260?----?), the real founder of the
Siennese school, retained Byzantine methods and adopted the school
subjects, but he perfected details of form, such as the hands and
feet, and while retaining the long Byzantine face, gave it a
melancholy tenderness of expression. He possessed no dramatic force,
but had a refined workmanship for his time--a workmanship perhaps
better, all told, than that of his Florentine contemporary, Cimabue.
Simone di Martino (1283?-1344?) changed the type somewhat by rounding
the form. His drawing was not always correct, but in color he was good
and in detail exact and minute. He probably profited somewhat by the
example of Giotto.
The Siennese who came the nearest to Giotto's excellence were the
brothers Ambrogio (fl. 1342) and Pietro (fl. 1350) Lorenzetti. There
is little known about them except that they worked together in a
similar manner. The most of their work has perished, but what remains
shows an intellectual grasp equal to any of the age. The Sienna
frescos by Ambrogio Lorenzetti are strong in facial character, and
some of the figures, like that of the white-robed Peace, are beautiful
in their flow of line. Lippo Memmi (?-1356), Bartolo di Fredi
(1330-1410), and Taddeo di Bartolo (1362-1422), were other painters of
the school. The late men rather carried detail to excess, and the
school grew conventional instead of advancing.
TRANSITION PAINTERS: Several painters, Starnina (1354-1413), Gentile
da Fabriano (1360?-1440?), Fra Angelico (1387-1455), have been put
down in art history as the makers of the transition from Gothic to
Renaissance painting. They hardly deserve the title. There was no
transition. The development went on, and these painters, coming late
in the fourteenth century and living into the fifteenth, simply showed
the changing style, the advance in the study of nature and the technic
of art. Starnina's work gave strong evidence of the study of form, but
it was no such work as Masaccio's. There is always a little of the
past in the present, and these painters showed traces of Byzantinism
in details of the face and figure, in coloring, and in gold embossing.
Gentile had all that nicety of finish and richness of detail and color
characteristic of the Siennese. Being closer to the Renaissance than
his predecessors he was more of a nature student. He was the first man
to show the effect of sunlight in landscape, the first one to put a
gold sun in the sky. He never, however, outgrew Gothic methods and
really belongs in the fourteenth century. This is true of Fra
Angelico. Though he lived far into the Early Renaissance he did not
change his style and manner of work in conformity with the work of
others about him. He was the last inheritor of the Giottesque
traditions. Religious sentiment was the strong feature of his art. He
was behind Giotto and Lorenzetti in power and in imagination, and
behind Orcagna as a painter. He knew little of light, shade,
perspective, and color, and in characterization was feeble, except in
some late work. One face or type answered him for all classes of
people--a sweet, fair face, full of divine tenderness. His art had
enough nature in it to express his meanings, but little more. He was
pre-eminently a devout painter, and really the last of the great
religionists in painting.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--FRA ANGELICO. ANGEL (DETAIL). UFFIZI.]
The other regions of Italy had not at this time developed schools of
painting of sufficient consequence to mention.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: FLORENTINES--Cimabue, Madonnas S. M.
Novella and Acad. Florence, frescos Upper Church of Assisi
(?); Giotto, frescos Upper and Lower churches Assisi, best
work Arena chapel Padua, Bardi and Peruzzi chapels S. Croce,
injured frescos Bargello Florence; Taddeo Gaddi, frescos
entrance wall Baroncelli chapel S. Croce, Spanish chapel S.
M. Novella (designed by Gaddi (?)); Agnolo Gaddi frescos in
choir S. Croce, S. Jacopo tra Fossi Florence, panel pictures
Florence Acad.; Giovanni da Milano, Bewailing of Christ
Florence Acad., Virgin enthroned Prato Gal., altar-piece
Uffizi Gal., frescos S. Croce Florence; Antonio Veneziano,
frescos in ceiling of Spanish chapel, S. M. Novella, Campo
Santo Pisa; Orcagna, altar-piece Last Judgment and Paradise
Strozzi chapel S. M. Novella, S. Zenobio Duomo, Saints
Medici chapel S. Croce, Descent of Holy Spirit Badia
Florence, altar-piece Nat. Gal. Lon.; Spinello Aretino, Life
of St. Benedict S. Miniato al Monte near Florence,
Annunciation Convent degl' Innocenti Arezzo, frescos Campo
Santo Pisa, Coronation Florence Acad., Barbarossa frescos
Palazzo Publico Sienna; Andrea da Firenze, Church Militant,
Calvary, Crucifixion Spanish chapel, Upper series of Life of
S. Raniera Campo Santo Pisa.
SIENNESE--Guido da Sienna, Madonna S. Domenico Sienna;
Duccio, panels Duomo and Acad. Sienna, Madonna Nat. Gal.
Lon.; Simone di Martino, frescos Palazzo Pubblico, Sienna,
altar-piece and panels Seminario Vescovile, Pisa Gal.,
altar-piece and Madonna Opera del Duomo Orvieto; Lippo
Memmi, frescos Palazzo del Podesta S. Gemignano,
Annunciation Uffizi Florence; Bartolo di Fredi, altar-pieces
Acad. Sienna, S. Francesco Montalcino; Taddeo di Bartolo,
Palazzo Pubblico Sienna, Duomo, S. Gemignano, S. Francesco
Pisa; Ambrogio Lorenzetti, frescos Palazzo Pubblico Sienna,
Triumph of Death (with Pietro Lorenzetti) Campo Santo Pisa,
St. Francis frescos Lower Church Assisi, S. Francesco and S.
Agostino Sienna, Annunciation Sienna Acad., Presentation
Florence Acad.; Pietro Lorenzetti, Virgin S. Ansano,
altar-pieces Duomo Sienna, Parish Church of Arezzo (worked
with his brother Ambrogio).
TRANSITION PAINTERS: Starnina, frescos Duomo Prato
(completed by pupil); Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration
Florence Acad., Coronation Brera Milan, Madonna Duomo
Orvieto; Fra Angelico, Coronation and many small panels
Uffizi, many pieces Life of Christ Florence Acad., other
pieces S. Marco Florence, Last Judgment Duomo, Orvieto.