"The eclectic school endeavoured to unite opposite partialities
and weaknesses. They trained themselves under masters of
exaggeration, and tried to unite opposite exaggerations.
That was impossible. They did not see that the only possible
eclecticism had been already accomplished;--the eclecticism
of temperance, which, by the restraint of force, gains higher
force; and by the self-denial of delight, gains higher delight"
(RUSKIN: _Two Paths_, § 59).
The typical painters, with whom this chapter is concerned, are those
of the "Eclectic School" of Bologna--the Carracci, Domenichino, Guido
Reni; and Salvator Rosa, the Neapolitan painter of about the same
period.
It may be noticed, in the first place, that the lower repute in which
these Italian painters of the seventeenth century are now held is of
comparatively recent date. Poussin, for instance, ranked Domenichino
next to Raphael, and preferred the works of the Carracci to all others
in Rome, except only Raphael's, and Sir Joshua Reynolds cited them as
models of perfection. Why, then, is it that modern criticism stamps
the later Italian Schools as schools of the decadence? To examine
the pictures themselves and to compare them with earlier works is
the best way of finding out; but a few general remarks may be found
of assistance. The painting of the schools now under consideration
was "not spontaneous art. It was art mechanically revived during
a period of critical hesitancy and declining enthusiasms." It was
largely produced at Bologna by men not eminently gifted for the
arts. When Ludovico Carracci, for instance, went to Venice, the
veteran Tintoretto warned him that he had no vocation. Moreover "the
painting which emerged there at the close of the sixteenth century
embodied religion and culture, both of a base alloy.... Therefore,
though the painters went on painting the old subjects, they painted
all alike with frigid superficiality. Nothing new or vital, fanciful
or imaginative, has been breathed into antique mythology. What has
been added to religious expression is repellent, ... extravagantly
ideal in ecstatic Magdalens and Maries, extravagantly realistic in
martyrdoms and torments, extravagantly harsh in dogmatic mysteries,
extravagantly soft in sentimental tenderness and tearful piety.... If
we turn from the ideas of the late Italian painters to their execution,
we shall find similar reasons for its failure to delight" (Symonds's
_Renaissance_, vii. 232). For "all these old eclectic theories were
based not upon an endeavour to unite the various characters of nature
(which it is possible to do), but the various narrownesses of taste,
which it is impossible to do.... All these specialities have their
own charm in their own way; and there are times when the particular
humour of each man is refreshing to us from its very distinctness;
but the effort to add any other qualities to this refreshing one
instantly takes away the distinctiveness" (_Two Paths_, § 58). It was
not an attempt to unite the various characters of _nature_. On the
contrary, "these painters, in selecting, omitted just those features
which had given grace and character to their models. The substitution
of generic types for portraiture, the avoidance of individuality, the
contempt for what is simple and natural in details, deprived their work
of attractiveness and suggestion. It is noticeable that they never
painted flowers. While studying Titian's landscapes, they omitted the
iris and the caper-blossom and the columbine, which star the grass
beneath Ariadne's feet.... They began the false system of depicting
ideal foliage and ideal precipices--that is to say, trees which are not
trees, and cliffs which cannot be distinguished from cork or stucco.
In like manner, the cloths wherewith they clad their personages were
not of brocade, or satin, or broadcloth, but of that empty lie called
drapery ... one monstrous nondescript stuff, differently dyed in dull
or glaring colours, but always shoddy. Characteristic costumes have
disappeared.... After the same fashion furniture, utensils, houses,
animals, birds, weapons, are idealised--stripped, that is to say, of
what in these things is specific and vital"[27] (Symonds, _ibid._ p.
233).
With regard to the historical development of the declining art whose
general characteristics we have been discussing, it is usual to group
the painters under three heads--the Mannerists, the Eclectics, and
the Naturalists. By the first of these are meant the painters in the
several schools who succeeded the culminating masters and imitated
their peculiarities. We have already noticed, under the Florentine
School, how this "mannerism" set in, and all the other schools show a
like process. Thus Giulio Romano shows the dramatic energy of Raphael
and Michael Angelo passed into mannerism. Tiepolo is a "mannerised"
Paolo Veronese, Baroccio a "mannerised" Correggio. Later on, however,
and largely under the influence of the "counter-Reformation"--the
renewed activity, that is, of the Roman church consequent on the
Reformation,[28]--a reaction against the Mannerists set in. This
reaction took two forms. The first was that of the Eclectic School
founded by the Carraccis at Bologna in about the year 1580. This
school--so called from its principle of "selecting" the qualities of
different schools--includes, besides the Carraccis themselves, Guido
Reni, Domenichino, Sassoferrato, and Guercino. The last-mentioned,
however, combined in some measure the aims both of the Eclectics and of
the other school which was formed in protest against the Mannerists.
This was the school of the so-called Naturalists, of whom Caravaggio
(1569-1609) was the first representative, and whose influence may be
traced in the Spanish Ribera (see page 220) and the Neapolitan Salvator
Rosa. They called themselves "Naturalists," as being opposed to the
"ideal" aims alike of the Mannerists and the Eclectics; but they made
the fatal mistake--a mistake which seems to have a permanent hold on a
certain order of minds, for it is at the root of much of the art-effort
of our own day--that there is something more "real" and "natural"
in the vulgarities of human life than in its nobleness, and in the
ugliness of nature than in its beauty (see below under 172, and under
Salvator Rosa _passim_).
The later Venetian pictures make a most interesting group. In the
eighteenth century Venetian art experienced a partial revival, and the
painters of this revival--Tiepolo, Longhi, Canaletto, and Guardi may
here be well studied.
[Illustration]