Painters of "the loveliest district of North Italy, where
hills, and streams, and air, meet in softest harmonies"
(RUSKIN: _Queen of the Air_, § 157).
'Twere pleasant could Correggio's fleeting glow
Hang full in face of one where'er one roams,
Since he more than the others brings with him
Italy's self,--the marvellous Modenese!
BROWNING: _Bishop Blougram's Apology_.
The loose use of the term "school" has caused much confusion in the
history and criticism of art. Sometimes the term is used with reference
only to the place where such and such painters principally worked.
Thus Raphael and Michael Angelo, together with their followers, are
sometimes called the "Roman School." But Rome produced no great
native painters; she was merely a centre to which painters were drawn
from elsewhere. So too when the phrase "Milanese School" occurs, it
generally means Leonardo da Vinci and his immediate pupils, because,
though a Florentine, he taught at Milan. Sometimes, again, the term
"school" is used as mere geographical expression. Thus under "Lombard
School" are often included the painters of Parma, simply because Parma
is contiguous to Lombardy. A third use of the term school, however, is
that in which it means "a definite quality, native to the district,
shared through many generations by all its painters, and culminating
in a few men of commanding genius." Such a definite quality is
generally marked by "a special collection of traditions, and processes,
a particular method, a peculiar style in design, and an equally
peculiar taste in colouring--all contributing to the representation
of a national ideal existing in the minds of the artists of the same
country at the same time." This is the use of the term which is
suggested by the main arrangement of the National Gallery, and which is
at once the most instructive and the most interesting.
Following this principle in the case of the present chapter, we
must first dispose of the "pseudo-Lombards"--the Cremonese, namely,
and Correggio. The pictures belonging to artists of Cremona are, as
will be seen below, practically Venetian. Correggio and his imitator
Parmigiano are more difficult to deal with. The truth is that Correggio
stands very much apart (see under 10); but if he must be labelled,
it seems best to follow Morelli and class him, on the score of his
early training, with the Ferrarese. Coming now to the genuine Lombard
School, one sees by looking round the room that it is by no means
identical with Leonardo da Vinci. He himself was a Florentine, who
settled at Milan, and whose powerful individuality exercised a strong
influence on succeeding painters there. But before his coming, there
was a native Lombard School--with artists scattered about in the towns
and villages around Milan, and with a distinct style of its own. Long
before Leonardo came to settle at Milan, the Lombard Madonnas--with
their long oval faces and somewhat simpering smile--have already what
we now describe as a "Leonardesque character." Among technical points
we may notice as characteristic of the Lombard School, in its earlier
phases, a partiality for sombre tints and high finish in the rendering
of detail. In spirit the School is characterised by great simplicity of
feeling. It will be noticed that among the Milanese pictures there are
few with any allegorical or mythological subject. Even after Leonardo
came to Milan, bringing with him new motives and a wide curiosity, the
native Lombard masters, such as Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari, adhered
in the main to sacred subjects. The Lombard School, it should be
observed, was late in arising. The building of Milan Cathedral and the
Certosa of Pavia in the first part of the fifteenth century directed
the art-impulse of the time rather to sculpture, and it was not till
about 1450 that Vincenzo Foppa came from Brescia and established the
principal school of painting at Milan. Other schools started with
spiritual aims, which wore off, as it were, under the new pleasure of
sharpening their means of execution; but the Lombards first took up
the art when it had already been reduced to a science. And then most
of the painters were natives, not of some large capital, but of small
towns or country villages. Thus Luini was born on the Lago Maggiore,
and the traditions of his life all murmur about the lake district. But
he learned technique at Milan; and thus came to "stand alone," adds
Ruskin, "in uniting consummate art power with untainted simplicity of
religious imagination" (see references under 18).
With regard to the historical development of the school, it was
founded, as we have seen, by Vincenzo Foppa, "the Mantegna of the
Lombard School." Borgognone, his pupil, was its Perugino. Then came
Leonardo from Florence, and the school divides into two sets--those
who were immediately and directly his imitators, and those who,
whilst feeling his influence, yet preserved the independent Lombard
traditions. The visitor will have no difficulty in recognising the
pictures of Beltraffio, Oggionno, and Martino Piazza as belonging to
the former class. Solario, Luini, and Lanini are more independent.
Lastly Sodoma, a pupil of Leonardo, went off to Siena and established
a second Sienese School there, which is represented at the National
Gallery by Peruzzi (218).
[Illustration]