"This is the way people look when they feel this or that--when
they have this or that other mental character: are they
devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or inspired?
are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? then--whatsoever
is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly,
kingly--_that_ the Florentine School lived to discern and show;
_that_ they have discerned and shown; and all their greatness
is first fastened in their aim at this central truth--the open
expression of the living human soul" (RUSKIN: _Two Paths_, §
21).
Each face obedient to its passion's law,
Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue.
ROBERT BROWNING: _Pictor Ignotus_.
"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts;--the
book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their
art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two
others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last."
The reason for this faithfulness in the record of art is twofold. The
art of any nation can only be great "by the general gifts and common
sympathies of the race;" and secondly, "art is always instinctive, and
the honesty or pretence of it therefore open to the day" (_St. Mark's
Rest_, Preface). It has been seen from the remarks already made how
Florentine art in its infancy was thus in a certain sense a record
of the times out of which it sprang. In the later pictures, we may
trace some of the developments which characterised the inner history
of Florence in succeeding stages. The first thing that will strike
any one who takes a general look at the early Florentine pictures and
then at the later, is the fact that easel pictures have now superseded
fragments of fresco and altar-pieces. Here at once we see reflected
two features of the time of the Renaissance. Pictures were no longer
wanted merely for church decoration and Scripture teaching; there
was a growing taste for beautiful things as household possessions.
And then also the influence of the church itself was declining; the
exclusive place hitherto occupied by religion as a motive for art was
being superseded by the revival of classical learning. Benozzo Gozzoli
paints the Rape of Helen, Botticelli paints Mars and Venus, Piero di
Cosimo paints the Death of Procris, and Pollajuolo the story of Apollo
and Daphne. The Renaissance was, however, "a new birth" in another way
than this; it opened men's eyes not only to the learning of the ancient
world, but to the beauties of the world in which they themselves lived.
In previous times the burden of serious and thoughtful minds had been,
"The world is very evil, the times are waxing late;" the burden of the
new song is, "The world is very beautiful." Thus we see the painters
no longer confined to a fixed cycle of subjects represented with the
traditional surroundings, but ranging at will over everything that they
found beautiful or interesting around them. And above all they took
to representing the noblest embodiment of life--the human form. Some
attempts at portraiture may be perceived in the saints of the earliest
pictures; but here we find professed portraits on every wall. This
indeed was one of the chief glories of the Florentine School--"the open
expression of the living human soul." This widening and secularising of
art did not pass in Florence, as we know, without a protest; and here,
too, history is painted on the walls. Some of the protest was silent,
as Angelico's, who painted on through a later generation in the old
spirit; some of it was vocal, in the fiery eloquence of Savonarola,
whose influence may be seen in Botticelli's work (1034).
But the development went on, all protests notwithstanding; for as
the life of every nation runs its appointed course, so does its art;
and the second point of interest in studying a school of painting
is to watch its successive periods of birth, growth, maturity, and
decay. In no school is this development so completely marked as in
the Florentine, which for this reason, as well as for its priority in
time, and therefore influence on succeeding schools, takes precedence
of all others. The _first_ period--covering roughly the fourteenth
century, called the Giottesque, from its principal master--is that in
which the thing told is of more importance than the manner of telling
it, and in which the religious sentiment dominated the plastic faculty.
In the _second_ period, covering roughly the fifteenth century, and
called by the Italians the period of the _quattro-centisti_,[16] the
artist, beginning as we have seen to look freely at the world around
him, begins also to study deeply with a view to represent nature more
exactly. One may see the new passion for the scientific study of the
art in Paolo Uccello (583), who devoted himself to perspective; and
in Pollajuolo (292), who first studied anatomy from the dead body. It
is customary to group the Florentine artists of this scientific and
realistic period under three heads, according to the main tendencies
which they severally exhibit. The first group aimed especially at
"action, movement, and the expression of intense passions." The artist
who stands at the head of this group, Masaccio, is, unhappily, not
represented in the National Gallery, but the descent from him is
represented by Fra Filippo Lippi, Pesellino, Botticelli, Filippino
Lippi. The second group aimed rather at "realistic probability, and
correctness in hitting off the characteristics of individual things,"
and is represented by Cosimo Rosselli, Piero di Cosimo, Ghirlandajo,
Andrea del Sarto, Francia Bigio. Thirdly, some of the Florentine
School were directly influenced by the work of contemporary sculptors.
Chief amongst this group are Pollajuolo, Verocchio, himself a sculptor,
and Lorenzo di Credi. We come now to the _third_ stage in the
Florentine, as in every other vital school of painting. This period
witnesses the perfection of the technical processes of the art, and
the attempt of the painter to "raise forms, imitated by the artists of
the preceding period from nature, to ideal beauty, and to give to the
representations of the sentiments and affections the utmost grace and
energy." The great Florentine masters of this culminating period are
Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. The former is especially typical
of this stage of development. "When a nation's culture has reached its
culminating point, we see everywhere," says Morelli,[17] "in daily life
as well as in literature and art, that _grace_[18] comes to be valued
more than _character_. So it was in Italy during the closing decades
of the fifteenth century and the opening ones of the sixteenth. To no
artist was it given to express this feeling so fully as to the great
Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most richly gifted man that mother
Nature ever made. He was the first who tried to express the smile of
inward happiness, the sweetness of the soul." But this culminating
period of art already contained within it the germs of decay. The very
perfection of the technical processes of painting caused in all, except
painters of the highest mental gifts, a certain deadness and coldness,
such as Browning makes Andrea del Sarto (1487-1531) be conscious of in
his own works; the "faultless painter" as compared with others less
technically perfect but more full of soul (see under 690). Moreover the
very fascination of the great men, the pleasure in imitating their
technical skill, led to decay. Grace soon passed into insipidity, and
the dramatic energy of Michael Angelo into exaggerated violence. One
mannerism led to another until the school of the "Eclectics" sought to
unite the mannerisms of all, and Italian art, having run its course,
became extinct.[19]
The growth and decay of painting described above is connected by Ruskin
with a corresponding growth and decay in religion. He divides the
course of mediæval art into two stages: the first stage (covering the
first two periods above) "is that of the formation of conscience by the
discovery of the true laws of social order and personal virtue, coupled
with sincere effort to live by such laws as they are discovered. All
the Arts advance steadily during this stage of national growth, and
are lovely, even in their deficiencies, as the buds of flowers are
lovely by their vital force, swift change, and continent beauty. The
next stage is that in which the conscience is entirely formed, and
the nation, finding it painful to live in obedience to the precepts
it has discovered, looks about to discover, also, a compromise for
obedience to them. In this condition of mind its first endeavour is
nearly always to make its religion pompous, and please the gods by
giving them gifts and entertainments, in which it may piously and
pleasurably share itself; so that a magnificent display of the powers
of art it has gained by sincerity, takes place for a few years, and
is then followed by their extinction, rapid and complete exactly in
the degree in which the nation resigns itself to hypocrisy. The works
of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Tintoret, belong to this period of
compromise in the career of the greatest nation of the world; and are
the most splendid efforts yet made by human creatures to maintain the
dignity of states with beautiful colours, and defend the doctrines
of theology with anatomical designs." It is easy to see how the
progress in realism led to a decline in religion. "The greater the
(painter's) powers became, the more (his) mind was absorbed in their
attainment, and complacent in their display. The early arts of laying
on bright colours smoothly, of burnishing golden ornaments, or tracing,
leaf by leaf, the outlines of flowers, were not so difficult as that
they should materially occupy the thoughts of the artist, or furnish
foundation for his conceit; he learned these rudiments of his work
without pain, and employed them without pride, his spirit being left
free to express, so far as it was capable of them, the reaches of
higher thought. But when accurate shade, and subtle colour, and perfect
anatomy, and complicated perspective, became necessary to the work, the
artist's whole energy was employed in learning the laws of these, and
his whole pleasure consisted in exhibiting them. His life was devoted,
not to the objects of art, but to the cunning of it; and the sciences
of composition and light and shade were pursued as if there were
abstract good in them;--as if, like astronomy or mathematics, they were
ends in themselves, irrespective of anything to be effected by them.
And without perception, on the part of any one, of the abyss to which
all were hastening, a fatal change of aim took place throughout the
whole world of art. In early times _art was employed for the display of
religious facts_; now, _religious facts were employed for the display
of art_. The transition, though imperceptible, was consummate; it
involved the entire destiny of painting. It was passing from the paths
of life to the paths of death" (_Relation between Michael Angelo and
Tintoret_, pp. 8, 9, and _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv.
§ 11. See also under No. 744).
[Illustration]