ITALIAN PAINTING.
EARLY RENAISSANCE. 1400-1500.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Burckhardt, Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, Eastlake, Lafenestre, Lanzi, Habich, Lacroix,
Mantz, Morelli, Burton, Rumohr, Stillman, Vasari; also Crowe
and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in North Italy_;
Berenson, _Florentine Painters of Renaissance_; Berenson,
_Venetian Painters of Renaissance_; Berenson, _Central
Italian Painters of Renaissance_; _Study and Criticism of
Italian Art_; Boschini, _La Carta del Navegar_; Calvi,
_Memorie della Vita ed opere di Francesco Raibolini_; Cibo,
_Niccolo Alunno e la scuola Umbra_; Citadella, _Notizie
relative a Ferrara_; Cruttwell, _Verrocchio_; Cruttwell,
_Pollaiuolo_; Morelli, Anonimo, _Notizie_; Mezzanotte,
_Commentario della Vita di Pietro Vanucci_; Mundler, _Essai
d'une Analyse critique de la Notice des tableaux Italiens au
Louvre_; Muntz, _Les Précurseurs de la Renaissance_; Muntz,
_La Renaissance en Italie et en France_; Patch, _Life of
Masaccio_; Hill, Pisanello, _Publications of the Arundel
Society_; Richter, _Italian Art in National Gallery,
London_; Ridolfi, _Le Meraviglie dell' Arte_; Rosini,
_Storia della Pittura Italiana_; Schnaase, _Geschichte der
bildenden Kunste_; Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy--the Fine
Arts_; Vischer, _Lucas Signorelli und die Italienische
Renaissance_; Waagen, _Art Treasures_; Waagen, _Andrea
Mantegna und Luca Signorelli_ (in _Raumer's Taschenbuch_,
(1850)); Zanetti, _Della Pittura Veneziana_.
THE ITALIAN MIND: There is no way of explaining the Italian fondness
for form and color other than by considering the necessities of the
people and the artistic character of the Italian mind. Art in all its
phases was not only an adornment but a necessity of Christian
civilization. The Church taught people by sculpture, mosaic,
miniature, and fresco. It was an object-teaching, a grasping of ideas
by forms seen in the mind, not a presenting of abstract ideas as in
literature. Printing was not known. There were few manuscripts, and
the majority of people could not read. Ideas came to them for
centuries through form and color, until at last the Italian mind took
on a plastic and pictorial character. It saw things in symbolic
figures, and when the Renaissance came and art took the lead as one of
its strongest expressions, painting was but the color-thought and
form-language of the people.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--FRA FILIPPO. MADONNA. UFFIZI.]
And these people, by reason of their peculiar education, were an
exacting people, knowing what was good and demanding it from the
artists. Every Italian was, in a way, an art critic, because every
church in Italy was an art school. The artists may have led the
people, but the people spurred on the artists, and so the Italian mind
went on developing and unfolding until at last it produced the great
art of the Renaissance.
THE AWAKENING: The Italian civilization of the fourteenth century was
made up of many impulses and inclinations, none of them very strongly
defined. There was a feeling about in the dark, a groping toward the
light, but the leaders stumbled often on the road. There was good
reason for it. The knowledge of the ancient world lay buried under the
ruins of Rome. The Italians had to learn it all over again, almost
without a precedent, almost without a preceptor. With the fifteenth
century the horizon began to brighten. The Early Renaissance was
begun. It was not a revolt, a reaction, or a starting out on a new
path. It was a development of the Gothic period; and the three
inclinations of the Gothic period--religion, the desire for classic
knowledge, and the study of nature--were carried into the art of the
time with greater realization.
The inference must not be made that because nature and the antique
came to be studied in Early Renaissance times that therefore religion
was neglected. It was not. It still held strong, and though with the
Renaissance there came about a strange mingling of crime and
corruption, æstheticism and immorality, yet the Church was never
abandoned for an hour. When enlightenment came, people began to doubt
the spiritual power of the Papacy. They did not cringe to it so
servilely as before. Religion was not violently embraced as in the
Middle Ages, but there was no revolt. The Church held the power and
was still the patron of art. The painter's subjects extended over
nature, the antique, the fable, allegory, history, portraiture; but
the religious subject was not neglected. Fully three-quarters of all
the fifteenth-century painting was done for the Church, at her
command, and for her purposes.
But art was not so wholly pietistic as in the Gothic age. The study of
nature and the antique materialized painting somewhat. The outside
world drew the painter's eyes, and the beauty of the religious subject
and its sentiment were somewhat slurred for the beauty of natural
appearances. There was some loss of religious power, but religion had
much to lose. In the fifteenth century it was still dominant.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--BOTTICELLI. CORONATION OF MADONNA. UFFIZI.]
KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANTIQUE AND NATURE: The revival of antique learning
came about in real earnest during this period. The scholars set
themselves the task of restoring the polite learning of ancient
Greece, studying coins and marbles, collecting manuscripts, founding
libraries and schools of philosophy. The wealthy nobles, Palla
Strozzi, the Albizzi, the Medici, and the Dukes of Urbino, encouraged
it. In 1440 the Greek was taught in five cities. Immediately
afterward, with Constantinople falling into the hands of the Turks,
came an influx of Greek scholars into Italy. Then followed the
invention of printing and the age of discovery on land and sea. Not
the antique alone but the natural were being pried into by the spirit
of inquiry. Botany, geology, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, anatomy,
law, literature--nothing seemed to escape the keen eye of the time.
Knowledge was being accumulated from every source, and the arts were
all reflecting it.
The influence of the newly discovered classic marbles upon painting
was not so great as is usually supposed. The painters studied them,
but did not imitate them. Occasionally in such men as Botticelli and
Mantegna we see a following of sculpturesque example--a taking of
details and even of whole figures--but the general effect of the
antique marbles was to impress the painters with the idea that nature
was at the bottom of it all. They turned to the earth not only to
study form and feature, but to learn perspective, light, shadow,
color--in short, the technical features of art. True, religion was the
chief subject, but nature and the antique were used to give it
setting. All the fifteenth-century painting shows nature study, force,
character, sincerity; but it does not show elegance, grace, or the
full complement of color. The Early Renaissance was the promise of
great things; the High Renaissance was the fulfilment.
FLORENTINE SCHOOL: The Florentines were draughtsmen more than
colorists. The chief medium was fresco on the walls of buildings, and
architectural necessities often dictated the form of compositions.
Distemper in easel pictures was likewise used, and oil-painting,
though known, was not extensively employed until the last quarter of
the century. In technical knowledge and intellectual grasp Florence
was at this time the leader and drew to her many artists from
neighboring schools. Masaccio (1401?-1428?) was the first great nature
student of the Early Renaissance, though his master, Masolino
(1383-1447), had given proof positive of severe nature study in bits
of modelling, in drapery, and in portrait heads. Masaccio, however,
seems the first to have gone into it thoroughly and to have grasped
nature as a whole. His mastery of form, his plastic composition, his
free, broad folds of drapery, and his knowledge of light and
perspective, all placed him in the front rank of fifteenth-century
painters. Though an exact student he was not a literalist. He had a
large artistic sense, a breadth of view, and a comprehension of nature
as a mass that Michael Angelo and Raphael did not disdain to follow.
He was not a pietist, and there was no great religious feeling in his
work. Dignified truthful appearance was his creed, and in this he was
possibly influenced by Donatello the sculptor.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--GHIRLANDAJO. THE VISITATION. LOUVRE.]
He came early in the century and died early, but his contemporaries
did not continue the advance from where he carried it. There was
wavering all along the line. Some from lack of genius could not equal
him, others took up nature with indecision, and others clung fondly
to the gold-embossed ornaments and gilded halos of the past. Paolo
Uccello (1397?-1475), Andrea Castagno (1390-1457), Benozzo Gozzoli
(1420?-1497?), Baldovinetti (1427-1499), Antonio del Pollajuolo
(1426-1498), Cosimo Rosselli (1439-1507), can hardly be looked upon as
improvements upon the young leader. The first real successor of
Masaccio was his contemporary, and possibly his pupil, the monk Fra
Filippo Lippi (1406-1469). He was a master of color and
light-and-shade for his time, though in composition and command of
line he did not reach up to Masaccio. He was among the first of the
painters to take the individual faces of those about him as models for
his sacred characters, and clothe them in contemporary costume. Piety
is not very pronounced in any of his works, though he is not without
imagination and feeling, and there is in his women a charm of
sweetness. His tendency was to materialize the sacred characters.
With Filippino (1457?-1504), Botticelli (1446-1510), and Ghirlandajo
(1449-1494) we find a degree of imagination, culture, and independence
not surpassed by any of the Early Florentines. Filippino modelled his
art upon that of his father, Fra Filippo, and was influenced by
Botticelli. He was the weakest of the trio, without being by any means
a weak man. On the contrary, he was an artist of fine ability, much
charm and tenderness, and considerable style, but not a great deal of
original force, though occasionally doing forceful things. Purity in
his type and graceful sentiment in pose and feature seem more
characteristic of his work. Botticelli, even, was not so remarkable
for his strength as for his culture, and an individual way of looking
at things. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo, a man imbued with the
religious feeling of Dante and Savonarola, a learned student of the
antique and one of the first to take subjects from it, a severe nature
student, and a painter of much technical skill. Religion, classicism,
and nature all met in his work, but the mingling was not perfect.
Religious feeling and melancholy warped it. His willowy figures,
delicate and refined in drawing, are more passionate than powerful,
more individual than comprehensive, but they are nevertheless very
attractive in their tenderness and grace.
Without being so original or so attractive an artist as Botticelli,
his contemporary, Ghirlandajo, was a stronger one. His strength came
more from assimilation than from invention. He combined in his work
all the art learning of his time. He drew well, handled drapery simply
and beautifully, was a good composer, and, for Florence, a good
colorist. In addition, his temperament was robust, his style
dignified, even grand, and his execution wonderfully free. He was the
most important of the fifteenth-century technicians, without having
any peculiar distinction or originality, and in spite of being rather
prosaic at times.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--FRANCESCA. DUKE OF URBINO. UFFIZI.]
Verrocchio (1435-1488) was more of a sculptor than a painter, but in
his studio were three celebrated pupils--Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci,
and Lorenzo di Credi--who were half-way between the Early and the High
Renaissance. Only one of them, Leonardo, can be classed among the
High Renaissance men. Perugino belongs to the Umbrian school, and
Lorenzo di Credi (1450-1537), though Florentine, never outgrew the
fifteenth century. He was a pure painter, with much feeling, but weak
at times. His drawing was good, but his painting lacked force, and he
was too pallid in flesh color. There is much detail, study, and
considerable grace about his work, but little of strength. Piero di
Cosimo (1462-1521) was fond of mythological and classical studies, was
somewhat fantastic in composition, pleasant in color, and rather
distinguished in landscape backgrounds. His work strikes one as
eccentric, and eccentricity was the strong characteristic of the man.
UMBRIAN AND PERUGIAN SCHOOLS: At the beginning of the fifteenth
century the old Siennese school founded by Duccio and the Lorenzetti
was in a state of decline. It had been remarkable for intense
sentiment, and just what effect this sentiment of the old Siennese
school had upon the painters of the neighboring Umbrian school of the
early fifteenth century is a matter of speculation with historians. It
must have had some, though the early painters, like Ottaviano Nelli,
do not show it. That which afterward became known as the Umbrian
sentiment probably first appeared in the work of Niccolò da Foligno
(1430?-1502), who was probably a pupil of Benozzo Gozzoli, who was, in
turn, a pupil of Fra Angelico. That would indicate Florentine
influence, but there were many influences at work in this upper-valley
country. Sentiment had been prevalent enough all through Central
Italian painting during the Gothic age--more so at Sienna than
elsewhere. With the Renaissance Florence rather forsook sentiment for
precision of forms and equilibrium of groups; but the Umbrian towns
being more provincial, held fast to their sentiment, their detail, and
their gold ornamentation. Their influence upon Florence was slight,
but the influence of Florence upon them was considerable. The larger
city drew the provincials its way to learn the new methods. The
result was a group of Umbro-Florentine painters, combining some
up-country sentiment with Florentine technic. Gentile da Fabriano,
Niccolo da Foligno, Bonfiglio (1425?-1496?), and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo
(1444?-1520) were of this mixed character.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--SIGNORELLI. THE CURSE (DETAIL). ORVIETO.]
The most positive in methods among the early men was Piero della
Francesca (1420?-1492). Umbrian born, but Florentine trained, he
became more scientific than sentimental, and excelled as a craftsman.
He knew drawing, perspective, atmosphere, light-and-shade in a way
that rather foreshadowed Leonardo da Vinci. From working in the
Umbrian country his influence upon his fellow-Umbrians was large. It
showed directly in Signorelli (1441?-1523), whose master he was, and
whose style he probably formed. Signorelli was Umbrian born, like
Piero, but there was not much of the Umbrian sentiment about him. He
was a draughtsman and threw his strength in line, producing athletic,
square-shouldered figures in violent action, with complicated
foreshortenings quite astonishing. The most daring man of his time, he
was a master in anatomy, composition, motion. There was nothing select
about his type, and nothing charming about his painting. His color was
hot and coarse, his lights lurid, his shadows brick red. He was,
however, a master-draughtsman, and a man of large conceptions and
great strength. Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494), of whom little is known,
was another pupil of Piero, and Giovanni Santi (1435?-1494), the
father of Raphael, was probably influenced by both of these last
named.
The true descent of the Umbrian sentiment was through Foligno and
Bonfiglio to Perugino (1446-1524). Signorelli and Perugino seem
opposed to each other in their art. The first was the forerunner of
Michael Angelo, the second was the master of Raphael; and the
difference between Michael Angelo and Raphael was, in a less varied
degree, the difference between Signorelli and Perugino. The one showed
Florentine line, the other Umbrian sentiment and color. It is in
Perugino that we find the old religious feeling. Fervor, tenderness,
and devotion, with soft eyes, delicate features, and pathetic looks
characterized his art. The figure was slight, graceful, and in pose
sentimentally inclined to one side. The head was almost affectedly
placed on the shoulders, and the round olive face was full of wistful
tenderness. This Perugino type, used in all his paintings, is well
described by Taine as a "body belonging to the Renaissance containing
a soul that belonged to the Middle Ages." The sentiment was more
purely human, however, than in such a painter, for instance, as Fra
Angelico. Religion still held with Perugino and the Umbrians, but
even with them it was becoming materialized by the beauty of the
world about them.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--PERUGINO. MADONNA, SAINTS, AND ANGELS.
LOUVRE.]
As a technician Perugino was excellent. There was no dramatic fire and
fury about him. The composition was simple, with graceful figures in
repose. The coloring was rich, and there were many brilliant effects
obtained by the use of oils. He was among the first of his school to
use that medium. His friend and fellow-worker, Pinturricchio
(1454-1513), did not use oils, but was a superior man in fresco. In
type and sentiment he was rather like Perugino, in composition a
little extravagant and huddled, in landscape backgrounds quite
original and inventive. He never was a serious rival of Perugino,
though a more varied and interesting painter. Perugino's best pupil,
after Raphael, was Lo Spagna (?-1530?), who followed his master's
style until the High Renaissance, when he became a follower of
Raphael.
SCHOOLS OF FERRARA AND BOLOGNA: The painters of Ferrara, in the
fifteenth century, seemed to have relied upon Padua for their
teaching. The best of the early men was Cosimo Tura (1430-1495), who
showed the Paduan influence of Squarcione in anatomical insistences,
coarse joints, infinite detail, and fantastic ornamentation. He was
probably the founder of the school in which Francesco Cossa (fl.
1435-1480), a _naif_ and strong, if somewhat morbid painter, Ercole di
Giulio Grandi (fl. 1465-1535), and Lorenzo Costa (1460?-1535) were the
principal masters. Cossa and Grandi, it seems, afterward removed to
Bologna, and it was probably their move that induced Lorenzo Costa to
follow them. In that way the Ferrarese school became somewhat
complicated with the Bolognese school, and is confused in its history
to this day. Costa was not unlikely the real founder, or, at the
least, the strongest influencer of the Bolognese school. He was a
painter of a rugged, manly type, afterward tempered by Southern
influences to softness and sentiment. This was the result of Paduan
methods meeting at Bologna with Umbrian sentiment.
The Perugino type and influence had found its way to Bologna, and
showed in the work of Francia (1450-1518), a contemporary and
fellow-worker with Costa. Though trained as a goldsmith, and learning
painting in a different school, Francia, as regards his sentiment,
belongs in the same category with Perugino. Even his subjects, types,
and treatment were, at times, more Umbrian than Bolognese. He was not
so profound in feeling as Perugino, but at times he appeared loftier
in conception. His color was usually rich, his drawing a little sharp
at first, as showing the goldsmith's hand, the surfaces smooth, the
detail elaborate. Later on, his work had a Raphaelesque tinge,
showing perhaps the influence of that rising master. It is probable
that Francia at first was influenced by Costa's methods, and it is
quite certain that he in turn influenced Costa in the matter of
refined drawing and sentiment, though Costa always adhered to a
certain detail and ornament coming from the north, and a landscape
background that is peculiar to himself, and yet reminds one of
Pinturricchio's landscapes. These two men, Francia and Costa, were the
Perugino and Pinturricchio of the Ferrara-Bolognese school, and the
most important painters in that school.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--SCHOOL OF FRANCIA. MADONNA AND CHILD.
LOUVRE.]
THE LOMBARD SCHOOL: The designation of the Lombard school is rather a
vague one in the history of painting, and is used by historians to
cover a number of isolated schools or men in the Lombardy region. In
the fifteenth century these schools counted for little either in men
or in works. The principal activity was about Milan, which drew
painters from Brescia, Vincenza, and elsewhere to form what is known
as the Milanese school. Vincenzo Foppa (fl. 1455-1492), of Brescia,
and afterward at Milan, was probably the founder of this Milanese
school. His painting is of rather a harsh, exacting nature, and points
to the influence of Padua, at which place he perhaps got his early art
training. Borgognone (1450-1523) is set down as his pupil, a painter
of much sentiment and spiritual feeling. The school was afterward
greatly influenced by the example of Leonardo da Vinci, as will be
shown further on.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: FLORENTINES--Masaccio, frescos in Brancacci
Chapel Carmine Florence (the series completed by Filippino);
Masolino, frescos Church and Baptistery Castiglione d' Olona;
Paolo Uccello, frescos S. M. Novella, equestrian
portrait Duomo Florence, battle-pieces in Louvre and Nat.
Gal. Lon.; Andrea Castagno, heroes and sibyls Uffizi,
altar-piece Acad. Florence, equestrian portrait Duomo
Florence; Benozzo Gozzoli, Francesco Montefalco, Magi
Ricardi palace Florence, frescos Campo Santo Pisa;
Baldovinetti, Portico of the Annunziata Florence,
altar-pieces Uffizi; Antonio Pollajuolo, Hercules Uffizi,
St. Sebastian Pitti and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Cosimo Rosselli,
frescos S. Ambrogio Florence, Sistine Chapel Rome, Madonna
Uffizi; Fra Filippo, frescos Cathedral Prato, altar-pieces
Florence Acad., Uffizi, Pitti and Berlin Gals., Nat. Gal.
Lon.; Filippino, frescos Carmine Florence, Caraffa Chapel
Minerva Rome, S. M. Novella and Acad. Florence, S. Domenico
Bologna, easel pictures in Pitti, Uffizi, Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Berlin Mus., Old Pinacothek Munich; Botticelli, frescos
Sistine Chapel Rome, Spring and Coronation Florence Acad.,
Venus, Calumny, Madonnas Uffizi, Pitti, Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Louvre, etc.; Ghirlandajo, frescos Sistine Chapel Rome, S.
Trinità Florence, S. M. Novella, Palazzo Vecchio,
altar-pieces Uffizi and Acad. Florence, Visitation Louvre;
Verrocchio, Baptism of Christ Acad. Florence; Lorenzo di
Credi, Nativity Acad. Florence, Madonnas Louvre and Nat.
Gal. Lon., Holy Family Borghese Gal. Rome; Piero di Cosimo,
Perseus and Andromeda Uffizi, Procris Nat. Gal. Lon., Venus
and Mars Berlin Gal.
UMBRIANS--Ottaviano Nelli, altar-piece S. M. Nuovo Gubbio,
St. Augustine legends S. Agostino Gubbio; Niccolò da
Foligno, altar-piece S. Niccolò Foligno; Bonfigli, frescos
Palazzo Communale, altar-pieces Acad. Perugia; Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo, many pictures Acad. Perugia, Madonna Berlin Gal.;
Piero della Francesca, frescos Communitá and Hospital Borgo
San Sepolcro, San Francesco Arezzo, Chapel of the Relicts
Rimini, portraits Uffizi, pictures Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Signorelli, frescos Cathedral Orvieto, Sistine Rome, Palazzo
Petrucci Sienna, altar-pieces Arezzo, Cortona, Perugia,
pictures Pitti, Uffizi, Berlin, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Melozzo da Forli, angels St. Peter's Rome, frescos Vatican,
pictures Berlin and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Giovanni Santi,
Annunciation Milan, Pieta Urbino, Madonnas Berlin, Nat. Gal.
Lon., S. Croce Fano; Perugino, frescos Sistine Rome,
Crucifixion S. M. Maddalena Florence, Sala del Cambio
Perugia, altar-pieces Pitti, Fano, Cremona, many pictures in
European galleries; Pinturricchio, frescos S. M. del Popolo,
Appartamento Borgo Vatican, Bufolini Chapel Aracoeli Rome,
Duomo Library Sienna, altar-pieces Perugia and Sienna
Acads., Pitti, Louvre; Lo Spagna, Madonna Lower Church
Assisi, frescos at Spoleto, Turin, Perugia, Assisi.
FERRARESE AND BOLOGNESE--Cosimo Tura, altar-pieces Berlin
Mus., Bergamo, Museo Correr Venice, Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Francesco Cossa, altar-pieces S. Petronio and Acad. Bologna,
Dresden Gal.; Grandi, St. George Corsini Pal. Rome, several
canvases Constabili Collection Ferrara; Lorenzo Costa,
frescos S. Giacomo Maggiore, altar-pieces S. Petronio, S.
Giovanni in Monte and Acad. Bologna, also Louvre, Berlin,
and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Francia, altar-pieces S. Giacomo
Maggiore, S. Martino Maggiore, and many altar-pieces in
Acad. Bologna, Annunciation Brera Milan, Rose Garden Munich,
Pieta Nat. Gal. Lon., Scappi Portrait Uffizi, Baptism
Dresden.
LOMBARDS--Foppa, altar-pieces S. Maria di Castello Savona,
Borromeo Col. Milan, Carmine Brescia, panels Brera Milan;
Borgognone, altar-pieces Certosa of Pavia, Church of
Melegnano, S. Ambrogio, Ambrosian Lib., Brera Milan, Nat.
Gal. Lon.