1842 (_Tuscan School_), now "attributed to _Stefano di
Giovanni_," known as _Sassetta_ (Sienese: 1392-1450).
1870 "Angels with Keys," by _Sebastiano Conca_ (Neapolitan:
1679-1764). Lent by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
1903 (_Jan Fyt_), now assigned to _Pieter Boel_ (Flemish:
1622-1674), of Antwerp, who became official painter to Louis
XIV.
It will be observed that critical fashions are unstable, and that in
several cases Sir Edward Poynter's changes have been reversed. The
recent alterations were made just as this edition of the _Handbook_ was
going to press. The ascriptions in the body of my Catalogue remain,
therefore, in conformity with the Official Catalogue of 1906 which
embodied Sir Edward Poynter's views. The lists of painters and pictures
at the end (Appendix I. and II.) have, on the other hand, been revised
in accordance with Sir Charles Holroyd's alterations.
=Additional Notes.=--In the _notes upon the pictures_, a large number
of additional remarks have been introduced since this _Handbook_
first appeared. These, it is hoped, may serve here and there to
deepen the visitor's impression, to suggest fresh points of view, to
open up incidental sources of interest. Attention may be called, by
way of example, under this head, to several notes upon the designs
depicted on the dresses, draperies, and backgrounds of the Italian
pictures. These designs, sometimes invented by the artists themselves
and sometimes copied from actual stuffs, form a series of examples
which illustrate the "art fabrics" of the best period of Italian
decorative art, and which might well give hints for the decoration of
textile fabrics to-day.[11] Another incidental source of interest in
a collection of pictures such as ours, is the historical development
of art as it may be traced in the several representations of the same
subject by different painters, in successive periods, and in different
schools. Such comparisons are instructive to those interested alike
in the evolution of art and in the history of religious ideas. In the
art of mediæval Christendom we find an unwritten theology, a popular
figurative teaching of the sublime story of Christianity blended with
the traditions of many generations. On the walls of the National
Gallery we may see a series of typical scenes from the Annunciation to
the Passion, from the childhood of Christ to His Death, Resurrection,
and Ascension, together with ideal forms of apostles and saints. These
pictures, contemplated in sequence and compared with one another,
afford, as a writer in the _Dublin Review_ (October 1888) has pointed
out, a large and interesting field for thought. Very interesting it
is also to trace the different types which prevail in the different
schools. Thus at Florence, the Madonna is a tender, shrinking, delicate
maiden. At Venice, she is a calm, serene, and pure-spirited mother.
The Florentine "handmaiden of the Lord" often wears a mystic, and
almost always an intellectual air. The Venetian type, seen at its
central perfection in Bellini, has a neck firm as a column; the child
is nude and plays with a flower or fruit; grandeur of mien and a noble
type of motherhood are the ideals the Venetian painters set before
themselves. The Lombard Madonna is less spiritual and severe than the
Florentine. A refined worldly beauty replaces here the poetic idealism
of the Tuscan artists. With the Umbrian painters the model of the
Madonna is usually a softly-rounded and very girlish maiden. A certain
mystic pensiveness informs her features. Her feet tread this earth,
but her soul is absorbed in the contemplation of the infinite.[12] A
study of the successive characteristics of Raphael's Madonnas, passing
from the vaguely divine to the frankly human, would form material
for a volume in itself.[13] In another department of the painter's
art, the comparative method of study is no less suggestive. It is one
of the most curious points of interest in any large collection of
pictures to notice the different impressions that the same elements
of natural scenery make upon different painters. As figure painting
came to be perfected, some adequate suggestion of landscape background
was required. Giotto and Orcagna first attempted to give resemblance
to nature in this respect. Subsequent painters carried the attempt
to greater success, but it was long before landscape for its own
sake obtained attention. When it did, the preferences of individual
painters, now freed from conventionalism, found abundant scope, as we
may see by pausing in succession before the flowery meadows of the
"primitives," the "fiery woodlands of Titian," the savage crags of
Salvator Rosa, the "saffron skies of Claude."[14] These are some of the
incidental points of interest upon which additional notes have been
supplied in recent editions. Many others will be discovered by the
patient reader of the following pages.
=Notices of Painters.=--Lastly, the _biographical and critical notices_
of the painters have been revised and expanded since the first
appearance of the book. Many have been re-written throughout, nearly
all have been re-cast, and a good many references to pictures in other
galleries and countries have been introduced. The important accession
to the National Gallery of the Arundel Society's unique collection
of copies from the old masters affords an opportunity even to the
untraveled visitor to become acquainted, in some sort, with the most
famous wall-paintings of Italy. Mr. Ruskin, by whose death the National
Gallery lost one of its best and oldest friends, once expressed a hope
to me that the notices of the painters given in this Handbook would
be found useful by some readers not only as a companion in Trafalgar
Square, but also for other galleries, at home and abroad. Nobody can
know better than the compiler how far Mr. Ruskin's kindness led him in
the direction of over-indulgence.
I can only hope that the later editions have been made--largely owing
to the suggestions of critics and private correspondents--a little
more deserving of the kind reception which, now for a period of nearly
twenty-five years, has been given by the public to my Handbook.